To get really angry about gender stereotyping?

[exBrightonBell]

I'm 15 weeks pregnant and am now in the process of letting everyone know that I am expecting. AIBU to get really cross when people ask "are you going to find out the gender" and then immediately say things like - how will you know what colour to decorate the nursery, or, how will you know what colour clothes to buy? Why does the gender of my baby affect what colour choices I make? Why should we all be forced to conform to the inane stereotype of blue for boys and pink for girls?!

CailinDana, you rock.

Next time someone says that to you ExBrightonBelle, try looking genuinely concerned and ask them what will happen if you don't know the sex of the baby before it's born.

Why thank you Puffin :)

You just have to fight it yourself. Refuse to buy pink, get the red/green/yellow options of toys - or better still buy toys that are not boy/girl but just for babies! Put your newborn in white/cream/beige. Dress your DD (if it goes that way) in blue - I love seeing little girls in blue, cornflower/navy look fab. Pink on a boy is a bit trickier I agree. I dressed DS quite delicately as a baby, people often thought he was a girl. He just seemed too pure and precious to be daubed in slogans, monsters and building site paraphernalia.

As for decorating your nursery, if you were to take a peek at DS's room, you would not have a clue as to his gender. He has cream curtains, multi-coloured stars on his cot bumper and pictures of all colours and images on the wall.

People are generally obsessed by the gender of your unborn child, but it's only because there's not much else to say at this stage.

I think the OP and certain others here are reading far more into comments than was necessarily intended.

How do you know people expected you to decorate pink for a girl and blue for a boy? Did they actually convey this to you?

Are you sure you are not just jumping to conclusions?

Lots of mothers love to know the sex of their baby for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with stereotyping.

No, YANBU! This shit starts before birth and it only gets worse as they get older.

What gets me really cross is that as a parent it is virtually impossible to shield your kids from other peoples' prehistoric attitudes. When my DD was 2 we went to a relative's party and a whole bunch of adoring old ladies crowded around her asking "What's your favourite colour? Is it pink?". It's like they think the kid will grow up psychologically damaged if you don't go on and on and on about their gender from day 1.

But apparently this gender obsession is quite a recent thing - Victorian boys and girls had the same clothes and hairdos til they were 6. Maybe society got more paranoid about gender after the Daily Mail noticed that there were gay people on TV

I am also pregnant and experiencing the same thing. The minute I told people I was expecting the two questions were "Are you finding out what you're having?" and "Would you prefer a boy or a girl?". I decided I didn't want to find out the gender for this very reason; don't want people stereotyping the child and giving it personality traits accordingly while it's still in utero. It's all very tedious and makes me roll my eyes but I'm not really raging about it. Have had the 20 week scan over Christmas and kept the gender a "surprise" so family and friends now know that they're going to have to wait until it's born.

A relative got me my first item of baby clothing for Christmas - a white cardigan with ducks on. My sister's first comment? "If it's a BOY you can't put it in THAT!"

Yawn.

Sausages, the OP said people were asking her how she would know what colour clothes to buy or what colour to pain the nursery. That clearly implies that knowing whether you're having a boy or a girl will influence your colour choices, which is what is annoying the OP.

CailinDana - yes, that's how I saw it. People have asked me the same thing - as if there are only two options when it comes to clothes, toys, decorating the room etc.

at that ^^

"Did they actually convey this to you? Are you sure you are not just jumping to conclusions?"

read the OP again

It's irritating isn't it? Drove me nuts when I was pg. It seemed like the options were pink, blue or beige. Yuck!

Just tell them that you intend to dress the baby in green, purple or yellow, or to shove it... Whichever makes you feel better

Sausages, the OP said people were asking her how she would know what colour clothes to buy or what colour to pain the nursery. That clearly implies that knowing whether you're having a boy or a girl will influence your colour choices

It may influence the way they choose their colours....but for different reasons. By knowing the sex parents to be may become 'closer' to the child...choosing names......and planning other aspects. Babies are dressed in all sorts of colours...the notion of blue for a boy and pink for a girl is out-dated and doesn't seem to apply much now. Young babies are dressed in the whole spectrum of colours.

Babies are boys or girls. Is there an issue with that? Would people prefer they were totally neutral? Are people saying there are no differences other than their sexual parts?

Its just things people say to a pregnant woman thats all . its nothing to get worked up over , I never dressed my girls in pink dd1 bedroom had neutal wall paper etc etc , you dont have to sterotype your baby , a baby as they grow develop there own thing anyway , Dont get upset about it and just roll your eyes and smile if people ask these sorts of things , Oh and congrats on your pregnancy

Children often end up making their own choices anyway....however you try and influence their choices (and avoidance is also attempting to influence).

You're pregnant OP - try aiming for serenity rather than getting really angry about things that don't matter. Sometimes it's just conversation and people trying to show an interest in things (other people's pregnancies) that they really could not give a rat's ass about

"Babies are dressed in all sorts of colours...the notion of blue for a boy and pink for a girl is out-dated and doesn't seem to apply much now. Young babies are dressed in the whole spectrum of colours"

but clearly, by making the statement 'how will you know what colour to decorate the nursery' those people ARE attaching such colour stereotypes to different gender. Clearly.

Listen ballroom, it's a slippery slope. If you put him in the white cardigan with ducks, 15 years down the line he'll be wearing eye liner and singing Mariah Carey in his bedroom. You have been warned ...

Supposing a parent denies a little girl pink. She may happen to LOVE the colour pink....and also like playing with dolls and play cooking and hoovering etc

What then? Are you going to deny her that colour...and her choice of toys.

Same for a boy!

I say.....whatever you attempt to deny your child and however you attempt to make them conform in some way...they invariably make their own choices in life...and choose the toys and things they enjoy doing!

No point getting het up with people making well meaning comments....who are probaby just trying to be sociable and friendly.

Confound them by asking, seriously, the question you ask in your OP: 'Why does the gender of my baby affect what colour choices I make?'

Oh, and YANBU. It may seem like a small thing, but I think small things add up.

YANBU I always told people that I wasn't going to colour code my child to fit societies idea of what was correct.

But then, I always told people off for touching my bump with 'Do I look like Bhudda? No, trust me, rub my stomach and you will NOT get good luck!'

MightBeABitForthrightTiggaxx

Overthinking it imo. Absolutely not worth getting 'really angry' over.

And I can bang on about gender stereotyping believe me.

Ha, boobmeister! That reminds me of a convo I overheard between two former work colleagues. One telling the other that her brother had taken a doll off his two-year-old son "in case he ends up gay"...

Classic!!

YANBU, it must be annoying that so many of the people you know are stuck in the gender rut.

I did know the gender of my baby, made no difference at all to my choices of decor and clothing. I'm very glad I didn't go for pink bedroom- or for that matter any 'babyish' designs - I'd have had to redecorate by the time DD was 6 for sure, the age at which she eschewed pink and princessy stuff.

I agree Grimma, I didn't decorate DS's room at all - I just left it the plain beige colour it was when we moved in. He has no opinion on what it looks like. I'll decorate it for him when he's older and is actually bothered about it.