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My personal (possibly unpopular?) opinion is that you're borrowing trouble. The likelihood of your child identifying with their non-assigned gender is pretty slim.

I guess I believe in gender neutral parenting to SOME extent… basically in that my daughter will learn how to use tools and will watch sports with her dad and will learn that anything she wants to do is fine and there is no such thing as "boy stuff." If we have a son in the future he will learn how to bake and sew with me like his sister.

But I don't buy into the "we shouldn't put girls in pink or buy boys trucks" thing. I'll probably dress my little girl "girly" and if I have a boy I'll probably buy him more blue than pink. I don't think how I dress my kid is going to have any effect on who she is, ultimately. And growing up in this house she'll know that we are supportive of whoever she wants to be. If she shows a preference for jeans over skirts when she is old enough, fine. If she is gay, fine. I think that our values speak more loudly through our actions and words than how I decorate or what I dress her in, personally.

I'm interested! I should get the book. I am interested in gender neutral parenting, but I am curious about how it works when LO have influential grandparents/family who feel strongly about gender roles.

@Mae: This is a really common misconception about gender neutral parenting - the clothing and toys that we buy for children. GNP is hugely important to me, yet I wear a dress every day of my life. My daughter frequently wears pink and dresses too. This is the aesthetic that suits me, and so far, it suits her too. It's also about way more than not giving boys trucks.

GNP is (or is supposed to be) about giving everything to everyone. Giving girls trucks. Giving boys pink, and skirts. And more, creating a climate where those things are ok. Where emotions, experiences, colors and feelings aren't gendered. Where no one tells a boy to stop crying, and no one tells a little girl to stop playing in the dirt.

I like to play a game in public where I look at big families, and I notice when the boys are dressed functionally (sweats, sneakers) and the girls are dressed 'prettily' (skirts, strappy pretty shoes, etc). I try to notice every time a girl is praised for being 'sweet' while her brother is loud and wild and 'just a boy'. Or every time I try to be cool and buy a toy microscope for my daughter, but the pink one is LESS POWERFUL (!!!?!??!?!) than the black one. Subtle differences like that are the bread and butter of GNP. The subtle ways that our society influences boys to act one way, and girls to act another is what we're trying to fight.

GNP is about eliminating those differences. It really doesn't matter what color a girl's clothing is, so long as it's comfortable and she can run and jump and play in it. It matters when we let girls be emotional, but we tell little boys not to be. That's what we're really getting at with GNP. Clothing and toys are not the point.

@sarac: thanks for that!

haven't read the book, but the principles are ones I think about often. I think everyone is shortchanged when we enforce gender norms and stereotyping, to say the least.

Thank you! GNP is a pretty big deal to me. I see a lot of people getting hung up on the little stuff like color and clothing and toys, and getting turned off to the whole thing. When in reality, they're often on board to some degree with the idea that boys should be allowed to cry, and that girls should be allowed to be dirty. But they just think hey, I liked pink, don't tell me I can't dress my daughter in it.

Well, I like pink too. It's cool. And man, you ought to see these sparkily purple converse shoes I just found for my toddler. They'll be perfect for running around like a nut at the park tomorrow and climbing all over everything. Because that's how she does things.

I don't even care for the term gender neutral, for reasons other people mentioned, but I can't really think of a better one. Gender exists, it doesn't need to be 'neutral' - it just doesn't need to be a straightjacket limiting our choices.

@PawPrints: Samesies!

@sarac: great post, thank you for sharing!

@anonysquire: I don't think you are the minority, you're just posting on a thread specifically about a different way. I sort of agree with you. I would be fine with my child coming out as gay or trans once they are old enough to understand what that means, but while they are little I will recognize the realities of the world and try to make their lives easier. Which means not letting a 6 year old boy wear a dress to school. I wouldn't want him to make himself a target like that without a really good reason.

@Mae: agree!

My DS and DD likes to wear the tutu's and dance around the house - but I would never let him wear it out of the house. I don't want him to be ridiculed over something like that.

@scg00387: I think that if he REALLY wants to wear the dress, you're right he will find a way. But I also feel like if you raise your kid in such a way that dresses are just as "normal" as jeans for boy-- maybe it isn't that he really wants to wear a dress maybe its just that he doesn't realize that won't be normal at school (how could he?).

If we take it to a non-gendered hypothetical… let's say that we know that the reality of the world is that Batman is "cool" and liking Superman is going to get your kid ostracized and bullied. Fair? no. Does it make any sense? no. But your kid has to survive this school for 13 years. So if I can just give the kid Batman stuff and not bring up Superman, the chances of him seeking out Superman stuff and thus getting teased are pretty slim. But if I give him both and tell him "both options are totally equally fine. Absolutely no difference!" it seems like a good chance he'll pick Superman for no other reason than he had a 50/50 shot at it, and now I just set him up to get bullied for no good reason.

If I had a son who was like those you hear about sometimes who at 5 years old tells me he is a girl and begs me not to cut his hair and KNOWS from a young age that is his identity, that is a totally different story and we'll deal with it and help him deal with the fallout. But I'm not going to take my kid and set him up to be teased by offering a bunch of pink and skirts and barbies when he shows no particular preference for that over "normal boy stuff."

@sarac: I love everything you've written. I haven't read this particular book, but believe so strongly that gender is a social construction, and as such can be fluid and change. It is so important to me to raise this little girl who is still in utero in such a way that she can pursue whatever interests she wants.

The site everyday feminism has a lot of good ideas as well.

I think there is a difference between allowing your children to express themselves and wear or play with what they choose and dressing a little boy in a pink dress to prove a point.

I don't think that raising a girl in a pink tutu or a boy with only tools and superheroes to play with has any determination on who they are. How may gay men were raised as strictly boys, playing little league and getting dirty, and they end up drag queens? How many girls were raised surrounded by princesses and pink and turn out tomboys who work on cars? Plenty and plenty.

I think the best we can do for our kids is to allow them to make choices and love and accept them no matter what. I would never tell C that she cant have a toy car or a Batman shirt because she's a girl. I'm also not going to stop her from playing with princesses and dressing in pink. Things don't have to be neutral.

@MrsMcD: Aw! Maybe? Probably? I know Ellie and Lorelei have gravitated towards certain sorts of things from fairly early on, and I try to respect their taste and what feels comfortable to them when I can. It's so nice to not have clothes not get worn (or just be worn seldom) because I'm to stubborn to not get what they will actually wear versus what appeals to me.

I just don't believe in limiting kids based on ANY stereotype. I think children (heck, people!) notice and appreciate being really seen and valued by someone.

@anonysquire: haha, my neighbor was telling me about how her daughter would make the little brother play barbies with her and would have these elaborate scenarios of "now Barbie and Ken fall in love and get married" and all that, and the little boy was like, "OK, but now KEN KILLS BARBIE ARGGHHHHHH!" Your experience was probably similar!

ETA sorry everyone for getting off track

I know our little girl will be dressed in John Deere green and yellow and have a gator instead of a barbie car and that we are just as likley to buy her one of those plastic tool sets as a dress up set. I will stand up to anyone that says she cant be dressed in camo or blue or whatever else she decides.

@sarac: This is such a great summary of GNP - thank you.

I agree, people get very hung up on the aesthetic side of gender neutral parenting but there are many more important issues at stake. For me, being conscious of the more subtle ways gender plays into child-rearing has been important.

For example, parents tend to unconsciously engage in less rough-and-tumble, physical play with girls than with boys and this has an impact on their involvement in sports down the line. So that's one area I'm careful to consciously push back against my instincts as the parent of a girl.

Another area is in toy choices. Girls get a lot of tacit encouragement to engage in imaginative play, which is wonderful, but tend to have far less encouragement to engage in construction play. So its important for me that she has building blocks, duplo and other toys that build spatial reasoning and STEM skills alongside dress-ups, dolls and a play kitchen.

@scg00387: I don't think I explained that correctly. What I meant to say is where I live, it's very gender neutral. So much so, if say, Toys R Us has an ad with one page that's all blue with a blue toy vacuum and another ad opposite from it with a pink toy vacuum, it makes the news because 'how dare they use pink and blue'. Girls pretty much rule here, men bake and are SAHDs and boys wear dresses in they want. No one thinks it's weird. But if you use pink for anything, it's all the sudden too girly and that's a no-no. That's what I meant by extreme.

On further reflection I've realized that girls aren't really off the hook in my circle either - I used to get so frustrated when people told me that since my baby was active in the womb that meant it must be a boy. What the what?!?!