Gender Neutral

I started thinking today about buying things for babies.  What of this and that people should buy?  What brands do I prefer?  What colors work well together?  What kind of clothes different people might prefer?  And something seems to always stick out to me when I look through baby websites or the aisles of a baby store: gender association.  For some, its very important for their child to be decked out in the colors associated with their gender.  For others, its very important to do the opposite.  Then there are many parents who are stuck in between.  Quite honestly, I think its easiest for these parents.

If you aren't very discriminate of what you buy for your child, then your options are fairly limitless.  If you're obsessed with having all pink for a little girl, then you are limited to about half of the baby items out there.  Same if you're obsessed with having all blue for a boy.  Even if you want to go all gender neutral, your choices become quite limited, particularly for clothing (from what I've noticed). 

I have tons of pink for Bella, but that mostly pertains to her clothing.  Reasonable parents who expect to have more children will choose many of their toys and other such items in neutral colors so that they don't side with one particular sex.  In fact, most toys do come in gender neutral colors.  It just makes sense because there may be multiple children playing with these toys and chances are there are boys and girls in that mix. 

The other factor is what have you been given from others.  If someone offers you some clothes for your baby girl and they're all very pink, should you turn them all down because you want to stay strictly gender neutral?  I guess you can...but I'd think you're a little crazy!  Same goes for toys.  Why can't a girl play with a dump trunk or a boy play with an easy bake?  I don't know.  A free toy is pretty awesome if you ask me, no matter what it is, for the most part.  Hand me downs can be a huge blessing, especially if you want to save a bit of money.  There's no reason to pass up the opportunity!

For myself, even before I found out I was having a boy this time around.  I thought about some things that made sense to have gender neutral in case I wanted to reuse them for a little boy.  Bella's walker, her high chair, her infant car seat all are in neutral colors, among other things.  Even some of her clothing is gender neutral and I've set it aside for Jude.  However, I also think that its great to let a little girl have pink things, just as its great to let a little boy have blue things.  Bella's sheets are pink.  A lot of her clothes are pink or in a girly style.  Her big girl car seat is pink and brown.  Why not!?!  She's a girl and she's going to need some of these things at the same time as Jude anyway.  Let her have pink! 

One day she's gonna be old enough to have a preference for the way her clothing and personal items look.  When that day comes, if she wants blue, by God, I'll get her blue!  For now, I'm going to give her all kinds of things that have different gender associations.  So long as she doesn't show a great distaste for whatever the item is, she should have clothes and toys and other things that are all of the different colors and styles under the rainbow!