Is feminist or 'gender neutral' parenting a waste of time?

[RedTrek]

Someone I know shared this article and it's really depressed me and I wanted to discuss it with you.
teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/preparing-themselves-for-their-real.html

I don't police my children's play that much, except to prevent them hurting each other or themselves or breaking things. And I agree with the article author that children should be allowed to practise social skills and conflict resolution without adults micro-managing their interactions.

But something about it made me quite upset. The story of the little girls banding together to say no to the boys, who did not stop immediately but did when the girls insisted, was clearly meant as an allusion to the problems the girls will have to face when they grow up. He seemed to be suggesting that his daughter was learning the skills she would need to deal with and protect herself from sexual harassment and assault.

It's great for girls to learn to be assertive and stand up for themselves and each other, but of course this won't stop them being harassed and assaulted when they are older. And what are the boys learning from the game - are they learning to actually respect a no, or are they learning to push boundaries until the girls 'insist'? What about when they grow bigger and stronger than the girls, what about when the girls aren't in a group.

Just the idea of girls 'preparing themselves for their real future' is so tragic in this context. I think he might be right and it breaks my heart a bit. Those of you who are mothers, how do/did you approach these things with your daughters and your sons? Do you think it is possible for parents to guide the next generation to be less constrained by gender roles or do we just have to sit back and watch our children prepare themselves to go through all the same shit our own generation went through / is going through?

My daughter is just 4 and is always coming out with things like 'only girls wear pink shoes'. And you know of course I tell her that boys can wear pink shoes too, that pink is just a colour and colours are for everyone, not for boys or girls. But it feels a bit disingenuous because she's basically right. I don't know any boys who wear pink shoes (though of course there must be some). She's made a pretty accurate observation about the world and I'm trying to argue with her based on how I wish the world was.

What a load of absolute Bollocks!

Children will undoubtedly reflect the world around them to a great extent - they learn by copying. Those poor girls in that article are probablycopying what appear to be trophy/stepford wife's😣

My DD is just coming up for 4. In February she went to a carnival/party where the children wore costumes. I asked DD what costume she wanted, she said a superhero with wings - so we made wings and I made a superhero logo that I sewed onto a t-shirt and she has tights the same colour as the t-shirt and contrasting shorts. The wings had a feather design and we made a matching feather headress, the outfit could have been worn by a boy or girl. Sadly I think every other girl wore some kind of Princess outfit, dd was unfazed and lived her costume quite a fee girls and boys were impressed even the older ones.

We are our children's role models, I do DIY, I put up a geodesic dome for a poly"tunnell", I also do baking. My dh does his share of cleaning and cooking and we share childcare.

I was a single parent (widowed) from when my two DDs were babies, so there was no gender stereotyping in our house - they saw me do everything myself, from DIY, plastering, painting, wiring, gardening, to knitting, sewing and cooking. Neither of my DDs ever said that girls couldn’t do a particular job or wear trousers or whatever.
Indeed, they came home furious from school, having shouted down a 6 year old boy who said that women couldn’t be doctors (I’m one myself).
We were fortunate back then (1990’s), as toys were much less gendered. The Early Learning Centre sold heaps of educational fun stuff that was completely unisex. My girls loved Lego and Thomas the tank engine much more than dolls, and liked climbing trees and making forts with the neighbour’s son.
Both girls went to uni, one to do a maths degree, the other business management.
Nobody tried to claim their toy choices made them “ trans” either! I pity parents nowadays, fighting a tide of stereotyped gender crap.

The world is better now than it was 100 years ago, and as long as we don’t fuck the planet beyond belief it stands to be better 100 years from now.

You gotta knock some stuff on the head as soon as you can though. I was playing a video game with my 6 year old son and I selected a female character. He asked me why I replied she looks cool. We then had a long conversation about how he thought girls weren’t as good as boys and I enquired where on earth he got this idea from.

I actually sat down and conversed with him about it and traced back this idea to a specific boy in his class who was also a bit of a bully. Well suffice to say the boy is no longer there and I’m not seeing such nonsense being spouted at home anymore.

In short converse with kids don’t just hand wring when they come out with this sort of thing and trace the bad idea back to source and challenge it.

I think we could do with more visible female characters in media our kids get exposed to, and a greater awareness of women’s contributions across history (which is WAY more extensive than I realised), also rather than relegate this to special women’s sections or topics it needs to be taught ALONGSIDE everything else. Just seeing and reading about significant women will move the needle pretty significantly I believe.

Too often it’s framed as look what this woman achieved (with the subtext despite being a woman) instead of look at this great achievement with nothing else mentioned iyswim.

I do think that the kind of interaction described does help kids learn about boundaries of all kinds. This is a difficult thing I think for parents to interfere in or replicate or direct, because it happens in such an organic way. But I think kids learn about limits, about what ticks off the other kids, how people can be jerks, about being too aggressive or not aggressive enough. I've rarely found it useful to intervene directly, I've found it better when they come to me with a problem to help them think about how to deal with the situation. It might resolve things and it might not, but both are ok.
For me, the big things for boys and girls to learn is that they don't need to have the outcome they want all the time in order to be ok, and how to have personal integrity in terms of behaviour, and that other people don't and should not always have to do what they want. I don't know that I've ever felt I had to do this in terms of being a boy or girl especially in preteen years, there are just too many individual differenced in kids. Some have issues with aggression, some don't stand up for themselves, some are judgemental, some need to get used to the idea they will be ok alone. Respect for self and others really covers it all.

As far as gender neutral parenting - I am not enthusiastic about this. I differentiate to my kids what is social and what has other reasons. I don't think all social constructs about gender are wrong, some, like pink shoes, are neutral. What is important it to be able to think about how to weight such things. If you want to go against those kind of gender norms fine, but it will be interpreted in some way by others, which is nice if you are trying to be counter-cultural, but not if you aren't. Telling boys they are all dumb, or showing porn to your friends, well that's not acceptable.
But no matter what you tell them, I think kids will pick up that there are all kinds of social signals around gender presentation, class, etc. If you tell them they aren't meaningful, it makes things more difficult for them, they can't interpret what they see.

It seems so much has changed.

I am childfree myself but I was born in the late 70s. In my childhood I was never told “this was for girls and this for boys”. Not by my mother, my father, my stepparents, my grandparents, not by my teachers. I had dolls, but I also had matchbox cars I would send flying down the stairs, I took ballet, but I also joined the wrestling team. I hated pink - green was and always has been my favorite. My mum was a great seamstress who made me pants and dresses but understood I preferred pants I could get dirty in and never got bothered that I never liked sewing or such myself but when I wanted to learn she patiently taught me. As she did my brother when he wanted to learn. When I brought home “pet” frogs, snakes, salamanders, she helped me set up their homes despite her own fear of frogs. It was okay if one year I wanted to dress as a cheetah for Halloween, and the next a ninja princess. If my sister wanted to dress as a mermaid for almost a year straight that was okay too, as it was when my brother wanted to do the same. She fostered my artistic endeavors, but also encouraged my more scientific interests too.

My mum, who worked outside the home, was my hero - I did not always appreciate her as a sullen teenager but as I got older I certainly did and I miss her dearly. She was a great mother but always made it clear she aspired for all her children to be strong, independent people who followed their passions. And she passed this message on because she did it herself.

I don’t see myself as fitting into “gender roles” at all in my life, in my career, my hobbies, my interests, even in my marriage. In that sense my husband and I have crafted together what kind of marriage we want. Interestingly one of the first questions he asked me when we started talking (we met online) was my opinions on “traditional gender roles”. I don’t remember my answer precisely and I am sure it was more eloquent but I know it was something like “f them”. Sure, there are things I like that are stereotypically associated with women, but there are things I like that are stereotypically associated with men too. And no one I know would call me the domestic kind.

I honestly believed for so long gender was not relevant at all to my life because of who I am and who I surround myself with, and it was actually this that left me blind for so long to the gender ideology movement. Not to say I never have encountered sexism as of course I have but I have always felt “f that” to it all.

Dervel I agree conversation is so important.

Goosefoot what exactly are "gender norms" and "counter-cultural"? I worked in IT and studied architecture, I mainly wear trousers as I find them more comfy and practical. Like I said I do DIY etc and hubby cleans, cooks and shares childcare equally with me. This is our norm as a 21st century couple. Oh and I earn more money.

My daughter is also about to turn 4. She is highly motivated to fit in with her peers and anything that she's noticed is 'for girls' in our society she's hugely keen on. Not all girls want to go against the grain (otherwise there wouldn't be a grain to go against). Obviously I don't discourage her any more than I would discourage her if she was into superheroes because of course I don't want to suggest to her that 'girls' things' are inferior, though I don't conform to feminine norms much myself.

But at the same time I know she's often not making free choices - she's trying to pick things that she thinks the other girls at nursery would also like. I try to encourage her to try all different things and not consider anything off-limits. I am absolutely certain that no adult has ever told her directly that something is 'for girls' or 'for boys'. She's not stupid, though, she can see what's going on in front of her nose.

I suppose nobody is making truly free choices.

I really like Teacher Tom: he’s provided some fascinating insights and suggestions for Early Years.
What I think he’s saying here is that it’s no good artificially forcing children to change in the hope that they will change society; it’s the other way round. Society needs to change so that children prepare themselves, through play, for a different world to the one we have now.

I can see why you found it depressing. The truth is, it is depressing that the girls are growing up into the world we have now.

The oldest child I care for is 15, and she’s hoping to go into childcare herself (which I see as a huge compliment!). I was disciplining a 4 year old boy for annoying the girls and I told the 15 year old that “No means No!” is probably the most important thing I will ever teach him.

“Tell me about it!!” she said.
On further enquiry, she explained that the unwanted attention from the boys at school is relentless. She wishes they’d learned that important lesson when they were small.

We do have gender neutral toys, but we also have traditionally boy or girl toys. They all know it’s fine to dress up as a fairy, play with cars, take dolly for a walk etc. regardless of whether you’re a girl or a boy. They can marry the same gender when they grow up if they want to (but not me or their mummies because we’re already spoken for ). I have boys who love pink; some girls are never happier when covered in mud.

The important thing is to let them be themselves and to be led by them for play and learning and that’s what Teacher Tom does brilliantly well.

Tanith Yes I think that's right and that is why I found it depressing.

I also noticed I said in the first post my daughter was already 4 and then said she was about the turn 4. I'm not a troll, honest. I was just trying to tweak the details a tiny bit to make it less identifying but then I forgot

Never mind, just name changed anyway.

Goosefoot what exactly are "gender norms" and "counter-cultural"? I worked in IT and studied architecture, I mainly wear trousers as I find them more comfy and practical. Like I said I do DIY etc and hubby cleans, cooks and shares childcare equally with me. This is our norm as a 21st century couple. Oh and I earn more money.

Gender norms are the accepted ways in a culture that people signal that they belong to a particular sex. Being counter-cultural in that context, is generally about not observing them, probably knowingly, for some reason. It might be because you think they are bad (like, taking a low salary) or it might be to make a fashion statement (neutral), or some sort of postmodernist statement (who knows.)

I don't think pants haven't been counter-cultural in terms of gender norms in the west for many years. There used to be a male lawyer in my city who always wore a woman's skirt suit and pumps, that is subverting the accepted gender norms - people noticed, and I am sure he knew that - he decided he didn't care that much, or maybe that was why he did it.

Clearly I mean I don't think pants have been counter-cultural for women, above.

RedTrek
It's really normal for children at that age to have concrete ideas about social norms of all kinds. It's really about their developmental stage and their lack of experience. So they noice a "rule", either because someone tells them or they see it around them. But they don't really know what kind of rule it is, why it is there, when exceptions are made. They make significant generalisations that don't actually follow.

It makes sense if you think about it though - children need to learn the rules to survive, for one thing, so they are able to do it before they are really able to understand what is behind them. You also have to notice the general pattern before you can see the subtle nuances, that's even true when adults learn new things. And you need a lot more examples to draw from in order to come to the right conclusions too.

A lot of this stuff kids realise on their own as they get older, even if you don't say anything.

I think it's true that none of our choices are totally free - that's the error of libertarian/neoliberalism. We have all kinds of socially conditioned things in our lives, and we are also affected by our biology. Neither of those are necessarily bad.

Children parrot what they hear - that's why it's important for us to let them see and here equality. My girls had microscopes and trains for toys, but also princess dresses. Unfortunately even at 4 some of the boys (and girls) will have been exposed to males dominating their female partner, it was the girls becoming subservient at preschool at that was most scary!

In our house they have been brought up to know they can do anything, dd starts university in September and last year it was a 90% male intake (robotics).

Goosefoot I have wish to make statements, I simply don't care enough what others think of me, if they like me fine if not fine. That gives me the freedom to enjoy the things I enjoy. This is something I encourage in my daughter and will encourage in my son as well. Luckily my dd is strong minded and independent like me so maybe less influenced than others may be, but other kids even older kids respect her for being herself which gives me hope.

OP as much as children observe and pick things up in school they will also observe and copy what happens at home. So you have the oportunity to offer balance.

*no wish

I think if anything should be gender free it should be parental involvement. I’ve seen one study where development of empathy and strong socialisation skills correlate heavily with paternal care, as in an active and engaged father.

Just the idea of girls 'preparing themselves for their real future' is so tragic in this context. I think he might be right and it breaks my heart a bit.

No useful answers, but reading with interest. We've chosen to not 'micromanage' but instead try to combat the negative messages. If I'd realised quite how relentless they'd be I'm not sure I wouldn't have tried to keep my daughters in a bubble.

When they are young it seems impossible to equip them against the onslaught of pinkprincessbekindbeniceunicornsyouplaythenursenotthedoctoprettysparkle

Goosefoot I have wish to make statements, I simply don't care enough what others think of me, if they like me fine if not fine. That gives me the freedom to enjoy the things I enjoy.

I'm reading that as "no wish to make statements".

Which is lovely, but some people do things specifically with the goal of subverting social norms. Sometimes to make a serious point, but sometimes just to get a rise out of people, get attention, or to bring out certain contrasts. A lot of people go through periods in their teens or early 20s where they like to do that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's a bit terrifying. I've taught my kids from dot that they have bodily autonomy as much as possible.

But in fact, it's not violence per se that scares me - it's more the danger of falling into an abusive relationship. To teach the dangers of that, I think Frozen has been quite useful - a princess who falls in Disney Love and it turns out the guy is charming to begin with, flat-out evil by the end.

I think all we can do is try to instil a sense of self-worth, strength and resilience that would hopefully weather all the storms. And that needs loving, consistent, involved parenting with firm boundaries, I suppose. We can only do our best.

Haha the comment about Frozen made me laugh because my daughter doesn't quiiite understand that film. She's seen it plenty of times (it's her go-to film for when she's off nursery ill) but she's got this idea that Kristoff and Hans are Elsa and Anna's fathers. I have tried and tried to explain it but she is sure she is right.

She also doesn't think Hans is a baddie. I don't know how she is misunderstanding the film so badly. Perhaps I should be more worried about that.

Could be worse- I keep telling my son Kaa the snake in the jungle book is a baddie. He keeps correcting me to tell me he’s nice and gives hugs

I have a 5 year old who loves pink, always has. He's come home a couple of times asking not to take his (pink) water bottle, or not to wear his (pink) trainers to school - I ask why, he tells me pink is for girls, I ask why, and he rolls his eyes.

My favourite was when he tried to explain to his dear old mum about how blue is for boys, as I pointed to each of my entirely blue pieces of clothing and he slowly ground to a halt, deciding that I was just too much effort and now it was snack time.

So some days he does't do pink. Other days he remembers he loves pink and just frowns at the kids at school saying otherwise. What he definitely knows is that I (and his dad) don't think pink is for girls or blue is for boys, same for all the other colours, toys, clothes, TV programs, and we're baffled by his suggestion they are, and every time he says it, he realises he can't explain why. I think that that is a good grounding, without bashing him over the head with it all.

butteryellow That sounds like a great approach. Nobody can adequately explain why something as mundane as a colour or a toy is gendered (though I have heard a lot of bonkers evo psych attempts), so just encouraging the child to think critically about what they are saying is probably very effective.

One more thing I just thought of - the other day she told me that my leg hair made me look like a boy!! Honestly it's incredible how observant children are because nobody will have said anything to her about body hair norms. She must have just noticed that most women don't have leg hair and most men do, at the swimming pool I suppose.

I just told her that all grown ups have hairy bodies, that it's a difference between children and grown ups, not between men and women. I should also have told her that some people choose to remove the hair, I suppose, but I was a bit flustered as I was genuinely surprised to hear it. One of the secondary reasons I stopped shaving was to normalise hairy women for her, so she knew that not shaving was a choice that women could make, but apparently so far all she's taken from it is that I look like a boy. In the long term I hope it will have more of the intended effect!

This bloke seems to forget that many girls are not 'girly', many boys are not super masculine.

He also seems to have forgotten about homosexuality.

It feels to me that his children and their friends are a reflection of the values of him and his friends /community, rather than anything else.

He doesn't seem to think that adults should step in if boys won't take no for an answer and directly implies this is related to adult situations like sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape. He is not telling the boys to stop when told no. He is leaving it to the girls to learn how to say it so boys listen... Wonderful. If you like victim blaming.

Awful load of drivel in my opinion. I've always been fairly gender non conforming but my looks were such that people wanted to fuss over me and do me up like a dolly... To me he sounds like he is happily entrenched in 'traditional' roles and values and so sees what he wants to see.

I like the way he gets in with the 'fact'. that 4yo girls are manipulative, emotionally manipulative, and what I took as shorthand for bitchy.

Yay progressive.