A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after. Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
Mental Illness is a harsh reality to some. Many people feel that because there are no lab test, x-ray or physical manifestation of mental illness means that it is not real. The whole truth is that it is real.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
Parents, think back for a minute to when you were expecting your child. Finding out whether it was a boy or girl and whether to paint the room pink or blue! Or perhaps you were the family that wanted to wait until the delivery day?
Well one couple has decided that nobody needs to know the sex of their newborn…not even grandma and grandpa!
Meet Storm, 3rd child of Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto, Canada. The couple sent out an email to family and friends to announce the birth of their baby, Storm, but one important piece of information was missing. “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? …),” it said.
No, there’s nothing wrong with the baby’s genitals. But as Stocker puts it: “If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs.” So only the parents, their two other children (both boys), a close friend, and the two midwives who helped deliver the now 4-month-old baby know its gender.
Stocker and Witterick say the decision gives Storm the freedom to choose who he or she wants to be. They say that kids receive messages from society that encourage them to fit into existing boxes, including with regard to gender.
Kathy says their decision not to tell is a message to the world saying “Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what (he) wants to be?!.”
How did this idea come up? During Witterick’s pregnancy, her son Jazz was having “intense” experiences with his own gender.
Stocker came across a book from 1978, titled X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. X is raised as neither a boy or girl, and grows up to be a happy and well-adjusted child.
In my opinion, this might confuse the child. In an interview, the couple shares that although one of their boys likes dressing as a girl, he doesn’t seem to want to be mistaken for one. Confusing!
And when asked how long she’ll keep this up, mom replied, “Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?”
Do you agree with these parents? Would you raise your child without a gender? What types of challenges do you think this child will face?
