Dear Care & Feeding: We're raising our child gender-neutral but she only wants pink dresses

[minoanmiss]

Where did we mess up?

My husband and I have a frequent disagreement on our 3-year-old and her love for dresses and all things pink! For the first two years of her life, she was constantly mistaken for a boy because she wore gender-neutral clothes. We direct her towards books and other media that do not represent traditional gender roles (no sparkle princesses!). We ask friends and family to refrain from commenting on her appearance and clothing, if they can help it, and to instead focus on skills or interests. However, our daughter adores the color pink, insists on wearing dresses, and is currently obsessed with accessories. I am fine with this, though I hope it will be a phase.



After a few battles about wearing her sole pink dress when it was dirty, my daughter and I did some online shopping together and she chose a few more dresses to order (all of them were pink, obviously). My husband is unhappy that I encouraged her obsession by purchasing the dresses and letting her wear some of my old jewelry. He gets annoyed when dresses get tangled while climbing a rock or running and says that dresses and accessories aren’t suitable for doing most things. I appreciate his commitment to raising our daughter without gender stereotypes, but I also want to encourage her to make her own choices. I feel like if we push back too hard on her love for dresses and jewelry, it will backfire, and she will only become more obsessed! Help!


—Pretty Annoyed With Pink

Dear PAWP,

It often seems to be the case that eschewing “traditional gender norms” involves identifying things that are coded as girly or feminine as bad. The argument against “sparkle princesses” is typically that they teach girls to aspire to unrealistic standards of beauty, or promote the idea that they should be looking for Prince Charming to come save them. The same argument could be made for encouraging boys to climb rocks and run, while discouraging them from practicing nurturing with baby dolls and stuffed animals.

Pink, puffy dresses should not be the only option available to girls, nor should they be for girls exclusively. However, that doesn’t mean that something is inherently wrong with the garments themselves. Furthermore, I think you’re missing the blatant sexism in “dresses and accessories aren’t suitable for doing most things.” I wear dresses and accessories nearly every day, as do millions of people of varying gender identities across the globe; I assure you, we do “most things” with ease.

It seems to be that the goal for shielding a child from gendered clothing and activities would be to allow them to define their identity without having it assigned to them by their parents and society at large. But the “gender-neutral” clothing you have selected has led to your daughter being misgendered for a reason, and that’s because what we consider “neutral” in terms of gender often defaults to a masculine norm. “Boys clothes” are for everyone. “Girls clothes” are for girls. Additionally, there are many games and activities that can be played in dresses and even heels, so that these “girly” clothes are considered impractical suggests that the “gender-neutral” things you are choosing for your daughter to do may also fall along the lines of what would usually be labeled “boy stuff.” Is masculinity more neutral than femininity?


Also, you’re worried that trying to direct her away from pink princess dresses will only make her like them more, but what’s the big deal if she does? Are you of the opinion that tulle skirts are inextricable from a damsel-in-distress worldview? Is this just fear that your daughter will have starkly different interests from you guys? Patriarchy is the enemy. Misogyny. Discrimination. And while glittery dresses and baubles are used as tools of these systems at times, they are not themselves at the heart of what stands between your child and the sort of liberated existence you want for her. To free her from dress-wearing as an obligation is noble; to code dresses as some sort of deplorable relic of a time gone by is just out of step with reality.

Without saying it intentionally, it seems as though your version of gender-neutral is casting a negative light on traditional femininity as opposed to the ways of thinking that prescribe it as mandatory or inherent.

Go to Goodwill and get your daughter some ruffly, puffy dresses that she can wear as she climbs trees without worry over replacing something expensive if she gets them messed up. Trim the dress so it’s not too long, put some shorts under it for ease of mobility, and get her some sparkly sneakers so she can complete the look and run around safely. Talk to her about gender norms, and why it’s so important that she doesn’t buy into the myth of “girl stuff” and “boy stuff.” Surround her with images and stories of dynamic women of diverse backgrounds—including those who serve high femme looks in dresses and the ones who prefer suits and hard-bottomed shoes, and those who are just as likely to show up in either. To quote the singer india.arie, “It’s not what a woman wears, but what she knows.” Refocus this project. Good luck to you all.

Comments

[ex_flameandsong751]

My take as a transgender person is that it's just as wrong to enforce gender neutrality as it is to enforce rigid gender roles. Additionally, I am really sick of "woke" cishet "allies" pulling shit like this because this sort of thing always ends up getting blamed on trans people**. WE DID NOT ASK YOU TO HELP OUR CAUSE IN THIS ASSHOLIC MANNER, HMKAY.

**Most of the people I've interacted with who are raising their kids gender-neutral are doing so from the perspective of "I want my kid to tell me what gender they are when they're old enough to have a concept of gender identity." Which like, I'm not disagreeing with necessarily on principle (nor do I feel like everyone should HAVE to do this to be a "woke" parent, since most people are cis I think it's OK to start off with the pronouns correlating to biological sex and if the kid tells you something different THEN you change pronouns and help with transition and so on). There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to do it and if your kid wants to like sparkle princesses and you're acting like this is the worst thing ever, YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE.

[cereta]

Sparkle princess are awesome, especially Princess Twilight Sparkle.

[ex_flameandsong751]

I'm a dude and I love sparkle princesses, including Princess Twilight Sparkle.

(Which is part of what bugs me about the parents enforcing "no pink, no princesses". Boys can like that stuff too and it doesn't send a good message to act like that sort of thing is just for girls and thus girls shouldn't like it because sexism.)

[fred_mouse]

^This. Son is now in their twenties, still loves MLP, adored pink (but not dresses) as a child, and has at least one dress in their wardrobe now.

[ex_flameandsong751]

This makes me smile and is the sort of cheering up I needed today, so thank you for that. (And thank you for supporting your son. My relationship with my mother is... less than stellar... so it's heartwarming to hear stories of people who support their kids.)

[liv]

I sort of agree with you, but I don't think the problem of clueless cis people misunderstanding gender politics should be blamed on Black anti-racism activists. Cis people of all races can be flaily and anti-helpful, but it's nothing to do with being "woke" in scare quotes.

It sounds like the parents in the letter have in fact gendered their daughter (presumably based on biological sex given they talk about her being "mistaken" for a boy when under 2). They use female pronouns and refer to her as a daughter; their idea of gender neutral is not about waiting until she's old enough to express a gender identity. It's about treating her as a person, not an ornament. Which I hope would not cause any harm or blame to a trans kid either, but I agree that the overreaction to liking sparkly princess stuff is a problem.

[ex_flameandsong751]

I don't think the problem of clueless cis people misunderstanding gender politics should be blamed on Black anti-racism activists

I didn't say that.

1. The word "woke" and "allies" was used in sarcasm quotes.
2. The word "woke" and "allies" has been applied in a broader sense than anti-racism activists.

[adrian_turtle]

How did race get into this at all? I'm not seeing any connection at all.

[liv]

Using "woke" in scare-quotes to mean, ridiculous self-righteous posturing, implies that Black people who are conscious of racism and trying to mitigate it are engaging in self-righteous posturing. It's a term from African-American Civil Rights activists. Why pick the AAVE term as a pejorative? "Self-righteous" is a perfectly good word.

[adrian_turtle]

Oh, I'm sorry. I hadn't recognized the connection to AAVE. I thought it was just a social justice warrior term.

[ex_flameandsong751]

As I said to you in my reply, the word woke is being used outside of the context of anti-racist activism now. It had nothing to do with race when I posted it in my reply. "Self-righteous" is a perfectly good word, and perhaps I should have used that, but that was the first one that came to mind.

My country is burning down right now. I am firmly on the side of the left and was into activism before a lot of you were born. Arguing with me over semantics isn't really going to accomplish anything. If you want to assume I'm some sort of racist (and all white people are, and it's something we have to unlearn), then by all means, go ahead and think that, but I've already given an explanation of why I said what I said and you arguing with me is not accomplishing anything; you could invest that sort of time and energy in things like calling your local Congressperson (if you live in the States) or things that will actually help people in the States. You are coming off self-righteous now with the language prescriptivism, and I assume I hit a nerve because I mentioned "cishet allies", which sounds a lot like tone policing a transgender person TBH.

I'm done having this conversation now. Have a nice day.

[rosefox]

I'm a nonbinary person raising a child without gender limitations. We used neutral pronouns from birth but said that until the kid expressed a preference, adults could use whatever pronouns they wanted. (This made dealing with our family a lot easier.) We provided an abundance of clothing in all sorts of colors and styles, and sturdy "boy" shoes in neutral colors (because "girl" shoes for kids are often absolutely terrible and offer no support whatsoever). We sat back and waited.

Said kid is now nearly five and firmly in the "I'm a THEY" camp, with no apparent interest in anyone's gender; they refer to all people, animals, and toys with they/them pronouns. (They once called Gramma "herm", which I love unreasonably.) They love wearing sparkly twirly dresses and are insisting on growing their hair long. They also happily put on a t-shirt and "boy" shorts (because "girl" shorts are twice as short! why are there booty shorts for toddlers!) or a comfy cotton dress and bike shorts to go to the playground. Mostly they like spooky things like witches and ghosts and monsters. Adults still use gendered pronouns for them—I enjoy that one of their teachers says "she" and another says "he"—and it just rolls off them, so we correct occasionally but don't stress it. Gender just... isn't a thing in their world.

Two of our friends raised their kids the same way. Both of those kids have now indicated cis gender identities but have no apparent attachment to a particular presentation. I think it does make a difference that those kids, and my kid, all have nonbinary parents or close relatives; the gender binary ends up being a thing they sort of vaguely heard of once and isn't very relevant to their actual lives, and the parents understand the difference between "we make room for all gender expressions" and "we shaved off every possible bit of genderedness and dress our child only in beige".

That said, see my comments above about the absolute uselessness of so much "girl" clothing. I don't blame any parent who sees "boy" clothing as functional (and therefore appropriate for all children) and "girl" clothing as nonfunctional (and therefore appropriate for no children). We do a lot of shopping at Old Navy and Target, and the difference is stark. I definitely think the LW and her husband need to examine why exactly they're doing this and for whom, and support their child being who she is without being terrified of her interest in feminine things, but I also get how a first-pass attempt at gender-neutral parenting might end up as enforced masculinity. I'm glad the LW wrote in and could be set on a better path.

[liv]

I love this summary of your parenting philosophy! And I love that your kid finds gender not very relevant, but doesn't hate anything that might possibly be considered feminine.

Also I like the idea of steering a kid towards practical rather than impractical clothes, but making it specifically that, not banning bright colours or pastels, not banning sparkly things and accessories.

IME most three-year-olds, regardless of gender identity, love sparkly puffy dresses and jewellery and makeup. A lot of cis boys get that impulse squashed, whether it's parents saying 'don't be silly, dear, that's for girls', or school and peers enforcing gender rules, or even just picking up gender norms from media. Excluding girls as well from age-appropriate, ridiculous tacky impractical clothing doesn't actually make things better.