"I Don't Want My Little One's Appearance to Be So Determined by Her Gender."
Answering a reader question about gender stereotypes.
For today’s newsletter I’m answering this excellent question I recently got from a reader:
I have a 3.5yo boy and a 2yo girl. As much as possible, I try to use gender neutral language with them and try to foster their interests as they appear, and I buy mostly gender neutral clothes for them, since they don't show much interest in clothing yet. We just had a birthday for my younger child, and there was so much pink. Both kids like pink (though my older one clearly likes it more), but it just felt so overtly gendered. All the clothes they got her were pink or floral, and included girls shorts, which are so short. When my kids want to pick clothes I'm happy to let them, but what do I do here? I don't want my little one's appearance to be so determined by her gender. And how do I communicate to gift givers that my children are more than their gender? So far when I've pushed back, even gently, the grandparents seem greatly offended. I would appreciate any insight you have!
This is an excellent question because although it’s specific, it is indicative of so many issues we face as parents. We can raise our children in ways we feel good about within our homes, but our kids will be exposed to many outside influences and norms, and some will contradict our values. How do we deal with that?
As an aside, I, too, went out of my way to procure gender-neutral clothes for my kids when they were little — and didn’t know what to do with (and sometimes quietly cursed at) the array of pink bonnets and blue sports-themed onesies I received for my daughter and son, respectively, as gifts.
One totally understandable approach in these situations is to try to protect our kids from outside influences for as long as possible by curating their experiences — what they watch on their devices, whom they have playdates with, what they read. Friends of mine have kept their kids home from preschool on days when they think their kids will be exposed to ideas they might not agree with. With regard to the question at hand, we can certainly ask relatives and friends to respect our wishes and not buy gendered gifts — which I have subtly done by setting up wish lists for my kids that include gender-neutral clothes and toys (this is one approach that you could try).
But, of course, we can only go so far. Grandparents gonna grandparent and buy things they think are cute, oblivious to the ways in which their choices make us cringe. More broadly, babysitters, schools, peers and the media are going to expose our kids to ideas, beliefs, cultures, values and experiences that we might not wish on them. We can’t control what other people say or do in front of our kids. We might be able to control to some degree when some of these exposures happen, but they will inevitably happen.
With regard to gender, kids are constantly bombarded with the idea that gender is one of the most important social categories out there. It’s built into our language (e.g. “he” and “she”) in ways that imply that gender is closely intertwined with identity. Girls and boys also have different bathrooms, different sports teams, different aisles at the toy store, sometimes even different schools. So even if we try to minimize gender stereotypes in our home, our kids are going to be exposed to them. Gender is basically pumped into the air they breathe.
Also, our attempts to curate our kids’ experiences can backfire. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but kids — mine, anyway — don’t particularly like feeling controlled. If we try to dictate who our kids have playdates with, what they wear, what sports or instruments they play, or how they spend their free time, they will eventually start to push back, and if we keep pushing, our relationship with them may then start to suffer. There’s a careful balance we must try to achieve between setting and enforcing expectations and limits (which, don’t get me wrong, are very important!) and letting our kids have the autonomy they deeply crave.