Avoiding gender and sexuality 'norms'

[meow]

Is anyone else trying to not impose gender or sexuality norms with their children? I always thought I would raise my children without presumption over what they will enjoy/do due to their gender or what sexuality they may choose later in life.

But phew- I can't believe that already at 3 months old people comment "Ooo look they're holding hands" if my son's hand touches a little girl's hand, or "You don't want to be a sissy in pink".

I didn't realise it would be so hard and I've realised now that I wont be able to shelter him from these cultural norms of our society so I'll just have to balance it in the home. Anyone else trying to do the same and have any tips/experiences to share?

[Nelle]

Haha, Riv LOVES pink, it's his fave colour by far. I suppose it depends on your view re: nature vs nurture. I do believe that girls and guys have some differences, like guys tend to be stronger (my dh is less active than me and heaps stronger), and girls make the babies. So, the anatomical differences.
And I suspect we're even wired a bit differently when it comes to how we interpret the world, how we communicate and stuff.

But you're right, people do place these expectations on our kids. What I'm going to try to do is give my boys (and girls if I ever have any) the opportunity to make their choices based on their interests, not societies expectations. If my son takes a liking to a doll or pink clothing, well, why not? And if someone tells them they can't do something because of their gender, I'll defend my kid's right to pursue their interests.

Okay...I might have rambled, I'm watching Rove at the same time...sorry. :P

[Salsa]

Yes - same school of thought here.
DS is now 5yrs. I think people now leave us alone about it, but for most of his first 4 yrs we got alot of comments. I used to dress him unisex clothes sometimes,)not skirts or love hearts but purple pants etc -coz so much boy stuff is sooo bland and predictable imo) but some people found it too weird. My mum found him a t-shirt wen he was about 2yrs, that said "tough guys wear pink". It was a pink T . Frankly I dont care if he`s a tough guy or not but I appreciated being able to put him in it iykwim.
He started ballet at 3yrs, and we got the 'gay' comments!?*#@$%@! As if the dancing might actually turn him gay!!!
I have let Ds take the lead in what toys he wants. He still plays tenderly with his babydoll, and when visiting a friends place recently he asked for the betty spagetti dolls to play with so I got them out for him. U get anoyed when I hear other people talk to him and they make comments that are gender specific, but I just try to balance that out with how we talk to him or i will even correct them - bluntly or jovial - depending how stupid their comments are.
Oh - and DS has long hair lol. And thats been and still is a problem for some - but its DS choice and he wants long hair.
The only thing we try to be sensitive about now that he is older is directing him away from something if its too girly ( not towards 'boy' stuff, but just away from the 'girls' )and he`s keen on it - but he is at the age where he is becoming away of gender differences too. He is aware that with his long hair and good looks, he doesnt want people to mistake him for a girl.

So, my son is sensitive and creative, he likes fairies and sparkly stuff , but his first choices will without a doubt be for lego and starwars etc - and thats because thats what he`s into by his own choices. If he shows an interest in something (such as wanting long hair, cooing over cute babies or a love of dance - or transformers, thomas tank engine and dinosaurs) then thats what we allow him to try out.

If we have a daughter we will bring her up the same way. I wont be dressing her in lots of pink etc, but if she gets shows an interest in it then we will allow some of that, but I think its great not to start out telling them what is expected of them.

Alot of people just are not comfortable with this kind of approach, but as I see it, males need to be free to express themselves and know who they are , not what they are.
In my opinion a man who is sexy is one who is confident in his sexuality and masculinity.

I hope I`m raising a son who will be a confident man, and a loving caring 'in tune' partner one day.


Sorry if this is quite long - but as you can see, its a subject I have alot of interest and feelings about!

I shoudl add, I read Nelles post above and perhaps I could have said the same thing as short as her - but yea, I agree that males and females are different, but let your little person be who they are going to be, not what anyone else makes you feel they should be.

[~Saram~]

I went into raising DS in the same way and it was easy as we lived away from family and the friends so didn't have them imposing their values. DS is very gender neutral and although his play styles are different to most kids as he has autism he is attracted to both playing kitchens and tea sets with his"dolls" and fiddling with trucks, Yugioh etc. up until recently he would choose pink and purples over blues andreds etc.... however now at school we noticed his gender neutralness added to his social difference so we have been "teaching" him some social norms to stop some of the teasing from other kids.

Our DD on the other hand happily plays with all of her brothers toys, trucks, cars, Bob the builder plays soccer etc but LOVES dolls and chooses pink everytime. Her fav past times are giving her dolls bottles and pushing them in the pram. So there's my little take on two kids raised the same way with the same toys and how each one is so different and also some cons to raising neutral kids in a gender orientated society....

[Epacris]

Yes!

I am really passionate about children choosing what they want to do and who they want to be in their own time without the pressure to be a BOY or a GIRL, they're just KIDS! My DS would have been about 9 months and we were in a charity shop and he started playing with some strings of beads in a dish on the counter. An old lady said, "Oh, you can't play with them, you're a boy, beads are for girls" WTF!!! I was horrified (yeah sure there are probably more important things to be horrified about but it really socked me at the time). He's a baby, what baby would not want to play with some interesting colourful beads?

I wish shops just had children's sections, not a BOYS section and a GIRLS section. Ergh, but it only seems to be getting more and more extreme this gender identification/indoctrination thing?

[maz]

I think this can be taken over a number of things really.

We choose not to have our children christened as we really wanted them to find the religion they felt comfortable with. My boys go to a catholic school and NIkoalus has said that he would like to be christened now so we are supporting him in his decision.

I caught Wilhelm my 6YO breast feeding his dolly the other day...it was such a beautiful sight that it bought a tear to my eye (and Jeds as he has autisum and its such a lifting thing to see that he is tkaing in what I am doing) then today I caught vyolett this a toy hard hat on and a 'hammer' hitting the timber frame with her daddy.

I think we need to allow our children to be able to find their inner selves with out the interferrances of the negetivitive and stereo typing that we see so much of today. They need to be able to explore all the wonderful things life has open to them before they grown to old and have their minds posioned buy the polluted nonsence of todays society.

[Bathsheba]

I'm of two minds about this issue. If you had asked me when I was in my early 20's (before I had children) whether I planned on trying to dismantle gender stereotyping when i had my own children i would have replied with a passionate "yes!!!" but as I grow older I'm starting to see the value in allowing each gender to celebrate their differences. My thinking started to change when i fell pregnant for the first time. My DH is a "sensitive new age man" you see... and up until I fell pregnant I quite liked that he was in touch with his feminine side etc. But as my pregnancy progressed I realised that i bloody well wanted him to toughen up and act like a bloody man! No more of this emotionalism and fainting at the antenatal classes!!! That was meant to be my realm! LOL So... I started to encourage that kind of response instead (affirming his masculinity) and have been doing so for the past 14 years. I now firmly believe that men and women are meant to be different BUT I don't go over the top. I have never encouraged my DD to be a "girly girl".... never drenched her in pink... never raised her to be a delicate princess.... I dressed her in mainly gender neutral clothing... I bought her gender neutral toys like Duplo (She received a Duplo train set for her 3rd birthday). These days i happily allow my boys to play with the few dolls that are lying around the place. I dress them in cardigans. So I guess i have mellowed to believing that polarising gender behaviours is the thing to be avoided rather than neutralising them. By this I mean avoiding the extremes. Regarding my daughter i just don't want her to get too swept up in spending all her money on girly stuff that i think is disempowering... I think it's a real "con" that women 'have' to spend so much time and resources on being feminine. I want my DD to be strong enough to use her $ and time for better things... and to be more resilient and strong... and this is going well because she has managed to strike a good balance in celebrating her femininity yet having all the traditional attributes of strength and resilience (she is heavily into sport to name 1 example). This is largely due to her school environment and policy (she has always attended all girls' schools) where the staff are very focussed on helping girls adopt stronger roles and perceptions of themselves.... plus they don't have the constant judgement of boys which can force girls into the "girly girl" trap as they compete for male attention IYKWIM.

So... essentially I accept that most people are still reliant on the stero-types.... and many people are quite defensive of the value in promoting the stereo-types. But personally I see value in simply communicating to your children that you accept them for what they are and will support their interests as long as they don't harm anyone else or themselves.

The movie Billy Elliot would have to be the most frequently watched and hired film in our house... i think that kinda sums up our attitude Excellent film!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Boys and girls ARE different, no matter what you do. Give a one-year-old girl a soft toy and she'll cuddle it, give a one-year-old boy a soft toy and he'll hit someone with it. Generally speaking, of course. We should celebrate this, not aim to make both the same, this usually involves saying the boy is in the wrong because cuddling is more acceptable than hitting - OK, I agree, I like cuddling more than hitting, but both children are discovering the properties of the toy and using it for what they like best - by design. Men are designed to beat up bears, soft ones or not!

My DS loves cars and trains. He also can put on lipstick and eyeshadow... not well, but he likes putting the brush in the powder and then almost getting it on his/my eyelids. I let him put his own lipsalve on when I'm putting on my facepaint.

DS likes pink... until he realises there's not a girl hiding in the pink! He associates pink with girls, and girls with hugging. He doesn't hug boys. That's not a learned behaviour, that's just him. He prefers to play with the toy workshop than the toy kitchen. However, at home he loads his nappies into the dryer (he likes tumble dried nappies LOL - he does this with ones on the airer, or even dry ones!), loads and unloads the dishwasher (not well, I admit) and pushes the hoover around (while it's turned off). He isn't allowed real tools, so plays with his plastic ones if he's not playing with mummy's kitchen toys.

The expectations I place on DS are that, as a male, he is to "look after" females. I expect that behaviour from all gentlemen, so that ladies don't have to be defended. He is to be polite, kind, considerate and, most of all, himself. He is not to beat others up (unless they start it, or they start it with someone weaker than himself, including with a girl of any size or age). I don't want to influence hobbies (he's a great dancer!), his school preferences, his job preferences, but I do expect him to be a gentleman. He is not to be a lady.

[Bathsheba]

I tend to agree Ryn, when I fell pregnant I was surprised at how defensive I was of my need to be protected.... I felt so vulnerable. Good point.

This reminds me of a funny but true book I saw whilst queued up at our book store: called something like "Porn for New Mums" and featured page after page of gorgeous, hunky blokes doing things like the vacuuming, changing nappies, washing the dishes. Which is telling men that they should consider redefining masculinity to a certain extent... doing house work is not feminising! But caring for your female is! (Being masculine)

[diva det]

interesting discussion
i have boy/girl twins who have grown up obviously exposed to the same experiences and parenting- the ultimate social experiment!!!!

I firmly believe that their interests are inate from my experiences- for instance they both have the same toys to play with. Their toys were never mine or yours- it was always they are ours! Everything from dolls to cars and their levitate to those toys they feel most comfortable with- cars for my son and dolls for my daughter.

They do not have cousins that they see often enough to know what toys are boy//girl toys, nor were they put in child care or hung around with older kids that they mimic.

Their interests have formed through their own decisions and choices and no matter how many different toys they have. My son loves constructions and my daughter likes dressing up. They do play heaps together and make their own games up, but their interests whether i like it or not, are 'typically' gender based.
Now that they are at school, they obviously are influenced by other children, but still they make up their own minds what they like and dont like- and i guess that is more important that what they actually play with.
just my food for thought
odette

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

Gosh, this is such an important question.

Since I fell pregnant and even moreso after giving birth to DD, it's really made me start to question what it means to me to be a woman, and what society expects of you as a woman. It starts straight away when all the newborn clothes are pink and blue and people assume your baby is of a particular gender just from the colour. I haven't worked out how to do it yet, because I want her to understand that her gender doesn't limit her in anyway (she can be a scientist, an engineer or a mechanic when she grows up if she wants), but to also have an appreciation for how special it is to be a woman and to have the ability to create life, to nurture, to raise a family and contribute strong, confident people to the world . . . Then I come back to "What if she doesn't want children?" and I feel confused all over again LOL! I guess I just have to help her come to an appreciate for what her body CAN do, if she wants it to. I also really want her to have understand that women do not have equal status in the world and as women, it's something we must constantly fight against. The plight of women all over the world is our business and we must be concerned. I hope I can show her the illusions of freedom and equality presented to us . . . I want her to be a feminist, for her to have an understanding of herself as a human being and a woman beyond what is expected of women.

[beckles]

Flick Ruby is an anarchist feminist who states "We are not asking men to attone for the sins of the forefathers, we are asking them to take responsibility for the masculinity of the future, we are not asking women to be perpetually aware of their opression but to emerge from it..."
I think she hits the nail on the head with this one!
beckles