Molly loves being a princess. I mean ABSOLUTELY loves it. Give her frills, glitter and pink and she is one happy little girl. And do you know what I really don’t mind.
She is possibly one of the girliest little girls I know.
A lot is said about gender stereotyping and the shops are full of so called ‘gender neutral’ clothing, but the fact is, Molly loves being a little girl and all that is associated with that.
I will point out here that I never made her this way (well obviously I made her but you know what I mean!). We knew we were having a little girl but I didn’t go out and purposefully buy pink things and I don’t think she wore a dress until she was at least one. Yes, family bought pink babygros and cute little outfits but we certainly didn’t set out to go all girly. Her nursery was a retro combo of turquoise, brown and orange – It works trust me! And she had a plethora of toys of all types – brightly coloured rattles, cute little jelly cat bunnies and train sets. Molly had a complete mix of what could be traditionally called ‘boys and girls’ things.
Despite all this she favours everything...pink. And it doesn’t bother me one bit. She is after all a girl. Some may not agree with this but the fact of the matter is I have two little girls and to me they will be little girls. Unless something changes I’m pretty sure Molly is going to be choosing ballet over the rugby pitch.
Most shops are still split by Boy or Girl sections and although some don’t agree, I like to know where to look for things. Yes, I could choose boys clothes for Molly and Alice, and many of the team do just that, but personally I choose girls clothes. I prefer them.
I don’t always go for pink. I’d happily choose a whole host of colours for Molly but I know what she likes. Alice’s wardrobe is slightly more balanced with a wide mix of colours and styles but still all from the girls sections. Maybe it’s habit, maybe it’s choice, but I choose what I like and more often than not I prefer the girls clothes. There are many boutique brands out there that have a great selection of unisex clothes but, let’s be honest, they are often a tad spendy. £40 on a pair of trousers is simply not for me. I found it easier when they were very little as I believe there were more unisex prints in the baby ranges of high street stores but I did still like a touch of colour – and back then a lot were of the grey or yellow variety.
I’ve come to accept that there is no point me getting Molly dressed. If I choose anything that isn’t pink, or have an element of pink on, she point blank refuses to wear it, even socks! Plus most days the moment she gets a chance she will have changed into her tutu dress, crown and gloves. That’s pretty much her favourite outfit ever and she would wear it all day every day if the opportunity arose. I have never seen a little girl as happy as the day her Daddy walked through the door with a big frothy Tutu for her. That smile said it all and that is exactly why I am happy to let her wear it. It makes her happy and that is the only thing that is important.
I’m being truthful here, I really don’t mind pink and pretty. There is nothing wrong with it. It isn’t as if Molly is surrounded by it. The house is bright and bold and her room only very recently had a splash of pink added to the walls. She’d probably love all out Disney princess but I haven’t yet succumbed to that. I’m sure I will at some point.
And that is another thing. She adores Disney Princesses. The films, the books, the toys. Some say it gives them an unrealistic view of life but personally I say tosh. If 4 year old Molly wants to believe that some day her prince will come then let her. Ok, he may not charge in on a white horse but I really hope she does find her prince in some guise. What mum doesn’t? Besides, I’m pretty convinced she doesn’t believe that if you whistle cute little woodland animals will come and help her with her housework, so let’s keep it in perspective.
Molly loves playing Barbie and it is about the only toy she really does play with. She has always gravitated towards the dolls in the toy cupboard. Alice on the other hand loves her train set and Paw Patrol. Equally she has a new obsession in the past few weeks with her ‘baby’ and carries her doll everywhere. I have not bought them up any differently but they have both chosen the things they like.
I don’t really think that how you are dressed as a child impacts your choices and views later in life. Maybe it does. I’m not a psychologist and don’t profess to be. As kids I was always dressed in pink and my sister was always in blue. We still don’t know why! Maybe my mum wished her first born was a son. After all she was going to call her…Rodney. As adults we are both very similar and I don’t think the colour choices of our childhood have affected us differently. All I do know is that Helen looks back at the pictures and can never quite understand why she was constantly dressed in blue and given a bowl haircut (!)
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m happy to let my girls be girls. And I’m pretty confident that if we had had a boy, Edd would have him on the rugby pitch as soon as he could.
I am completely aware that many people will be in disagreement with me here and as always we would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Images by Anna Clarke Photography.
I love how honest you’ve been here Lottie. It seems a bit of a landmine conversation these days, but here’s my tuppence worth…
Gender identification is after all, a form of identity. And identity is something that our little kiddos develop over time, after many years (and I would argue a lifetime) of experimenting with different colours, looks, clothes, interests.
The only parenting problem I can see here is if a parent enforces a certain identity on their child and doesn’t respect the child’s own choices and expressions.
The fact that Molly loves being a girly girl princess is amazing, she’s identifying with that. If you were to try to ‘gender neutral’ her out I reckon that would be enforcing an identity on her and one she clearly doesn’t want. So bravo mama for letting your little girl be who she wants to be.
And I honestly don’t think it’s as binary as boys will be boys and girly girls. I see it as a spectrum. You’ll have ‘tomboy’ girls and little boys who love pink and prams. I think our jobs as parents is to just let them view the world in as safe a way as possible and to never ever shame them for their choices. Then they’ll feel safe to be themselves.
Whether that’s wearing blue, pink, rainbow, black or golden sequins and regardless of gender.
Thanks Naomi. It is definitely all about her choices and even Edd has had to admit defeat despite his best efforts. I’m sure one day she will change her mind and dress all in black but for now I rather like her tutu obsession! xx
This is so so important. In the argument to allow children to choose something other than the specific gender we allocate them, many seem to forget it’s actually also okay to let them want their specific gender also. Let the child lead. And in that space from birth to when their opinion starts to become clear, why can’t the family choose. The point is to not silence their choice once they start to make it.
Completely agree Kirsty. They will always choose what they like best if you give them all the options x
Cracking post Lottie. As Naomi says, you’re allowing Mollie to be who she wants to be and that’s what being a brilliant Mum is all about.
I have to say, I was at Liverpool Pride last weekend and I saw such a beautiful thing. I hope this link works, because although this must be so hard for the families involved, how amazing is it that they are letting their children be who they want to be too… https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157233778845788&id=717715787
Xx
Also “…most days the moment she gets a chance she will have changed into her tutu dress, crown and gloves…”
Molly is living the dream!! ???
Ha ha. Definitely living the dream! That link is ace. Love it. xxx
Any sort of gender neutral parenting doesn’t mean keeping certain toy and clothing options from your daughter/son, it’s just giving them all the toy and clothing options and giving them the freedom choose. The point is to remove manafactured boundaries. Pink and sparkly things aren’t girly – we’ve just been told they are. I personally can’t bear ‘girls will be girls’ and ‘boys will be boys’ as I think they’re at best sending a very limiting message to children.
If my daughter wants to play with Barbie, that’s great. If my son wants to play with trucks, brilliant. But equally, I’d be happy with the reverse. I want them to be them with all the options open to them, not pushed towards one extreme or the other.
P.s. Not that you are pushing your girls Lottie!
I definitely think it’s about giving them choices. In fact I fear I may have gone the other way with Alice and the poor girl just craves pink. All she wants is a pink bed for her new bedroom despite me planning a lovely mint green scheme!! x
My son is going on 4 and we try as far as possible to be gender neutral in his play – not that its very easy these days. Basically we encourage him to play with what he likes. So he likes using the pink plates and bowls because they are bright and cheery (this horrifies some family and friends), his favourite toys at the moment are the kitchen and tea set. He likes walking round the house wearing a handbag (useful to stash lego and cars in). He loves feeding, changing nappies and putting his soft toys down for their naps. However he also adores dinosaurs, cement mixers and fire engines and other typically boy things. I don’t believe in ‘boys will be boy’s or ‘girls will be girls’ however I do agree that overall they can have a natural leaning to one preference or the other. As the article and a previous commentator said – as long as we are not imposing it on them 🙂 I am very careful to be neutral as I have seen what can happen with some of our friends and family – imposing the pink/princess thing so that now the girls say that the CAN’T do something/play with something because its for boys…. which I find really worrying. I personally love pink, but only gravitated towards it as an adult, as a child my favourite colour was definitely blue!
Love that your little boy carries around a handbag with his lego. Very practical! My friends little boy always favoured the hoover and dustpan and brush. She had high hopes but alas he now seems to have moved back to superhero and trucks. I find it really interesting that although I’ve never told Molly that things are for boys or girls she appears to have picked this up herself. I’m not sure if it is via pre-school and the other children but she will often say things like ‘boys like blue’ which I try to disagree with. I think unfortunately once they are with a wide mix of children they seem to pick up certain views. Believe me, Daddy definitely tries to counter this with loads of star wars lego!! xx
Very interesting. My 11month old son shows no preference yet, although he does have mainly boys toys and clothes because that’s what he’s been bought. I also tend to dress him in blue because it highlights his gorgeous blue eyes! (No worries about dressing him in pink either but it’s not my favourite colour) Having said that, I recently enjoyed choosing some super cute girly clothes for my niece – a lot of it is pink simply because that’s what the shops push. I did find an adorable grey sweatshirt with gold wings printed on the back – I love grey, I think it should appear more often.
Historically boys were the ones that wore pink – it reflected the red of the military uniforms that they would someday wear. Much like baby boys wearing dresses until they were ‘breeched’. Putting girls in pink is a very recent thing, I think society forgets. How odd that it’s gone so far the other way. I’m happy to see just what my son likes in his own time. So far it’s anything noisy and colourful!
That’s really interesting about the pink Kerri. Didn’t know that at all. On another note, where might I find this grey sweatshirt with gold wings? It sounds immense!! xxx
It is an interesting topic, especially with the recent furore over the Gap Kids marketing campaign (https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/aug/01/gap-accused-sexism-social-butterfly-pink-childrens-t-shirt). Let children be children is something I really believe in, they are not a “market” to be divided by gender. Why are choices already being predefined at such young age? Dressing up and make believe are all part of being a child and whether its a little girl wanting to dress like a princess or Batman or a boy wanting to dress like a ballet dancer or Spiderman, its all part of the fun of being a child as they discover who they are.
I also think when a child starts nursery or preschool you can really see how the children influence each other. My niece started her princess obsession just after she started nursery but she still liked to carry her cars and diggers around but now uses a sparkly pink handbag 🙂
Pre school has definitely made Molly more divided in her thoughts on what should be boys or girls things. She always favoured pink and dolls before but has become even more obsess since being at pre school. Completely agree with let children be children though. Such a great sentiment xx
Really interesting discussion. I come across a few strong campaigners against pink Lego, make up etc as part of my job and I’ve never really understood why discriminating against a particular colour group has been helpful and gets me rather cross. On the other hand I meet teenagers struggling with who they are and not feeling comfortable with the gender they are ‘supposed to be’ and I can’t help but wonder whether some of the girls who no longer want to be a girl would have been saved a lot of heartache and a huge battle if they’d grown up without the word ‘girlie’ being assigned to everything they had no interest in. I don’t think it’s ok that young people have somehow grown up feeling that they don’t measure up to some scale (Same applies to the word boyish) I agree with the comments above that it’s all about letting the child choose and great that Molly finds so much excitement in dressing up and dolls. Holly was quite similar and Niema does love to dress as a princess but is obsessed now with Lightning McQueen and Harry and his dinosaurs and so generally everywhere we go we take (and spill) a bucket of cars. I guess I see that my job is to make sure she never feels LESS worthy of the title of a girl because she loves mud, climbing and cars and that my boy is not girly because he likes unicorn things and dancing – he is as much a boy as his football mad friends. (Like Alice is no less a girl than Molly) Not that am anywhere near banishing the labels ‘boyish’ and ‘girly’ from my vocabulary but I do feel these terms have a lot to answer for and it would be more helpful to get rid of these and embrace the pink, the frills, the dolls, the cars, the trucks, the fake beards (because these can be wonderful dressing up too, thanks to my knitting mum) and let anyone play with whatever they wish without being scaled according to how close to their gender stereotype they are.
Doh. Running late for work now!
Apologies for the lateness Amanda. It’s really interesting getting your viewpoint from your work experiences. It’s such a tough one and I do try to be careful not to say that things are for girls or boys. I just go with what they like. On the flip side my younger brother spent most of his early years dressed in pink castoffs and wearing ballet tutus (he had 3 older sisters) and yet despite being surrounded by barbies and stylvanians all he did was hammer the walls with a toffee hammer my grandad gave him! He seems to have ended up quite balanced albeit with a vast selection of embarrassing photos to follow him around!! x p.s. loving the knitted beards!
Finally someone talking sense! Let them be children, girls, boys, pinks, blues. I would much rather channel my energies into providing a strong positive female role model to my (currently imaginary) daughters so that they felt empowered to make their own choices as they grow up and follow whatever dreams they may have, or to my son so he realises what a force to be reckoned with women can be, than get hung up on what colour they like or what clothes they wear. I regularly buy some clothes from the girls section for my little boy (a Breton striped jumper from Zara that was in the ‘girls section’ regularly attracts a lot of compliments!). This is just yet another tally on the Mum-Guilt card and I am not taking it. Great post! X
Strong positive role models are the way forward Sian. In complete agreement. xx
Oh no I’m one of the ones with a problem…I am all for letting children make the choices but what I do hate is shops making those decisions for children and I do think it’s worse for girls. I think girls at the moment love pink because in a lot of shops pink is the choice they are given. The boys section has all sorts of colours but if you take a step back say in M&S the girls side and look it really is awash with pink. I’m a child of the 70s so looking back at photos you won’t see me in pink. Mum says she doesn’t even remember it being available. I know two little girls that love star wars and super heroes. Their mum has to get these from the boys sections mainly. It didn’t used to bother them but now they are getting older they are getting a little embarrassed of going to the boys section. There are rarely any superheroes or star wars outfits in the girls area. H&M finally put a star wars t-shirt in the girls section last year…but felt the need to add glitter! I just hate girls being pigeon holed…and don’t get me started on Lego! I love sparkle make up and shoes and dresses but I made those choices…not some marketing exec
It’s not a problem at all Helen. I completely agree about the fact that shops are making the decisions. I actually can’t stand the glittery embellishments to everything in many stores and don’t buy Molly those at all. I love Boden for the colours and always raid Little Bird for those same nostalgic clothing items you mention. I like pink as a colour for Mollys clothes but think some places just go a bit overboard with the additions and patterns. Love that you mention Lego. The girls have the vastest collection (ok, it’s Edds really) and love everything from star wars to lego movie. I love that now they are creating their own things. Although, you guessed it, Molly loves the Princess lego the best! xxx
I’m really pleased you’ve written this post Lottie as it’s been playing on my mind for a while now. Hector by contrast is as much as a ‘boy’ as per traditional gender stereotypes as you can imagine. He is obsessed with anything that moves, trains, cars, bikes, lorries; the list goes on! He has a fleet of vehicles which go with us everywhere and Ste and I regularly scratch our heads as to where this fascination with cars comes from. It’s certainly not something we’ve forced on him or really encouraged so it’s interesting that he’s come to find this passion on his own. He’s so enthralled by the things that Ste and he spent a good 15 minutes reading car magazines in the supermarket whilst I whizzed round grabbing bits and pieces. He’s not even two! Whether this love for cars will last, I don’t know we’ll just have to wait and see.
That said he adores his cuddly toys and especially animals and his eyes light up whenever he sees one or the other (complete with a chuckle too). I guess the thing I’ve learnt most is that kids develop their own identities and all we can do is to support them as they grow xx
I love that they stood and read the car magazines whilst you did the shopping!! It’s so funny isn’t it. Maybe they pick up on things subconsciously but I think you and I have discussed before that some things are just ingrained in them and part of their personality and nothing you do can change that. Embrace the cars Lolly, at least you get to do your shopping in peace! xx
Another parent of a girly girl here. My daughter is18 months and like you Lottie, I haven’t encouraged her to be girly. She has a whole range of all types of toys, she just prefers the girl stuff. In fact, when she started nursery they commented on how much she loved baby dolls. I was really surprised as she didn’t have any at home – I think they’re creepy!
It’s so important to let your children be who they want to be. I would never try to push Zoe to like things that she’s not interested in just because I want her to, or think she should, like them. But equally I won’t discourage her from being interested in the things she expresses a preference for. She can be as pink and sparkly as she likes! And if she decides later that she wants to be a tomboy, that’s okay too. 🙂 x
Molly was the same with the dolls Tracy. I think we only had one soft toy one at home but at playgroup they were the only thing she wanted to play with. And I’m talking the creepy realistic looking ones!! xxx
Totally agree with you Lottie, just let them play with / wear what they like and if that happens to be really girly stuff then so be it. My little girl is only 2 and has a wide range of toys on offer, not only ‘girly’ things but lately she is showing a strong preference to playing with her baby doll and pushchair and although she has a range of different coloured bowls and spoons she always wants the pink ones at the moment – totally her choice and not something I have even thought of pushing. As a little girl I was much like Molly and loved everything pink and ‘girly’ – my mum didn’t push that on me in fact I think she often wished I’d wear something other than pink but I refused! It’s just the way I was. I really think just let kids be kids and decide for themselves and don’t make it an issue either way! Obviously it is a bit silly that the shops do divide things so much into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ categories but it doesn’t mean you can’t ignore that and buy whatever you want to – we also have mens and womens sections as adults and marketing in general is driven in completely diferent ways towards men and women – it’s a much bigger thing than just kids toys. I also see good examples of toy shops NOT gender stereotyping though – for example I was looking at the toy pushchairs on the ELC website the other day and they have both a pink and blue version and photographs of a little boy playing with the pushchairs, so I guess they are making an effort to not make certain toys ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’ which is a good thing. x
Yes but why do they have to make things pink or blue! That’s the bit that enfuriates me. It’s OK you can have a pushchair as it’s blue. Just make them in lots of colours not one for boys and one for girls it’s nonsense. I really want zach to have a dolls house but they are all pink…make one that looks like a house!
I do know what you mean but to be fair, the photograph is of the boy playing with the pink one and the girl playing with the blue one… I kind of think they can’t really win because they’ve obviously made a blue one so that boys might feel it’s not ‘just for girls’ so I think it’s supposed to be a positive thing! But of course equally if a boy wanted the pink one or a girl wanted the blue one that’s fine too which is what they’ve depicted on the photograph.
Have a look at the Hape dolls houses Helen. They are great (if a tad pricey) https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=dolls+house+hape&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=48450355818&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8115837564407550413&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_50ne61vu2g_b x
Ikea also tends to be great for not having pink / blue toys, everything we’ve got from there is either wooden or red/green/yellow, those kind of colours! Maybe I am being a bit blind to it but actually aside from my daughter’s toy pushchair which is pink I think every other toy she has is a mixture of primary colours, I’ve never found it difficult to avoid choosing a ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ toy. She’s only 2 so perhaps the gender divide becomes more prominent as they get older… x
Thank you for writing this Lottie. As mother to a very strong headed 3 year old there is no way I could try and force my choices etc on to her – she would have none of it! She is very much a girly girl and I haven’t raised her like this at all, nor have I pushed boys stuff on her in a bid to try and show her that she can like boys stuff too, I’ve just let her choose what she wants! Like your daughter she LOVES Disney Princesses but I sometimes feel like people (other mums) roll there eyes at me when she’s out and about in her princess dresses thinking “There’s another mum who thinks she has birthed a princess”, thinking that I’ve somehow pushed this on her because she’s a girl. But then maybe that’s just my issue! It’s all about letting them be who they want to be and supporting them and not making a big issue out of it. I think shops do need to stop being so gender specific but I sometimes think the boys section in clothing is just as bad, if not worse than girls. A sea of blue, red, cars, superheros. My nephew loves pink but when looking for some clothes for him for his birthday the only pink thing I could find was a Ralph Lauren shirt! Too pricey for me!
I think they will always just choose what they like Lucy, no matter what we give them/dress them in. I wouldn’t let it worry you. There are plenty of other kids who happily walk around in a spiderman outfit or yesterday at the park it was a dinosaur! Kids will be kids and so long as they are happy it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. xx
Really interesting discussion. I think it is frustrating that toys are manufactured in either pink or blue, when they could just be yellow/green/red etc. At the very least it is frustrating that if you do have children of both genders and they refuse to play with their brother’s bike because it is blue or pink. As a child of the late 80s and the middle of five kids ( 3 girls 2 boys) we were often dressed in matching tracksuits that my Mum made from material she picked up in the local market – my favourite was navy or green and the pattern matched for both us boys and girls so we all had eachother’s hand me downs. We also wore my Dad’s old T-shirts to bed and two of my sister’s were given bowl haircuts because they refused to let my Mum brush their hair and she couldn’t bear the tears so they had short hair for years. Things were very gender fluid because you wore what you were given to wear and you played with what you were given to play with I suppose, regardless of whether it was a ‘boy’s toy’ or a ‘girl’s toy’.
I loved playing with my barbies and also loved putting my dolly on the doll’s seat on my bike and pretending to be a Mummy, but my favourite was being a butcher and setting up a butcher’s shop (we used soil as minced meat and delivered bags of the stuff to my neighbours gates) I was also an amazing explorer and inspector (inspired by inspector gadget).
As a first time expecting Mum, it has been frustrating that few of the newborn clothes/equipment are gender neutral – bar the white only choices! I’ve picked up a little grey and white set with elephants which I thought was perfect, only to be told by my Mother in Law that it was very ‘boyish’ – I totally disagree and love it all the same. xx
I’m a day late to this discussion, but I was so pleased to see your post Lottie. My little one is only 9 months, but I already strive to make sure her wardrobe is balanced, both with colours and types of clothes (there are plenty of dresses but also plenty of leggings and t shirts in non-“girly” styles too). My mother refused to let me have a party dress until I was quite a few years old (I don’t remember the exact age) – I was dressed in boiler suits etc. Apparently I once asked if I was a boy when I was younger?!! I’m determined not to be quite so militant, but definitely up for choice. I would really really like to start a campaign, or petition or something, that does not distinguish between boys and girls clothing in stores. I would really like to see it all mixed together, the pink and glittery along with the super heros and trucks etc. I think it would help children feel much more normal about their choices. I get incensed when I receive clothes emails from children’s shops, mainly the upmarket ones I will add, that show a great balanced selection for boys, with neutrals and strong colours and so much variety in styles, and then the girls’ section is entirely frilly dresses in pink with hair clips and the like. I am almost on the verge of emailing them to complain I am so distressed!!!!! I definitely agree with allowing the child to make a choice. A girl can be “girly” but they don’t have to be, likewise boys. And just to add, I read an article a while ago (I don’t remember which, very unhelpful!) that says there is something genetic about children’s predispositions to toys. Apparently, no matter how gender neutral the upbringing, it is very normal for girls to gravitate towards princesses etc and boys to like all the cars and trains. I seem to recall it was something about the brain. Clearly not all children, but i thought it was interesting nonetheless. Thanks for the great post!
Annie, I think I read the same article too and also how it is genetic from your parents and how they were – which is probably one and the same thing. If Molly is anything to go by I’d say it’s true. She loves tiny toys (me and my sylvanians) but also being thrown around (rugby playing Dad)!!! On the clothing front perhaps one day the shops will succumb and mix everything together. Who knows! xx
Late to join in, but I am happy to read this! The sad part for me is the feeling that I need to defend my girls when they wear pink. I feel like people see girls enjoying pink and sparkles and are disgusted bc it has historically represented the female gender… and my pink-loving children happen to be females. My wardrobe is black and gray! Lol ? I know nothing about ballet, but they drag me to classes twice a week & remind me so I won’t be late! I have never pushed gender anything on my girls- they even have gender-neutral names! They love pink and all things dainty and delicate… As a result, my son is surrounded by pink. He doesn’t care for it, but he doesn’t consider it girlie either. He loves anything with wheels, regardless of color. We are doing a lot of pink these days, and until someone objects, I’m going with it!
Thanks for sharing!