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Comment by dtgriscom | Hacker News Reader

My two sons were different from day one. It gives me a lot of comfort to know, as a parent, that it wasn't all up to how I brought them up.

In a similar vein, I don't understand people who want to know their child's gender before birth. Even ignoring the whole transgender and non-binary aspect, it's like they want to have their kids figured out at birth. Just because this one will be born with a penis, or that one with a vagina, doesn't mean you know anything about who they are and who they will become.

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I don't identify with this at all. There is choosing a name, buying clothes, decorating (not my thing personally but definitely a thing). Plus imagining your new baby as part of your life. Boiling it down to knowing their sex organ is pretty reductive and not in line with the feelings of anyone I know.

> There is choosing a name

So choose two...

> buying clothes

Tons of gender neutral clothing especially for newborns... Ours has a lot of green, white, beige, gray. Plus some pink and blue because who says boys can't wear pink? (And because lots of people gave us lots of baby shit)

> decorating

Heavily gendered rooms are strange to me... And who's to say the child will even like it?

> Plus imagining your new baby as part of your life.

Honestly not knowing the sex was helpful in not trying to guess how they'd be and fit into our life... We were surprised by his sex and are constantly surprised by his attitude.

* Honestly not knowing the sex was helpful in not trying to guess how they'd be and fit into our life... We were surprised by his sex and are constantly surprised by his attitude.

I hate the idea of having my kid looking like a communist because of gender roles.

Why does the sex matter then? If you know, you know, it was you who was creating certain imagery, not the childs sex organs. So as others have said, I'd find out because of curiosity and I could leave at that.

> looking like a communist

What does a communist even look like?

The Soviet system of centralized production and distribution of clothes was forced on East European countries after 1948, when the communists seized power, regardless of their previously higher levels of technical and stylistic skill in clothing design and production. The East European communist regimes embraced early Soviet ideology, officially rejecting Western fashion. East European communist dress was not only born inside a reality burdened with postwar material poverty, but also inside a reality stripped of all previous clothing references. Clothing was forbidden to evoke beauty or elegance. It was officially claimed that functional, simple, and classless communist dress, which would fulfill all the sartorial needs of working women, would result from serious scientific and technical research.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/fashion/encyclopedias-almanacs-...

Often a lot of dull, drab neutral colours…

Well if you have a baby you'd know that function is kind of important in baby clothing. They're not exactly cooperative when getting dressed... Not to mention, they can't pick their own clothing. Parents do. Regardless, our kid has some cute/fun clothing (a fleece bear onesie for example), some chosen by us, some chosen by others, and most of it is functional. A bald 0-3 month baby isn't going to wear a dress nor a suit.

It's getting harder every day to tell what is/isn't parody.

It sounds like they just had a misinterpreted ultrasound.

I thought the same thing

So you think if we don't paint our son's room blue and dress him in nothing but camo he'll want to chop his balls off later?

No, you Americans just have ridiculous views (left and right).

Get help.

Yes saying that what a 3 month baby wears doesn't matter that much is so extreme.

For the first month, it really doesn't matter, really. Furniture is the same, car seats the same, clothing, sure, but you can buy that any time and does not require planning. And as it regards names, just have agreed upon two options, one for each case.

Or just find out because it doesn’t matter either way? Or don’t. I wanted to know for both my children. It didn’t make any difference, but I still just wanted to know because I could and was curious.

Or maybe it’s just so easy to find out the gender during medical screenings that you have to not look on purpose, so why not look? Then you don’t have to go out of your way to plan for two (pretty much) mutually exclusive possibilities.

Parents who want their children’s paths predestined don’t have a “knowing the child’s gender” problem, they have a “you can’t control your child’s basic personality” problem.

If sex doesn't matter, what difference does it make if you know before birth? If you are getting sonograms done, the doctor will know and be able to tell you pretty early on. Is there some benefit to not knowing?

Were your sons fish? the article uses fish.

> Poecilia formosa

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