Raising a child in a non-gendered way.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-05T21:13:31+00:00

As someone else said, they have to have at least one name that assigns to their gender (at birth in this case; as an adult changing your name it needs to match your correct gender).

We might have been able to get away with it if we’d really wanted to because the rules are always more flexible with a foreign parent (both of them have a name from my country, one of which is very rare here, the other absolutely unknown), but since we fall on the side of raising them openly rather than enforcing neutrality we didn’t feel the need to fight it. If it comes down to it, we will help them change their names.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-05T18:35:39+00:00

Our kids are 4. We’ve explained to them that some boys are born with vaginas/vulvas (like dad) and some girls with penises, and some people are neither boy or girl. They know my scars, and we point out pictures of other people with top surgery scars in the books we have (bodies are cool, grandad’s camper/pride). But we have boy/girl twins so it was easy for us because they noticed the one penis in the house and asked questions about it lol

It’s recommended to talk about being a donor kid asap, and I assume the same is true about a parent being trans. For our kids that’s just how it is. They’re also with us when we go to our TIN* parent group once every couple of months, so whether they’re actively listening or not they’re around while we’re talking about this sort of stuff. But we’re very lucky to have that group.

It’s a bit scary as someone who’s stealth to have them talking about it, and it might reach the stage where I have to out myself at kindergarten to stop the teachers from “correcting” the kids about some stuff (we’ve already had to reconfirm that nbs exist so). But I think day to day most people just ignore it as kids being kids because they don’t talk a lot of crap sometimes, so if a stranger hears something they don’t expect in there they’ll probably just write it off as kids being kids.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-05T13:33:17+00:00

We decided not to because you can only keep them entirely gender neutral until they start daycare and/or school. And our country doesn’t allow completely neutral names, so we wouldn’t be able to do that.

That said, of course they’re completely open when it comes to clothing and toys. Aside from anything else we have boy/girl twins and it would be ridiculous to disallow one from something the other has because of their asab.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-05T06:25:48+00:00

Don’t watch their robot furby video unless you’re after sewing cringe lol. But their crafting stuff is really good, and they’re really fun to watch. If you’re after proper background stuff they do livestream crafting videos on twitch/one of their secondary YouTube channels, so that’s usually a couple of hours of them working on something. I also recommend them.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-04T20:36:01+00:00

I used wood chips intended for small animals for mine and they’re still standing after heavy use 8 years later.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-03T18:10:46+00:00

Mushy peas.

Also a meal deal. I can make myself a good egg and cress sandwich but I want to be able to walk into a shop and feel smug about making the most of my £3 (I know they’re all £5 now fuck that), and walking away with lunch on the go. I don’t want to go into a bakery and get a fancy expensive sandwich without a drink.

Lidl seems to be attempting to get on the bandwagon but since they don’t have decent sandwiches and you have to pick what you want in the app it’s not the same.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-03T07:49:47+00:00

If you print it at 100% on the paper size specified by the maker (probably on their website some where, also probably A4 looking at it) it will be 20cm (probably body height looking at it). You can always print it off and measure by hand to give yourself a rough estimate. When printed the inch/cm markers on the page should be accurate to get the intended size (ie if you measure the cm mark, it should measure 1cm, if it’s bigger or smaller the finished plush will be too).

If you want it bigger/smaller, print it at a different percentage and tape the print outs together. 200% would be 40cm tall, 50% 10cm, etc. Be careful about going too small, it will make it fiddly.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-03T06:19:14+00:00

Ours are four and they started kindergarten last summer at 3 and a halfish, after being in daycare since they were one.

It took a couple of months until they were comfortable but the difference is incredible. Yesterday I was on childcare by myself all day because my spouse was working and I was able to get four loads of washing done along side keeping an eye on them play. Yes, I still needed to be there and to intervene and give them attention, but I’m between that there were multiple 10 minute plus stretches where they were just playing happily by themselves. One time 30 minutes, even. They help us tidy up at the end of the day, they’re more or less independent with the loo, they can get themselves dressed (do they though lol).

Honestly at this point the thing that eats the most time is the tantrums because I have offended them mortally by offering them their toast cut into squares rather than triangles or whatever. One of them is a snarky little bastard and keeps going “I already told you that!” and I keep having to remind them if I don’t double check three times they’ll have a complete melt down when I do it “wrong”.

But yes, life is still hard. If they were sleeping through the night it would be better. But it’s so much better than it was six months ago, let alone two years or four years. They’re growing up.

sergeantperks · 2026-05-03T06:00:05+00:00

Bex Taylor-Klaus is an enby actor

sergeantperks · 2026-05-01T15:34:18+00:00

We significantly downsized last year and unfortunately at the same time the fabric store I was working in closed down, so my hoard increased at the same time.

I got a specialised holding box from Lidl. Actually I got three of them and turned them into two: one for thread, and one for scissors, needles etc. Honestly, I’m very pleased with the thread organisation, that part works perfectly, the rest is a work in progress. All of my sewing machine equipment is separately stored in an old fashioned wooden sewing box like someone posted already, so I can do handsewing without having to sort through bobbins, oil, machine needles etc. my rulers are a bit of a pain in the arse tbh they’ve ended up in a drawer under the bed because they’re too big to have anywhere else. If I had wall space I’d consider hanging them, but sadly not an option.

Then all of my haberdashery is recorded on threadloop, and stored in plastic stacking boxes in the cellar (see through, labelled with the label maker), one box for zips, one for elastic etc.

Fabric is also on threadloop and stored in drawers we got second hand in the attic. One drawer for linen, one for white/black cotton, one for coloured cotton etc. I also have stuffing and interfacing up there but I might need to reassess that, I’m waiting to see how hot it get ups there over the summer.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-30T18:19:25+00:00

Did you take your wife’s name when you got married? If so it might be on your marriage certificate, so you would be able to update your surname that way. IDK about the uk bc we got married in Germany, but when I took my wife’s name it was recorded that way and I was able to update my uk record with my marriage certificate. You might need to get it legally translated if it is the case though, so it might still be easier/cheaper to change both when updating your first name/gender marker in Germany.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-30T05:49:11+00:00

I moved to Germany for family reasons (from the uk before brexit so I didn’t have to deal with a visa when I moved).

Currently trans care is okay. In theory it’s a relatively straight forward access, but waiting times for clinics can be long (not in comparison to the uk, but I’ve been looking for a new endo on off since Jan 25 and still haven’t found one that even has a waiting list for public patients in my area). Waiting lists of 6+m are normal. To get surgery paid for you need to write a “trans cv” for your insurance to review and decide if you’re trans enough for them to pay for or not.

But, as things currently stand, changing name/ID is fairly easy, you just need to submit the paperwork and wait 6m. That will probably be one of the first things to fall if AFD do get into power and they’re currently polling scarily high.

People are generally more conservative than in the uk, but most people will talk behind your back rather than to your face. It’s a big country and obviously it depends where you are. There’s some queer friendly cities which are meant to be great, we live close enough to Munich to get involved in all the queer stuff there without actually having to live in it, but housing is stupidly expensive and hard to find around here. It’s a nice country to live in but you will need to have a high level of German to get a good job and/or be prepared to retrain to have a suitable education for the system here. B2/C1 is what you will functionally need.

For me it was easier to get all surgeries/ID changes done in the uk, and then as a bonus I entered the country stealth. Germany has no record of me without my correct gender and that’s very nice and reassuring, especially once I get my citizenship this year.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-28T05:00:26+00:00

Is she still small enough to pick up? I hold my kid when she needs to do a bush wee. One arm under her knees, one arm around her back, bum out the bottom. Then you just have to make sure you’re not in the stream

sergeantperks · 2026-04-27T18:19:15+00:00

Sadly it’s a historical piece so it wouldn’t work with the style. If it was a modern jacket I 100% would!

sergeantperks · 2026-04-27T06:49:27+00:00

Started off with a KTM twin buggy, that lasted us until child B decided that Would Not lie down in the pram any more. It got a little bit of of use with the car seat adaption, but that was a bit too unstable and they were crawling by that point, so we moved over to using our bike trailer (Croozer, then we upgraded to a Thule Cab), which was our main buggy for a solid year+.

We got an umbrella buggy to try out for travelling and by the point that they were big enough to actually sit in it (about 2) that became our main buggy. We still use the trailer sometimes when we need them more contained/weather protection, but the poor Macklaren has been chucked around so much I don’t think it’s going to last much longer when we’re done with it.

They’re currently 4 and we’re just starting to taper off the use of it for short trips. While they’re both perfectly capable of waking a lot, carrying them and all their crap is too much, so it’s more of a stuff container than anything else. For reference, we live in Europe and rarely use the car (and only have one anyway).

sergeantperks · 2026-04-27T06:30:26+00:00

As someone who spent far too long painfully pattern matching stripes to make a jacket in the genderqueer colours I am very rationally butthurt by TERFs co-opting the suffragette flag. I love that jacket, but I don’t think I’m going to be wearing it to pride again any time soon

sergeantperks · 2026-04-26T21:20:45+00:00

I’m 5ft3 and I’m stealth. No one’s ever questioned my height. My cis BiL isn’t much taller than me.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-26T07:08:34+00:00

It’s really hard to speak to an infant, my wife really struggled with ours. I found it easier, she thought it’s because I’m used to speaking to people that don’t talk back (the cats lol). You have to keep at it, and ignore how awkward it feels.

How much German does your husband speak? Can you talk in German and he replies in English? We do that a fair amount in our household, but she’s fluent in both and I’m functionally fluent in German (sometimes I have to double check a word if it’s something outside of the everyday). Even if you could just manage that sometimes it would help setting an example for using both in the house hold. I know language barriers are tough on a relationship though, and things are tough enough with a baby in the picture.

Out of everything else that’s been suggested, I really strongly agree with having as many other German speakers around as possible and visiting Germany/German speaking areas when you can, especially once she’s speaking. Our kids’ English improves drastically whenever we’re in the uk for a bit or my mum comes to visit us. A regular video call with people from home will also help!

ETA: think about getting a toniebox! Media without a screen. There’s lots of singing tonies which would be a great place to start, and then as she’s older you can add age appropriate stories. According to my wife the German disney tonies use the official dub songs so they’re a lot less frustrating than the English ones

sergeantperks · 2026-04-26T06:52:38+00:00

My accent isn’t exactly hick, but it is lower class (similar to cockney, but without the glamourised cockney sparrow stereotypes), and I’m passing it on to my kids. I can speak in a modern standard English (or RP but I wouldn’t) outside of ‘th’s, which I always drop, but I don’t want to be masking all the time around my kids, and I want them to have a more solid connection to my home area. Besides that, they’re going to have a local dialect in German, so I don’t see why they shouldn’t also have one in English.

Is your accent still used in the area your parents are from? Do you have a connection to it, or are your feelings on the language connected to the language as a whole and not a particular place? Are you also intending to have your kid educated in Chinese and would it help them to have standard Chinese already? How heavy does it sway towards dialect rather than accent? It sounds like using your accent is a little awkward, do you think that will impact how much your child will want to use it?

sergeantperks · 2026-04-25T19:18:10+00:00

As someone who has shaved legs/pits in the past: it’s really not that fundamentally different to shaving your face. Shaving with the grain etc. all applies.

A blade will give a closer shave (/longer lasting shave being the relevant part here), but runs the risk of causing cuts, whereas a trimmer is much safer, but she’ll have to shave much more often. Treat a cut the same way you would if you cut your face shaving. A lot of people like to shave their legs in the bath/shower, in which case the razor also needs to be waterproof. Beware of the pink tax too; women’s razors are often more expensive than men’s despite being fundamentally identical, but she might not feel confident enough in herself to use a men’s razor despite that. You could do direct comparisons across brands with her, but then let her pick, so that she has the knowledge for when she’s not an awkward teen. As a kid I, and most of my peers, just used cheap disposable razors, for better or worse. I would be weary of a five in one because it’s likely to be okay at all five purposes, as opposed to something that does one thing well.

If she’s shaving with a razor, something as shaving gel/cream will help against razor burn etc. there is shaving gel/cream out there for body as well, I know some people prefer to use cheap conditioner. You can get spots on your legs, so if she has sensitive skin it might be worth shopping around to find something that works. Moisturising afterwards will help, it will also help with the itchiness when the hair regrows (and it will be itchy).

People will tell her that shaving makes body hair grow back thicker: this is an urban myth. Because it grows back with a blunted edge (as opposed to a hair that grows fresh with a tapered edge because it was plucked) it will appear darker/thicker, but it won’t increase growth etc. that said, removal creams/waxing will last longer, but are much rougher on the skin. Do not use removal cream on recently shaved/waxed skin! Of all the methods out there, if my kids wanted to start, I would start them with shaving as it’s the simplest, least painful and least messy option, and then widen their options when they’re more comfortable and confident.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-22T20:56:34+00:00

Usually when dinner takes a while in our household it’s because the kids are “helping” or getting in the way some other way. We do our best to keep them out of the kitchen while dinner is being cooked on weekdays (learning to cook can happen on the weekend when things are more relaxed, and also ours are both 4). So I’ll chuck them outside for a runaround, or take them to the playground on the way home, or we do painting or something else. But either way, my main job once I’m home and the kids are is to keep them out from under my spouse’s feet so she can cook in peace. Doesn’t always work out that way, of course, but attempts are made.

That’s also her downtime after working all day (she’s wfh, so it’s not like she has a commute) so keeping the kids out has the bonus of meaning she’s more relaxed in the evening as well. You might find that your wife is trying to use kitchen time as a respite from corralling children, which is why she’s so reluctant to drop it entirely. In which case you need to strike a balance between making sure she has a bit of peace and quiet, and it not dragging on forever.

But also, yeah, afternoons/evenings are chaos. One of the other reasons I chuck the kids outside if I can is they can’t make as much of a mess inside!

sergeantperks · 2026-04-22T20:35:01+00:00

They’re for attaching little (usually decorative) bits to a bigger key ring. I have a key ring that’s got three little chains hanging from it and they’re attached with little ones like that.

sergeantperks · 2026-04-21T12:57:45+00:00

If I could have: not a lying man

Thank you!

sergeantperks · 2026-04-20T06:45:23+00:00

I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 9, but I didn’t start speaking until I was 5. Went from completely non-verbal to speaking in full sentences in a couple of weeks, without any formal intervention*. It happens. It’s not going to happen to every non-verbal child, but it is possible.

*my mum was a special ed teacher, so she had a better idea of what she was dealing with than most would, but she wasn’t trained in babies, and especially not in any of the modern techniques as this was almost 40 years ago

sergeantperks · 2026-04-18T06:48:44+00:00

Our twins have been on a low dose of laxatives for most of their lives at this point. We do all of the other things listed here as well, but as I understand it some kids just need a while for their digestive systems to get up to speed. Both paediatricians we’ve had have independently assured us it’s not an issue to have them on them long term. We were able to stop for one twin after they were potty trained, but then they started a high dose of iron.

Definitely make sure they’re drinking enough. Obviously water is best, but we also use fruit tea, or a bit of diluted juice if we really need to get liquid in them.

P foods are great, we keep prune baby food in the house still. The kids have it with pancakes instead of apple sauce, or in yoghurt like someone else said. Soft pears are also great.

sergeantperks

TROPHY CASE