Exploring The World Of Gender-Neutral Parenting

“Congratulations, It’s a boy!”

Or

“Congratulations, It’s a girl!”

This is the first statement parents get to hear from their doctor as soon as a baby is out of the mother’s womb. And even before a child is born, to-be parents and people in their circle are excited to know the gender of the baby. These two examples indicate how much our society is gender-stereotyped. Gender stereotyping begins as early as possible, whether it’s opting for the blue or pink colour of the walls while designing your child’s room or it’s choosing their toys or clothes or even their name. Keeping this in mind, Gender-neutral parenting should also ideally begin as early as possible. First few years are really critical in maintaining gender neutrality. So, parents have to be really careful while navigating that crucial phase of their child’s life as children are profoundly shaped by the early experiences they have in their lives. Gender-neutral parenting aims to oppose all gender stereotypes and creates a space that is free of them. Its purpose is to create a worldview that doesn’t allow societal expectations to dictate who a child can be as they fare better in environments where they are accepted for who they are. 

Tips to maintain Gender-neutral parenting would include:

1. Set your children free of the binary limitations by dividing their gender into two categories i.e. ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine”.This choice is the prerogative of the child to make and should be left to them.

2. Encourage an inclusive environment by veering away from gender stereotypes and raising your child in a  gender-neutral environment. Parents are the role models for their child, so children are usually more likely to follow the gender stereotypes if parents adhere to those. For instance- Motivating your girls to choose home science and boys to take up engineering as their preferred choice of streams to be pursued at the college level as this is what they themselves pursued as students.

3. Avoid choosing clothes with gender-stereotyped phrases. For instance, babies have phrases such as “the princess has arrived” or “Macho man is here”.

4. Abstain from limiting the toys of little girls to dolls and kitchen sets whereas the little boys are made to stick with trucks and legos. Give your child the freedom to play with gender-neutral toys as giving labels to the toys might make them internalize and believe in stereotypical gender roles. For instance, restricting girls to play with the kitchen set and dolls might perpetuate the belief that it’s the moms who take care of the household chores as well as the children, and not dads.

5. Let the child play with STEAM TOYS wherein  S stands for Science, T for Technology, E for Engineering, A for Art and M for Mathematics. These toys are gender-neutral as well as inclusive and  help to teach children to pursue their own interests, independent of their gender.

6. Do away with color coordination wherein everything that belongs to girls is to be either in ‘pink’ or ‘purple’ be it their dress, the walls of their room or even their school bag, whereas boys choice is limited to the ‘blue’ or ‘black’ color.

7. When going out shopping, offer a wide range of options to your child. Refrain from redirecting them to the girls’ or the boys’ section and limiting them to what society thinks is apt for their gender.

8. Use gender-neutral vocabulary by choosing gender-neutral words in your language. Use more gender-neutral personal pronouns such as they, them and their. For instance- Do not say “Come on girls, let’s have dinner.” Instead one could say “ Come on children, let’s have dinner.” 

9. Look for unisex baby names that can work for both be it a boy or a girl. Instead of using ‘Radha’ for a girl and ‘Ramesh’ for a boy, simply find gender-neutral names such as ‘Arsh’ that can work for both whether you have a boy or a girl.

10. Allow them to have hobbies that veer away from gender-stereotypical choices. For instance- asking boys to take up playing football or cricket and girls to take up  cooking or learn classical dance as part of their co-curricular activities might limit their choices to gender stereotypical roles. This might condition them early on that girls should focus on being the perfect marriage material by learning dance and cooking whereas boys need to learn skills which reflect their machismo.

Parents need not only expose the child to gender-neutral toys, clothes and activities that cross gender lines, but also foster thinking that promotes good skills or traits that help in making their child be successful in life irrespective of what society is saying they should or shouldn’t do.  The aim isn’t to create a genderless world but to contribute in making a genderfull one with healthy and equitable adulthoods for everyone. The purpose of gender-neutral parenting is to raise well-rounded individuals who know how to care for each other, take turns while performing their roles and have social values which are valuable for building a better society.