Parenting Outside of Gender Stereotypes

Does anyone else die a little inside when family sends you super gendered stuff even though you’ve discussed your aversion to it.? I don’t mind dressing my daughter up and letting her serve high femme on occasion but MY GOD, “little girls” clothes suck! They are so short and tight and for no reason! I’ve gotten to a point where I’m no longer accepting these gifts just to be polite, I’m selling or donating anything that makes me cringe.

We avoid using “boy(s)” and “girl(s)” in our everyday language and say kids or babies instead. But how do you handle it when others constantly use those terms to talk about your kids?

I need to just throw some feeling out somewhere.

We have two boys, one born a month ago. Another baby has been born this week (my sister in law’s niece, so our cousins cousin) - a girl.

I’m so fed up of this attitude that girls are like more precious/special/more delicate, the family are talking about how the other girl cousins will love her and they’ll ply as they’re growing up.

Like - is my baby boy not precious? Does he not need and deserve JUST as much care and affection? Does he not get to play with his girl cousins or have them feel joy that he exists?

We don’t want any more so I will never have a girl and it makes me extra angry at society being so uneven.

I’m currently battling the ‘oh you’re having a second boy? Boy mum! You’ll be tired!’ Joy 🤦🏻‍♀️

What do you think is the best way to let people know the biological sex of unborn baby to create the least fuss?

With our last we told a few people quite casually that he was, as far as we knew at that time, a boy. Then others found out when we posted about his birth (we do use he/him pronouns currently, but he wears all colours etc and we don’t do any stereotyping where we can).

We found the questions around it were worse before we told people - do you think it’s better to not tell anyone the gender until birth or does that create a bit too much hype around it?

Due our second early next year and the elaborate gender reveals and obsession with gendering are already getting to me! 🫠 We will be finding out biological sex because I like to be prepared for all the stereotypes which will be thrown at us.