My three-year-old loves to play with a kitchen set and asks for flour every time I make chapatis. I am proud to say that out of all the colours, pink and purple are my toddler’s favourite.
Now if this makes you feel that my Lil’ one is a girl then you have yet to upgrade yourself and start thinking about gender-neutral parenting.
The era where women used to seek out options that would make their girls fairer is far behind us. Now they are out and about looking for ways that would make their daughters smarter instead of fairer. But what do you think triggered this shift? In a lot of ways, gender-neutral parenting has helped society address children as ‘theybies’ instead of boys and girls.
In a society such as ours, we have witnessed the issue of gender and parenting for long. Mothers are expected to do all the chores of their children, while fathers take all the major decisions. We have been conditioned to think and process that if we are hungry, we need to go to our mothers and if we want a new toy, fathers are a go-to!
Some of the pre-defined gender specific notions in the Indian culture include;
Mothers are supposed to look after the children. She needs to cook and clean for them Diapering! Men are too important to take care of that Father’s permission is needed for school picnics, parties and persuasion of hobbies Girls are not supposed to back answer their fathers. This does not apply to their conversation with mothers
However now, right from advertisements and the role of parenting, i.e. division of responsibility between couples to raise children, India is gradually seeing a positive shift of gender-equality in raising children. We are seeing women stepping up and letting their daughters wrestle in the ring or fathers proudly announcing that their son is a chef.
Agreed, we still see diaper ads where women are shown changing nappies and insurance posters where fathers are making the big decision, the fact is – the majority of the millennials are breaking this chain and defining new trends.
But for some sections of the society, we are surely witnessing couples proactively dividing duties so that their toddlers get a holistic development.
Many people would still argue and that is also valid to some extent, “Why fathers are assigned to teach cricket to children and mothers pick up the role of story-telling during bedtime? If parenting is all about gender-equality then why the same stereotypical scenario?
Well both, men and women have been gifted with certain institutional skills which each one of them can do better. While fathers are looked upon as adventurous and carefree, mothers tend to provide a sense of warmth and comfort. Which does not mean that the roles cannot be reversed. It simply applies that genders with natural talent can perform a few chores much better than their counterparts.
To some extent, even brands play a contributory role to support gender equality. You will see a lot of ecommerce websites that have removed the search filters for boys’ and girls’ toys. Likewise, most of the brands have come up with gender-neutral clothes.
Even textbooks have changed the way pictures were depicted and stories have been replaced in the syllabus that makes children think otherwise.
This trend has come slowly and subtly, especially in the Indian society that is so grounded with gender stereotypes and patriarchy culture.
Psychologists believe that children raised with a gender-neutral parenting approach look at the world differently. They are not confined within certain predefined notions and therefore turn out to be individuals who are empathetic towards others. These children are also better learners.
Hence, I am alright if my son cries and expresses his sorrow. My husband and I feel it is okay to let him bring out his feelings. There is nothing like boys shouldn’t cry! After all, we need to come out of the old-woven concepts of ‘How much he earns?’ or ‘Can she cook?’
But it all begins at home. It all starts when children see their parents sharing the work-load and handling different chores.
Being a young urban woman, I strongly believe that even a handful of us take the parent-neutrality aspect consciously and raise children free of conditioned thinking, it will create a ripple effect!