Woman's Hour Gender Neutral Babies

[AdultHumanFemale]

I think I just caught that WH is talking about raising gender neutral babies this morning. I'm off for an appointment, but perhaps someone might be interested in tweeting or emailing the programme to remind listeners of the innate gender neutrality of babies, and of the nature of gender as a social construct? I'm hoping this is what they are hoping someone will be along to point out...

Hmm, I know what you mean, but that's because they're impractical, not because they're feminine... which admittedly are often intertwined, unfortunately.

I just don't think that unicorns < monsters, crafts < Lego or dolls < train sets.

@SerenityNowwwww

I do think it's slightly better for boys, I still remember after finding out I was having a boy going to the shop and seeing the sea of pink on the "girl" side. As a kid in the 90s I don't remember the clothes aisles being such a blinding magenta all the time.
I was just able to find some nice bright coloured leggings for the baby from Next today, but you definitely have to look around a bit if you don't just want to stick him in blue and black.

Way to set your kids up for a life of existential misery!

I loved my pippas and barbies as a child but I wasnt a girlie girl and never saw why they were considered girlie when my brother had action men, and barbie and action man would go for days out in his Tonka toys. It was just imaginative play. It annoyed me that chemistry sets were aimed at boys but that has improved. There wasn't a wall of pink there. We tried to raise our son without imposing stereotypes but he was keen to join cadets at school and when in there loved all the gun stuff

I think it's hard parenting and avoiding sexual stereotypes without forbidding them and thus controlling your child as much as if you had only let them do sex stereotyped activities but in the opposite way, plus kids are more herd animals than adults and most don't like to be different

The problem with the forceful detachment of gender stereotypes from sex, though, is that a child's natural or impulsive tendencies can be forcefully repressed - if they accord in any way with the stereotype.

That's just enforcing a stereotype in a different way, surely? If it's genuinely neutral, you just let them follow their natural inclinations. Nothing should be off-limits purely because of stereotyping in either direction.

@ktp100

My step sister (who doesn't have kids) is very pro the gender neutral approach and will wax lyrical about the 'damage' us lowly parents cause to society with our stereotyping. She genuinely believes that if boys act like 'typical' boys they have been pushed to by their parents (but of course, it's fine for girls to be tom boys).

We never stopped our son having any kid of toy he took interest in at an early age, which included a toy hoover and brush set, lots of cuddly teddies and female character toys (Sky, Peppa Pig etc), which she loved, but oh how I wish she'd been in Smyths toys with us when, at 20 months old, he stopped dead at the end of the 'pink' aisle, went 'Eeeeeerrrrghhhh!!' and then ran for the Batman section.

Sometimes boys just act like boys. It's OK if they do, it's OK if they don't, but to put the outcome on parents isn't realistic.

But it isn't 'boys acting like boys'. It's boys (and girls) acting in a way that society determines. We are surrounded by subliminal cues as to how boys and girls should behave, from the clothes available in the shops, the adverts for toys, the books they read, the language people use and the behavioural expectations people subconsciously have. From the moment a baby is born, they are bombarded with these cues, whether intentional or not. The only way to truly raise a child neutrally is to hide them away from the world. That would just be cruel beyond belief. Gender is developed by Nurture. Nature has nothing to do with it.

I think the toys of yore were less about aiming to a narrow target demographic, and more aimed at children in general, more fun, creative and less restrictive. It's all about money and the boy/girl/pink/blue division is a large part of that. With Lego you can get the Lego Friends sets which are marketed to girls, or you get Star Wars Lego sets etc, marketed to boys. The more generic Lego sets that are marketed to all children are a bit harder to get hold of. If a child buys a generic Lego set they can have loads of fun creating different things, but if they get a specific Star Wars one, they build it and then are ready for the next kit.

When people talk about "gender neutral parenting" they often seem to mean either letting their dc choose themselves whether to get Lego Friends and/or Lego Star Wars. Or insisting their female dc get the Star Wars and their male dc get the Lego Friends. Whereas I prefer the fun Lego sets where you could be creative and build whatever you like. They didn't come with gendered expectations, they were for all children who wanted to build. The new ones have gender heavily coded into their whole design. Same as a lot of toys do now, and clothes. Even cartoons.

And I think it's no wonder some people think that forcing their boy to play with a doll and not letting him play with a car or whatever, is some kind of progress. I would disagree that is of course. The answer to me is just removing expectations altogether and letting children play with whatever age appropriate toy they want to play with, no matter what their sex. But when the whole industry is built based on gender it can be a difficult one for adults to navigate and it's hard to avoid stereotypes of some sort unless you really try sometimes. It's not just buying for your own dc either, I'd have no problem buying my dd a toy that was clearly aimed at boys. However, if I'm spending £5 on one of her friend's birthday, it's not so easy to avoid the whole gendered thing, unless you either don't mind looking like you're trying to make some sort of parenting point, or get a book (and I love books don't get me wrong, but most children would prefer £5s worth of plastic).

It's like pink. A lot of women will insist they hate the colour pink. But pink is just a colour. Not something (imo) that really warrants such a strong aversion. In reality I think it's not the colour that's the actual problem for most women, it's all the associations that come with it.

Another thing, bringing up a child "gender neutral" and then having your child express a geuinine preference for toys marketed at their sex is not proof of anything. A. They have a society and billion dollar industries pushing them to do just that. B. The ideal outcome of "gender neutral parenting" should not be a reversal of the current gendered expectations, it should be a removal of them. It should be children playing with whatever toys they want to play with, with no meaning placed on that beyond that they enjoy those toys.

It doesn't matter if you are the best parent in the world about gender neutral.

The problem comes in marketing; every time you walk down the aisle in the supermarket, toy store or clothes shop and what you see on television in terms of adverts and other representation. And the other people in your child's life when they walk out the front door; grandparents, nursery, other children (and their parents) and even complete strangers.

By the time they are 3 they are coming out with gendered nonsense they've picked up from somewhere.

DS's come home from nursery and said things like pink is for girls (DHs fav colour is pink) and unicorns are for girls (DH has a thing about unicorns - long story). And his best friend has made nasty comments about him being like a girl for having long hair. I've heard his father making really sexist comments before so I know where it comes from. His grandparents make comments about how much of a little boy he is despite his hair and how he 'looks like' a boy and always did. They also say how much their eldest granddaughter looks like a girl (and some very disparaging comments about their younger grand daughters appearance). And don't get me started on the nonsense my parents came out with.

If you really think you can actively raise a child gender neutral, I'd love to know how you avoid all those things without being a massive unsociable bellend. With the best will in the world you can't avoid it and you have to accept the stereotypes to a certain degree.

How you explain what they are and what they are about is more important in my book. Seeing my sons best friend for crying 'like a girl' and told not to do it in front of his best mate as otherwise DS will think he's 'soft and a wimp' is what I object to more. The poor kid was 4. 4 year olds still cling to their mum and cry cos that's the level of emotional maturity they are at. The idea that my son would think less of him for being a normal 4 year old and that's something to be crushed even though a 4 year old hasn't the social skills to communicate in a more effective way is much more damaging.

And that's the stuff I see NOT being challenged or questioned even in parents who are supposedly raising 'gender neutral' kids. The boys are raised to be entitled to anything but the girls have to be nice and follow the rules and what they are told.

I parented gender neutrally, back in the halcyon days 15 years ago when that just meant I didn't foist stereotypes on my children. Clothes were brightly coloured, baby gear was unisex, toys came from all over the spectrum.

My observation of my teens is that they have their own preferences, but their attitude towards stereotypical behaviour has fluctuated wildly over time. My older boy was a high-energy "snakes, snails and puppy dog's tails" toddler, and at 16 he's still never met a sport he doesn't like but also adores babies. He gets heart-eyes over "tiny humans" and is thinking of studying child development at uni. (He's discounted paediatrics because he'd decided he couldn't deal with it emotionally.)

My daughter was full on pink/sparkles/unicorns at 5, and now at 13 prefers black, shuns anything overtly feminine, and wears combat boots with everything.

My younger boy (11) has always tacked between them - doesn't like stereotypical boy OR girl activities, tends to prefer more "unisex" hobbies (music, Minecraft). He's always the interesting factor for me, because if we'd stopped at 2 I would have seen enough early years gender stereotypical behaviour to have started me questioning my feminism.

My youngest has demonstrated to me that children seem to develop their identities within the family unit and often look for ways to be distinct from siblings as far as their innate personalities will allow. It's like they instinctively go looking for a USP! Gender neutral parenting will give them a wider range of options for being distinct from siblings, both same and opposite sex. They can then choose their USPs based on what suits their personalities.

Gendered parenting, from my observations, can narrow the options considerably. Being one of, say, 4 boys in a family that really pushes very gendered masculinity is going to increase pressure to conform to behaviours that might not actually come naturally, as well as increase competition between siblings.

I'd have no problem buying my dd a toy that was clearly aimed at boys. However, if I'm spending £5 on one of her friend's birthday, it's not so easy to avoid the whole gendered thing, unless you either don't mind looking like you're trying to make some sort of parenting point, or get a book (and I love books don't get me wrong, but most children would prefer £5s worth of plastic).

The rule I've learnt is strictly that when your kid is under 5, you aren't buying for the child, you are buying for the parent.

There are children I'd happily buy a book for, knowing that the parents would breathe a sigh of relief as they have nowhere to put anymore toys and children I know that the plastic tat is the only thing that will be appreciated and a book would go straight in the bin. I find the whole gendered thing is part of the same issue.

It changes as they get older.

My youngest has demonstrated to me that children seem to develop their identities within the family unit and often look for ways to be distinct from siblings as far as their innate personalities will allow. It's like they instinctively go looking for a USP! Gender neutral parenting will give them a wider range of options for being distinct from siblings, both same and opposite sex. They can then choose their USPs based on what suits their personalities.

Gendered parenting, from my observations, can narrow the options considerably. Being one of, say, 4 boys in a family that really pushes very gendered masculinity is going to increase pressure to conform to behaviours that might not actually come naturally, as well as increase competition between siblings.

That's a really interesting observation. It would explain a lot in my family tbh.

I think the toys of yore were less about aiming to a narrow target demographic, and more aimed at children in general, more fun, creative and less restrictive. It's all about money and the boy/girl/pink/blue division is a large part of that.

Oh, hugely. If you can convince people they need to replace everything they bought for their first kid because their second kid has different genitals then you're laughing from a business perspective.

You can raise your child in a wonderfully gender neutral manner until they go to school. Then you have the influence on the other children, older children, the children with older siblings who have had stronger outside influences from a younger age.

They have a strong urge to be like those children and will pick up many odd gendered ideas in the process of working out what it is that they want to be from what is happening around them.
It is a hard battle to fight as you will be unaware of much of it and distracted by bigger issues such as bullying and the children who have learned to stab the child next to them with a pencil to get what they want /because they think they look odd.

Sure, kids pick up ideas from all over the place. And some gendered ideas will appeal and stick, and others won't.

For us, the most interesting conversations in primary happened around the ideas that didn't appeal ("Mummy, my friend told me my purple lunch box is a girl colour, but it's my favourite colour and I'm a boy!"). In secondary, conversations have been much deeper and specifically about the discrepancy between what people say they believe and what they do, in terms of sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. ("Mum, transwomen are men who like women's things so they are born in the wrong b... oh hang on, that doesn't make any sense.")

That last example was my daughter last year, after she made a non-binary puppet for her Textiles class (purely her idea - it was a sparkly pink cat with a masculine name and a rainbow T-shirt) and she was explaining to me what nb & trans meant. She caught herself sounding sexist and I could actually see the lightbulb above her head.

Into the mix - I was born in 1949, female, with a brother and sister no such thing as gender and we were pretty thin on the ground for toys.

All of our most interesting 'toys' were to do with building & making. We used to make aeroplanes, we put in engines and flew them out of our bedroom windows (and the glue was toxic, must have spent most of my childhood high). We had chemistry sets and bought stuff from the chemists to add to the mix.

No one in our family said anything about what was deemed appropriate. We all used to bake with grandma. None of us had any issues or confusion with our sexuality.

I grew up to be very independent and definitely a woman. Do we get too caught up in 'fashionable' theories which end up being very detrimental to our children. Shouldn't our children be challenged - isn't that the way for them to find their individuality

Not read everything but just to add my 2 pence worth, I have tried to raise my girls gender “irrelevant” rather than neutral. They are aware that shops try to push certain types of toys and clothes but they don’t have to pick them if they don’t want them. I do teach them important things however like wiping front to back when they’ve been to the toilet and that they will get periods when they are older.
To be honest though, regardless of a parent’s intentions, as soon as they are with other family members or go to nursery and school, they have other influences anyway. And as far as I’m concerned they need to understand about how the world works in order to navigate it properly. Teach them that other people believe this but you don’t have to - the same as you would with religion or politics or anything else really.

gender irrelevant I really like that. I am no longer gender free. I am Gender Irrelevant!

Yeah, I think this is all boiling down to: "People will tell you lots of things about how you should or shouldn't be, but they're probably talking bollocks. Do you like it? Are you happy? Not hurting anyone? Alright then, you have my blessing."

The goal isn't to turn out gender neutral adults, or people who feel bad about their sex because of the stereotypes associated with it. It's to let people be themselves and not be forced into stereotypes if they don't suit them.

@BlueBooby

I think the toys of yore were less about aiming to a narrow target demographic, and more aimed at children in general, more fun, creative and less restrictive. It's all about money and the boy/girl/pink/blue division is a large part of that. With Lego you can get the Lego Friends sets which are marketed to girls, or you get Star Wars Lego sets etc, marketed to boys. The more generic Lego sets that are marketed to all children are a bit harder to get hold of. If a child buys a generic Lego set they can have loads of fun creating different things, but if they get a specific Star Wars one, they build it and then are ready for the next kit.

When people talk about "gender neutral parenting" they often seem to mean either letting their dc choose themselves whether to get Lego Friends and/or Lego Star Wars. Or insisting their female dc get the Star Wars and their male dc get the Lego Friends. Whereas I prefer the fun Lego sets where you could be creative and build whatever you like. They didn't come with gendered expectations, they were for all children who wanted to build. The new ones have gender heavily coded into their whole design. Same as a lot of toys do now, and clothes. Even cartoons.

Absolutely.

We have three girls, and if people buy them Lego it is invariably Lego Friends (which they love anyway). We spent ages finding decent sized Creative sets, which are fantastic, and the girls spend a lot of time making all sorts of things with those.

We've made sure they have a range of toys - cooker & food sets, building blocks, cars, dolls, soft toys, animal sets, everything really. They are most likely to play with their building sets, or make a dinosaur park.

One of them lives in leggings/shorts & t-shirts, one prefers dresses, and the other likes a good mix of clothes. We're doing our best to let them be themselves. It's incredible how the heavily-gendered opinions get through anyway.

My kids liked playmobil which was good in having a range of stuff and seemed less gendered

We initially tried to raise our son gender-neutral but everything where we live is either pink or blue or grey so we did end up getting an awful lot of blue clothes. I suppose we could have got the pink stuff but to me that would just be the same thing in reverse. Then when my daughter was born we bought a lot of pink stuff just for a change from
all the blue. But whenever we could, we tried to steer clear of blue and overtly boyish things or pink and overtly girly things altogether to avoid pushing a stereotype (or its opposite) on them.

In the end my son naturally gravitated towards traditionally boyish toys, books and clothing. As soon as he could express a preference we tried to give him a choice in what we bought for him and he nearly always chose the “boy” stuff over the “girl” stuff. That might be based on what he has seen other boys doing/wearing/playing with but I guess we’ll never know. If he does want something that is intended for girls, we don’t make a big deal of it.

I don't really think it's possible to do unless you live in total isolation.