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

[minoanmiss]

Once I got done snickering at the contrary nature of children and other humans...

This made me want to find children's books about sparkly self-rescuing princesses. Or, failing that, to write one (with what time, of course). More seriously, this reminds me of the Pink Wars of my high school and college years. The opposite of forcing someone to do something is not to ban them from doing it.

(Another good reason to get the dresses from a thrift store is that when this phase passes they won't be tempted to say, "but you need to wear these clothes that cost so much!)

[conuly]

Children this age tend to be heavily focused on gender and The Rules of Gender. (Imo, it's worst when they first enter preschool or kindy, because now they have a whole bunch of other kids, all converging on a consensus of How Gender Works, and you'll be amazed what they know already.)

This is all very age-appropriate. This child is a girl, she knows she's a girl, and she wants to act like she thinks girls act. If you don't make a big deal out of it it'll ease faster. Think of it like the Bad Words phase (which, incidentally, this kid is running up to - they enter it around age 4, or, as I call it, the "eff you fours") - if you treat using bad words like any other small misbehavior, causing no more comment than "Let's pick another word next time", then there's no fun and they soon start using those words only when appropriate. But if you make a big deal out of it, they use them all the time.

[cereta]

I love this answer, because it starts right in with something that drives me bananas. Parents will say they want a "strong" name for their daughter, and choose a traditionally masculine name. They say they want to be "gender-neutral," when they really mean none of that icky girl stuff. And yeah, the ubiquity of princess stories is annoying, but anyone who dismisses movies like Brave or Frozen is missing the whole damn point.

[xenacryst]

You mean something like this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220289.Do_Princesses_Wear_Hiking_Boots_

Yeah, my take on this letter is that their enforcement of gender neutrality is just as rigid and problematic as society's enforcement of femininity - with the addition of "not only is society's enforcement bad, but we're going to make sure that you think everything feminine is bad, regardless of what it signifies or how you interact with it." Way to stifle a kid, parents.

[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.

[lemonsharks]

I look at this and I go, "Gee, I wonder what the chances are that this (possibly cis) girl might end up with gender dysphoria from having parents whose commitment to 'femininity is oppressive and we must shield our daughter from it' is greater than their ability to cope with their daughter's likes and interests."

[ioplokon]

To me, there are two separate issues. The first is the couple trying to push their ideal of a gender neutral child on a real kid who has her own ideas on how she wants to dress.

The other is that it seems like her preferred outfits + 3 yo coordination are legitimately impeding her movement during some activities, possibly dangerously (like, I do find it a little disingenuous to act as if people regularly go hiking in evening wear... A suit would also be inappropriately restrictive). So I think this is something to address - pink, good; dresses, good; accessories, good but maybe floor-length/oversized puffy dress isn't for hiking and we go with a shorter dress or skirt (which also can be pink!). Basically, there are plenty of dresses that you can stomp around the forest in safely and maybe at three, it doesn't matter so much but idk, I think it's worth it to present some options irt princess-y active wear.

[shirou]

My five-year-old daughter loves pink, girly clothes. Her mother (my wife) was never like that, so it surprised us a bit, but we have no problem letting her be her own person. We just make sure she doesn't feel limited. She likes plenty of "boy" things too and loves playing with her older brother.

I guess the advice about thrift-store dresses for hiking and climbing is okay, but I also think it's useful for kids to learn to dress appropriately for their activity and the weather. You have to wear a jacket when it's cold. You have to wear your boots in the snow. Your plastic dress-up shoes are just for play; you have to wear sneakers when we go on a hike. Kids make ridiculous clothing choices. We let ours choose their own styles, but we consistently enforce the rule that parents set boundaries on which outfits are appropriate for each day.

[liv]

I like this answer a lot. Thumbs up to C&F. I have so many problems with the idea that the answer to sexism is to eschew or even ban anything that might be associated with femininity. I cheered at Is masculinity more neutral than femininity?

I think the mother is relatively sensible here; her concept of gender neutral is refrain from commenting on her appearance and clothing ... to instead focus on skills or interests. And she was willing to support her daughter's fascination with all things pink and girly, understanding that forcing a kid to reflect their parents' tastes is a bigger problem than the fact that society has weird views about dresses. The father sounds borderline misogynist, frankly.

[watersword]

RAISE THE CHILD YOU HAVE NOT THE IMAGINARY CHILD IN YOUR HEAD.

[azurelunatic]

I would have really, really appreciated some more cheap sparkle-dresses when I was a smol.

[lilalanor]

I was the child who liked pink and ballet and Cinderella and dresses etc (okay yes I played Princess but also it involved diplomacy because history nerd child) and so I was somewhat this kid. I did not in fact grow out of it but I did definitely remember being told I was wrong to like those things and I should be want to be a knight, not a lady and I was disappointing.

Which basically parent the child you have and this hit me a lot.

[fred_mouse]

I'm at the frothing at the mouth level of frustration with this bullshit. If one is going for gender neutral, it is so much easier to supply both sides of the clothing/toy binary than to restrict either. As a child of the 70s, I had trucks, dolls, skirts, and overalls. My children of the late 90s and early oughts had a mix of whatever caught their fancy (and lots of op-shop clothing, because they were allowed free choice). I did have people tell me off for some of the choices, but typically only when a let a 'boy' wear 'girl' things. Except for the one who was cranky that the 2 week old wasn't in pink or blue, because how were they to know what to call the baby?