Gender Roles & Children

I hear it all the time. "Oh, he's ALL boy". "She's such a girly girl". From the moment children are born, we teach them to build their identity around their gender. And here we are in 2012 wondering why gender equality is still an issue. We can only blame ourselves.

So what if your little boy wears a skirt? So what if your little girl wants to be a male firefighter for Halloween? So what if your toddler boy wants to play with the vacuum cleaner? So what if your sweet girl wants to work on a car with her daddy? I don't understand the stigma.

A girl is more than a vagina and a boy is more than a penis. Can we not teach our children that they have every right to wear what they want to wear, have whatever hair style they wish, play with any toy they want and aspire to be any person they want to be? Why must we insist on our girls being cheerleaders and our boys playing football?

I see it. All. The. Time. Gender disappointment. "Well, we really wanted a boy, but as long as she's healthy". The logic behind gender disappointment could be completely abolished if we would stop imposing gender roles on our children. We don't have to teach our children to be male or female. Instead, we should allow them the room to grow as a person and show us WHO they are, rather than us teaching them WHAT they are.

If a woman wants to work while her husband stays at home with the kids. That's OK. If a man wants to study Ballet, that's OK. If my sons want to join cheerleading, or wear skirts and heels, that's OK. If my daughter wants to wear combat boots and ties, that's OK. And the only reason these things would be deemed as "not normal" would be because society is still living inside the idea that we are defined by what we are.

If we can only value our daughters as what they can do as a WOMAN and only value our sons based on what they can do as a MAN, then shame on us for not thinking our children are capable of more.

My role as a mother is to provide for my children and raise them to be productive members of society. And they can do that whether they remain loyal to their gender roles or not. If my daughter does want to be a stay-at-home mother and if my boys do want to play football, that's fine, too.

The point is that we should not impose these things on our children. I can only hope to teach my children that there is FAR more to them than just what DNA they have.