![]() ![]() Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. It feels so nice.” The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow. Just this week, Jazz unearthed a pink dress at Value Village, which he loves because it “really poofs out at the bottom. Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old. “What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. In an age where helicopter parents hover nervously over their kids micromanaging their lives, and tiger moms ferociously push their progeny to get into Harvard, Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age. Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders. Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. They worried the children would be ridiculed. The grandparents were supportive, but resented explaining the gender-free baby to friends and co-workers. Not just about Storm, but about how they were parenting their other two children. Their announcement was met with stony silence. When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now - a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place?. “If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker. “When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table. The only people who know are Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home on New Year’s Day. While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. ![]() Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking. “So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.Įach week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair. ![]()
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