I Stopped Dressing My Baby "Like A Girl"

I have always dreamed of having a baby girl—for the tutus, the pigtails, the bows, the feminine thrill of it all. I love girly things. I love girly girls. I am a girly girl. But, shortly after Bianca joined our family, I found myself spending extra time putting a bow on her just so I would field fewer questions from strangers about whether she was a girl or a boy. Generally, she doesn’t like head accessories. She rubs her head back and forth on her carseat until they fall in her eyes or she tugs at them until they have the same effect. She cries, I fix them, and it all happens on a loop until I either remove the bow or she falls asleep. We’ve returned from walks and I’ve opened the stroller cover to find her snoozing with a hat over her face. There have been times I’ve made her uncomfortable just for the headgear. Sometimes it’s necessary for the cold weather, often it’s not.

We live in a very liberal part of the country, one where gender neutral bathrooms existed long before it was a national conversation. Crosswalks are painted in shades of the rainbow and one of the city’s most famous authors has a transgender child who knew she identified with different pronouns than the ones assigned to her at birth by the time she entered early elementary school. Just a few years ago, her mom wrote an incredible book inspired by her daughter’s transition. I devoured it. Reese Witherspoon chose it for her book club last October.

So I’ve been over-thinking. I sit with my biases wondering how they became biases. Our son’s favorite color is pink. Our daughter has inherited so many of his “boy” clothes. Do those things really say anything about who they are as humans? Why do I care if a stranger calls my daughter a boy just because she’s wearing a black beanie instead of a pink bow?

I am, admittedly, a product of my contradictory environments. I was raised in liberal Western Washington and came back to it after college. In between, I spent several years in Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the country. I come from a mostly conservative family. Along the way, I consumed media, learned from friends, and made subconscious decisions about what outwardly defined “PENIS PENIS PENIS” vs “VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA” (name that movie). I didn’t pay attention to them until I gave birth to two babies—one with each set.

I don’t know who they’ll choose to become. I see it as my job to encourage them to figure that out for themselves, to nurture in them what lights them up, to be a safe place for them to show up as their whole selves—quirks, flaws, preferences, all of it. Is he less of a boy because he tells me he’s Elsa and I’m Anna? Will she get a tribal tattoo sleeve and sag her JNCOs below her boxers? I certainly hope not, mostly because holding on to your pants while you walk is ridiculous and inefficient. There have been times already when I’ve had to stop myself from encouraging my son to pick other colors instead of the pink. And for what? It makes me feel gross that I think those thoughts at all. The last thing I want is to project my misplaced and not even real ideas about personal identity onto my babies.

I’m not going to put Bianca in bows just because I’m worried about correcting strangers and facing my own gender biases. I’m going to put her in bows because they look cute with her outfit—until and unless she tells me differently. As for the rest, we’ll figure it out as we go.