i’m a 27 year old single mom with a 12 year old (yes i had him at 15) son who has severe ADHD. his father used to physically abuse me, and i left him a few years ago. i’ve been single ever since, so me and my son have gotten close over the years. recently these past few weeks, my son has been knocking on my door at night because he can’t sleep and i feel bad so i’ll let him sleep with me for the night. he’ll cuddle with me a bit and we sleep pretty well, however i’ve read online that co-sleeping isn’t super healthy, and i definitely don’t want to negatively affect his development in any way. any advice would be appreciated :)
If this were a suggestion about “kids” in general, I would agree with you about using the neutral plural pronoun. The thing is, here our friend is replying specifically to OP and offering opinions about what she should do with her son. In that case, I find it annoying and disingenuous to use “they” to talk about the kid, as not only do I find the use of a plural pronoun to refer to a single individual to be a poor linguistic choice, but it is especially so when the subject in question is specifically defined in regard to its gender.
I don’t understand why this opinion should be seen as a “gender war,” nor why the comment should be received with greater enthusiasm than its mild content implies
“Someone came by when you were out.”
“What did they want?”
The linguistic angle doesn’t support this. Real linguists disagree with you.
Also people used singular they before singular “you” existed, so I hope you’ll revert to using thee and thou and thy immediately.
“Gender war” might have been too strongly worded. But I, and clearly lots of other Lemmings, are especially sensitive to users who try to stir up unnecessary controversies about gender, or bring it into comments where it isn’t relevant. You might not have been trying to do that, so that’s my bad ratcheting up the rhetoric with “gender war.” But I read Arkouda’s comment and I didn’t even notice their use of “they” until reading your comment about it.
As others have said, I think you parsed the language a little too far. It’s perfectly acceptable, and sometimes preferred, to use generalities when offering advice. Re-reading it again, I frankly can’t see how it’s disingenuous at all.