Importance of Gender-neutral clothing for boys and girls

Pink is for girls and blue is for boys! We all have grown up hearing these things all our life. In fact, we are so well trained that while buying clothes for our kids we automatically love pink and purple for the little girls and blue and deeper shades for boys. However, when I was blessed with a daughter almost 8 years back, I had decided that I will raise my daughter in a gender-neutral manner. As much as we loved the glitters, princess, pink shades we also introduced the blue and greens along with spaceships and dinosaurs prints that are more focused on boys. We all have seen and lived the stereotypes but as a parent now we are ensuring gender-neutral clothing for boys and girls in our house. Today in this post I will be talking about why we need to ensure kids choose gender-neutral clothes and how it helps in breaking the stereotype. So, what is the stereotype that we see when it comes to kids’ clothing? Well, I have noticed gender distinctions by color, prints, and style in day-to-day clothing.

Gender discrimination has been part of our society for a long-long time. A boy can do this and a girl can do that. Over the years and the gradual progression of society, this has still become limited to the rural and uneducated populations in most cases. But clothing is something that still gets discrimination against.

WHY?

Back in the olden days, most families will dress the kids neutrally. In fact, kids’ clothing was repeated and reused by many kids in the family without any gender discrimination. Girls’ clothes would be worn by the boy and vice versa. But this stereotype is followed by people quite a lot these days. When we gave birth to the daughter, we for sure knew that our household won’t see such stereotypes and we will let the child shine the way he or she wants to.

My husband and I appreciate the self-expression, creativity, and individuality of our kids. We accept their choices and things they want to wear in clothing. Our daughter has always loved comfort over fashion and chose to wear simple boys’ t-shirts during her early childhood and we were happy with her choice. She doesn’t like wearing typical Indian outfits for girls like lehenga, salwar kameez, and the likes of it and we are good with that too. It’s all about letting your child make the choices and as a parent we support them. After all, it’s about their individuality.

Gender-Neutral Clothing and its benefits

Sustainable Idea- Buying and sharing gender-neutral clothes in the family is a sustainable idea to avoid too much buying in childhood. In the move towards a more circular economy, the ideal option is to keep them in use for as long as possible, which is much more achievable when swapping or selling.

Enjoy a wide array of clothing- This has helped my kids a lot. We buy certain kinds of T-shirts with common prints bit different colors and this way both my son and daughter are able to exchange and wear. My daughter loves blue color and to our happy surprise, my son loves wearing bright reds and pinks. So, we love to dress both of them in all sorts of colors and exchange clothes. This also helps them explore what looks best on them and in which color they feel more comfortable.

Kid’s individuality- When kids get to choose their clothing and color of their choice it lets them open their own creativity and idea of fashion. They feel more comfortable in whatever they wear and are not forced to wear certain kinds of clothes.

Saves money- Well having clothes that both my kids can wear helps us in saving a bit of money too. Both my kids share a love for cool T-shirts and suspenders. So, it becomes easy for us to buy things accordingly that both of them can wear and enjoy wide varieties as well. We love to explore colors of their choice and liking irrespective of gender.

We as parents strongly believe that kids do much better in life when they are accepted the way they are. And in this whole process, our objective is not to eliminate gender and its importance. We are just aiming to eliminate the gender-based oppression, inequalities that happen due to genders, and also violence at times. The time has come when society needs to create a safe environment for children today so that they become happy and strong adults in the future without any stigma.

And when it’s about clothing, give children the option to choose from. Let them decide if they like pink or purple or blue. If they like a princess, a frog, a superhero, a shin Chan or any other character on their T-shirts. Don’t make them decide basis the gender they are from, tell them to explore what their heart feels happy in. The whole idea of gender-neutral clothing is to embrace the whole spectrum of colors, styles and tones so let your child find his or her rainbow of colors.

This post is part of #causeachatter by Blogchatter.

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