> studies of identical twins reared
> apart (by Nancy L. Segal, among
> others) suggest that parents
> interventions don't have all that
> much to do with how kids turn out.

This is arguably the most compelling insight from social science in our lifetimes. It's both gratifying and annoying as Hell, because this/that family member dun me wrong and I'm going to hold it against them 'til the day I die... Except that doesn't make any sense now.

But it was once so satisfying to think that it did....

common for boys in preschool who lack toy guns to shoot "bullets" out of a doll's head

Discarded movie line: Ho-ho-ho, now I have a Barbie.

Also, I was wondering - and it was answered - how did these gender norms get "enforced" when our ancestors were sheltering in caves and rock shelters and they couldn't run down to a Toy-R-Us to buy the requisite conditioning equipment. Kids emulate their parents and other adults.

These are the same people to claim that they "love" science.

"common for boys in preschool who lack toy guns to shoot "bullets" out of a doll's head"

Forget the doll - every little boy has used his hand shaped like a gun to shoot bullets. No other props are needed.

More often than not, he might use that doll as target practice; and then be labeled "aggressive" for doing so. And then be doped up on Ritalin or something so that he will "sit quietly like the girls do."

Gender neutral crap is dangerous to boys and their development.

Kids emulate their parents and other adults. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at March 16, 2019 6:21 AM

They used to. Now, they hold their parents in contempt and shriek about how the oldsters are killing the planet, hoarding the wealth, and breaking democracy.

And the parents and other adults? In an effort to remain "cool" and defy age, they're emulating the children - in music, fashion, politics, etc.

Like the religion and culture argument, these idiots have it exactly backwards. Gender norms results from what boys and girls gravitate to. Forcing the toys on them or removing them doesn’t drive their preferences.

I’m old now, but I was somewhat of a Tom boy when I was a little kid. This was probably because my best friend was a little boy whose grandmother lived next door. Fortunately my parents weren’t idiots, and didn’t think my desire to have a dump truck toy like he did so we could play in the dirt, meant that I was actually a boy.

I guarantee you girls raised on fams and ranches often work outdoors just as hard as the men do, with the recognization that some things are beyond them with their lesser physical strength.

I drove a tractor for for three weeks harvesting silage right before I left for my freshman year in college. The famer’s only concern was: could I drive the tractor. I could and did for a bone crushing ten hours a day. Made three bucks an hour, good money in 1974.

The obvious deception here is that these parents aren't actually 'allowing the child to discover their gender'. They're attempting to cultivate their preferred expression of gender in the child by manipulating the stimulus they receive.

That's the only reason you would denude the child's environment of things you regard as a gender cue. It's to control their exposure to objects that may elicit a gender-typical response.

This is why the first borns are either the mature ones, the biggest messes, or both. They have to endure their parents' first try at something different.

By the time the second child is born, they resign to what actually works.

Christ, these parents sound exhausting.

Where do these people get all the time to obsess over this nonsense? I don't have enough time in the day to do all I want to do.

Some grand contradictions here: 'allowing the child to discover their gender'--if all norms are socially constructed, then a child left to themselves will discover...nothing, because they are just an empty vessel. But if they discover that they like to tussle and shoot things and climb trees, because that is what their hormones say, then this is not social conditioning. So these idiots are doing a nice experiment: if their children (boys and girls) brought up in a gender neutral house turn out truly gender neutral androgynes, then the Blank Slate is right--but this has never happened and will never happen.
Just to clue them in, my girls are the ones who insisted on wearing ballerina dresses and tiaras and buying dolls. Even at age 2.

Related, here is Dr. Michelle Cretella on Transgenderism in children, which she rightly calls child abuse.

Personally, I think what we need to do is simply stop being so rigid as to what is acceptable.

So what if Isab as a child wanted to play with a dump truck? That doesn't mean she was a little boy in a little girl's body. As long as we allow kids the freedom to express themselves as they wish -- instead of insisting that all boys much love, this, this, and this, and all girls must love this, this and this -- we don't need to obsessively hover over them, to ensure that their fragile little minds are protected from any association with either gender.

> these parents sound exhausting.

They ALL are.

Or they all are exhausted. One or the other. Either way, I'll never regret the Big Vee.

In short, your little girl is not going to turn her nose up at STEM because grandma bought her a Barbie.

My sister played with Barbies and unicorns and stuffed animals and all kinds of girly things. She's a professional engineer today.

Good points Patrick

I think we need to consider that some of these 'transgender' kids may be attempting to gain affection and attention from a parent.

A surprising number of mothers enjoy dressing their young boys as girls and encourage them to act like girls. Google the topic - I recognize that sounds ridiculous.

These women have been coming out of the woodwork with the recent drive to produce gender-neutral children. You can find them promoting the practice on women's sites and in social media.

The moms typically present a few consistent claims:

a. girls clothes are just a lot cuter and 'more fun' than boys clothes
b. they miss playing dress-up with a girl
c. they're teaching their boys gender-neutrality and freeing them from gender norms

Some take pictures of their son dressed as a girl and post them online where they praise him for his gender fluidity.

To an adult, this is obvious attention seeking, but I doubt the kids recognize that. They just know that mom praises them and gives them special attention when they pretend to be a girl.

But this isn't actually a new phenomenon. Earnest Hemingway's mother had tried to present him and his sister as her twin daughters. And there have been cases documented in clinical studies from the late 19th century onward. It used to be identified as a precursor to what was then call transvestitism. There are also some notorious murderers who were affected by this - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201611/boys-dressed-girls-who-became-serial-killers

And recently a number of private online groups have come to light where some parents are trying to motivate their kids to accept a transgender persona, including the use of prosthetics and binding garments - https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/13/facebook-tumblr-groups-children-gender-transition-prosthetics/

Now I'm not trying to say that all little boys who dress like a girl will become transgender, or that transgenderism is caused by mothers who do this. But it's reasonable to ask whether the sudden spike in very young children claiming to be transgender is often motivated by a parent who has guided the child to present themselves that way.

I've said before that I wonder if, by condoning gender fluidity, instead of allowing a person to be who they really are, we're actually enabling a psychosis.

Mormon brings up a good corollary to that. Is the psychosis we're enabling the child's or the parent's?

"They used to. Now, they hold their parents in contempt and shriek about how the oldsters are killing the planet, hoarding the wealth, and breaking democracy."

No Conan. That stuff hasn't changed. Prepubescent kids still emulate their parent and largely try to fall in line and follow orders. And just like they have for thousands of years recently postpubescent people call their parents stupid and act like idiots. Usually they grow out of it after a few years without parental support.

The only recent thing was so many baby boomers never wanting to grow up. Even into their 60s and 70s now. Emulating their kids and even grandkids as you say. There are a lot of parallels between the baby boomers and millenials. But there are a lot of differences too. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

It is also funny how 'millenial' has become code for young rather than a specific demographic group. It looks like officially millenials were born between 1982 and 2004. So when Trump got elected the youngest millenial was 12 and the oldest 34. There was report after report about how millenials overwhelmingly supported Hillary. But when you dig down into the numbers you find that age range largely mimicked the national trend. There really wasn't anything special in the data. But Hillary won the Millenials!

Prepubescent kids still emulate their parent and largely try to fall in line and follow orders. And just like they have for thousands of years recently postpubescent people call their parents stupid and act like idiots. Usually they grow out of it after a few years without parental support.

Ben, older adults have always lamented the state of the children. Look at the oft-attributed Socrates quote.

In the past, more often than not, the rebellious young adults became older adults with children, mortgages, careers - morphing into responsible adults.

Not always, however. The major social upheavals of history have most often been driven by disaffected young adults and students who did not morph into responsible adults - either because they could not due to a lack of jobs, housing, etc. or because they had gone too far in their rebellion to bring themselves back to conformity.

In the past, political activity by young adults was confined mostly to college campuses and coffeehouses. Disaffected students and young adults did not have access to the immediate mass communication that they regularly use today. Pamphlets, letters, speeches, and newsletters were the primary means of political organizing. Those took time to create a broad consensus and, with the inherent delay, fostered deliberation and debate.

Today's siloed communication channels do not foster debate and deliberation. Today's instant communiques build on the emotions and feelings of the last communique, five minutes ago.

Having worked in a fashion company, I've seen that the desires and attitudes of older consumers do not matter to modern corporate America - and I've noticed that trend in today's politicians. What matters today is what the kids and young adults want.

Check out the commercials on TV and even online ads. The only products advertising specifically to consumers over 30 are insurance companies, drug and medical device companies, and retirement-related companies. These are not the products that move the popular sentiment needle. Fashion, automobiles, tech products, etc. aim their advertisements at younger consumers with little-to-no secondary advertisement to older ones.

Check out the programs available on your local and streaming channels. Like the rural purge of the '60s, content providers are getting rid of shows with an average viewer age over 35 since it's difficult to sell advertising on those programs.

Even Facebook is dying. I just attended a symposium on social media advertising and speaker after speaker told us that Facebook is "grandma's social media" - AOL for the modern age.

While advertisers have always chased the next generation of consumers, they've not abandoned the current one as readily as they have today. Programs were kept on the air much longer than their cultural relevance simply because they attracted a demographic advertisers sought to reach - e.g., Gunsmoke and M*A*S*H had ceased being "hip" shows long before they were put out to pasture. Their built-in audiences guaranteed eyes for advertisers, eyes with disposable income.

As for how old each generation is, the Pew Research Center is trying to put boundaries on each one:

• The Silent Generation: Born 1928-1945 (73-90 years old)
• Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (54-72 years old)
• Generation X: Born 1965-1980 (38-53 years old)
• Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (22-37 years old)
• Post-Millennials: Born 1997-Present (0-21 years old)

Baby Boomers born between 1960 and 1964 have much more in common with Gen-X than with Baby Boomers. Later Boomers were not hippies. They did not leave college to a hot job market ("Plastics"). They were latchkey kids growing up. They spent their afternoons watching MTV and VH-1. So, take Pew's categorization for what it's worth.

Pew seems to be trying to divide the generations into evenly spaced cohorts.

• The Silent Generation: 17 years
• Baby Boomers: 18 years
• Generation X: 15 years
• Millennials: 15 years old
• Post-Millennials: 21 years

That means older Millennials will have more in common, culturally and philosophically, with their older Gen-X acquaintances and siblings than with their younger same-generation ones.

The younger generations - Millennials and Post-Millennials who have reached the age of majority - are, by and large, not looking to emulate the older generations and take their place in the existing order, but to create a new order.

And, yes, I would agree that "Millennial" is far too often used to designate (and often denigrate) younger voters and consumers and not to refer to a specific generational cohort.

Bridgeworks' generations.com blog calls the later Boomers, Generation Jones and has this to say about them:

"While Early Boomers had major icons to look up to, Generation Jones was too young to remember these icons in their zenith. These Gen Jonesers were too young for Woodstock, the “I have a Dream” speech, and the assassination of the first Catholic president. The youth-driven counter-culture movement had accomplished many of its goals, and those kids that had been fighting for change were fighting for career growth by the 1970s. Instead of the idealistic and optimistic outlook of the Early Boomers, this generation was experiencing the backlash of an economy that was falling dramatically. This economic hardship and slipping post-war optimism defined the atmosphere that Gen Jonesers experienced as they were coming into their formative years."

I do believe that madness can be contagious. An obvious example is the Cultural Revolution, where Mao sent the students out to humiliate the old people. An example closer to home is the strange story of Evergreen College 2 yrs ago, where the students went around with baseball bats and in spite of being the most pampered and safe group of people in history kept shrieking about oppression and being unsafe. The madness was contagious. I think the fad for preteen girls to declare themselves trans follows obviously from the earlier fad for every college girl on some campus' to declare themselves queer or bi. They never have done this if it wasn't hip.

I’m really tired of people weaponizing their own sexuality, but lower than low, is weaponizing your kid’s.

I’m a mid boomer, born in 55. Raised in a small town in Wyoming, I defy you to find anything I might have in common culturally or politically with an early boomer east coast college student at Woodstock other than his dad was likely to be a World War II vet, as mine was.

The Vietnam War draft ended before my cohort was even eligible, so in that respect, I would be a late boomer.

Culture trumps cohort, every damn time.

I’m a mid boomer, born in 55. Raised in a small town in Wyoming, I defy you to find anything I might have in common culturally or politically with an early boomer east coast college student at Woodstock.... ~ Isab at March 17, 2019 3:21 PM

Politically, you might be at the other end of the scale, but I bet you've got a lot more in common with that East Coast college student at Woodstock than you think. You watched the same shows on television. The soundtrack to your life was probably pretty similar to that of his (i.e., Stones, Who, Mom and Dad's old Sinatra records, Patsy Cline, etc.), although, being from Wyoming, you probably picked up a few of the border blasters from Mexico. You were about 8 when Kennedy was shot, so you probably remember at least bits and pieces of hearing that news. Perhaps you did not go to Woodstock, but you probably remember hearing about it; you'd have been about 14. I'll bet you remember the Apollo moon mission and followed it on the radio and on TV. I'll bet you endured at least one nuclear fallout drill hiding under your desk at school.

On the other hand, your economic and job outlook after graduating college (circa 1973) was probably dimmer than Benjamin's in The Graduate; I doubt your were able to blithely dismiss your parents' friends giving career advice and offering you a job. You were a teenager when Hollywood was making movies telling people how awful it would be to have children, so that probably shaped you differently than said Boomer, whose childhood included happy-family dramas.

In all, your cultural milestones were probably more similar than different.

Still, your example illustrates the problem with classifying people born in an 18-year period as a single homogeneous entity.

"And just like they have for thousands of years recently postpubescent people call their parents stupid and act like idiots."

Old truism - from 15 to 25 I watched my parents become idiots, then from 25 to 35, I watched them become the smartest people in the world once again.