gender neutral

before i had children, i had some serious opinions about them. Opinions like kids shouldn't be at the movies, they should be given sleeping pills and muffled when on an airplane.... you know, that sorta thing. I also swore that if i ever did have kids, they would be brought up gender neutral. down with the pink and blue, up with the green and yellow!

Then i gave birth to ruby. before she was born i put a moratorium on pink things, the nursery was earth-tones, stroller was black, and car seat was black too. The only things that were pink were bought for us, although most people who knew me knew to try to find things in anything but pink. At first it seemed to work, Ruby loved her overalls, she loved her duplos and her trains and her soft toys. Ruby also didn't seem interested in playing with dolls or babies. It appeared we were on our way to gender neutrality! so easy peasy, and we didn't have to be too wacky nazi-esque about it for it to take hold. what was all the fuss??

Then the shoe dropped. Ruby wanted to only wear skirts, no trousers. Ruby declared that her favorite colour was pink. Ruby fell head over heels in love with the Disney Princesses and slowly stopped playing with her trains and cars. It seemed no matter what we did, Ruby's personality was to be girly, and we couldn't and ultimately wouldn't fight it. We decided to step back and let it rip, we didn't want to force boys toys on her, it would not be fair. If we were going to have a girly girl, we may as well embrace it and let her character show.

Next comes Esme. We didn't fight the pink as much, it seemed to us that it might be a losing battle. Again, we let Esme play with what she wanted and did not only buy girl toys for her, instead buying whatever she seemed interested . Amazingly, it went differently. Since she could talk, Esme has told us that she is a boy, wants to be the boy characters in her favourite shows, wants to play with cars, trains, and her favourite colour is blue. Esme still likes her playmobile doll house and some disney princesses, but is definately more of a tom-boy than Ruby ever will be. It is Esme being Esme, simple as that.

To be honest, i do think gender neutrality did work on both girls, to a point. Both of our girls have learned that there are no toys that are just boy-toys, or girl-toys. They learned they had a choice, and that as girls they shouldn't be pigeon-holed into having only pink/girly things. Truthfully, Ruby is more girly than Esme, but still not over-the-top girly. She loves riding her bike, playing in the garden, using her RC car, building things, and is still not very interested in dolls or babies. She much rather do drawing or crafty than get out her princess toys. Esme loves her Cars and Diego, but she still loves to wear her Rapunzel. This is neutrality in the best sense; Ruby and Esme know anything is an option. What didn't work was us trying to push either girl into a personality that wasn't theirs to begin with.

I do see other little girls who are brought up with stereotypical gender roles, and i cringe. How could someone put such limits on someone they love? But then again, there are still people out there who think whites are superior, or that homosexuals are going to hell, so i guess i shouldn't be surprised.....