When did it become unpopular for a baby to have a gender? Being a new father, my attention has been drawn to the many instances of parents’ seeming to downplay or even hide the gender of their children.
The supreme example came to light a few months ago when a Canadian couple gained publicity for purposely hiding the gender of their baby from everyone except their two older children and a close family friend. The parents, who dress the child in a way that makes no clear statement about his or her gender, say they do not want a biological sex to become the child’s identity. Rather, they want him or her to determine their own gender identity later in life.
Of course, few parents blur gender lines in such outlandish ways. But more subtle blurring is common. For instance, the Social Security Administration’s list of the 100 top baby names for boys and girls last year includes some that could just as easily fit one gender as the other. One mother remarked to my wife that she purposely gave her children names without a gender association, and she is not alone in that practice. Also consider the popular children’s retailer Pottery Barn Kids. When you purchase nursery bedding on their website, there are three options: boys, girls, and unisex.
Naturally, not all who choose a gender-neutral name or purchase unisex bedding have a nefarious agenda. The name might be a family tradition, and parents might hope to use the bedding for multiple children of different genders. Still, there seems to be something intentional about recent gender downplaying—especially since one would be hard pressed to find even one gender-neutral name on the list of popular names from a past generation.
In light of this, Christians should know that the Bible is not silent on the issue of gender, even as it pertains to babies. Leviticus 12, for example, explains the purification rituals for Hebrew women following childbirth. Notably, the Lord prescribed different rituals for the mothers of boys and the mothers of girls. While Jesus made obsolete all such laws of ritual purity, an underlying principle remains: from the beginning of a child’s life, God expected parents of boys to behave differently than parents of girls. The same principle could be drawn from God’s command to circumcise all Jewish males on the eighth day of life (Genesis 17:12). And it still applies.
Treating boys and girls differently is no trivial matter. It serves as a precursor to the different roles God assigns them later in life. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 14, Ephesians 5, and 1 Peter 3 all make a distinction between the roles of men and women. When we ignore the principle underlying Leviticus 12 and Genesis 17, we set children on a trajectory to disobey Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 14 later in life.
So if you’re tempted to believe that downplaying a baby’s gender is positive, think back to Scripture. By the way, my child is a girl, her name is Caroline, and her bedding is pink.
3 thoughts on “Gender-Confused Babies”
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It really bothers me when parents give their children names of the opposite sex! And especially ones from the Bible like Noah (given to a girl), Micah (again to a girl), and some others like Ashley (given to a boy), Logan (given to a girl), etc. I wonder what the parent’s true motive is behind doing something like that. I sometimes think that maybe they wanted a baby of the opposite sex and are angry they didn’t get what they wanted. Or they just want attention when people look at their child weird when the gender and name don’t match.
Some parents name their children based on the meaning of the name. We named one of our girls Roni because it means “joyful song”. Her twin sister is Jodie, which means “praise”. We took more than gender identity into consideration when we chose their names: we had a vision for their destiny. Which, incidentally, was how Noah’s name in the bible was given to him: “(Lamech) calleth his name Noah, saying “This [one] doth comfort us concerning our work, and concerning the labour of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed.'” (Gen.5:29 YLT) NOAH means comfort, or rest. Just because the most famous person of that name was male doesn’t mean it’s not allowed to be used by a female. Incidentally, according to the baby name sites, MICAH is a GIRL’s name, and yet the bible has several male characters of that name. Ashley and Logan both seem to refer to landscape views. I think it is worse to judge the parents’ intent just because they did something out of the usual expectations of other people.
Who cares what the name means, a boy’s name is masculine and a girl’s name is feminine. Boys are boys and girls are girls and let’s keep them separate. Just because I like the meaning of John and David do you think I’m going to name my twin girls that? And of course Micah can “now” be considered a girl’s name on a baby site but that’s only because the general public changed it. Are there female Micah’s in the Bible? You’re basically saying that people can name their kids whatever they want (regardless if it’s an opposite gender name) and we already know that – no one is policing you in that area. The author of this article is saying keep boys as boys and girls as girls and that includes giving them proper names. He’s right.