Boys, girls and gender parity

By Rohini Teresa Mathew on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 20:18

Cars for boys, dolls for girls. Girls are expected to be demure, boys naughty and spirited. It doesn't matter anymore who made these rules, but do parents today still push them? Rohini Teresa Mathew, mother of two girls, writes about her experiences with gender sensitive parenting.

Life right now is exasperating, thanks to my youngest daughter. The days just whiz past in a blur of hurried activity, flying tempers and yells of "No! Don't do that". There just isn’t time to think!

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a little bit. The little one makes me announce — even to random strangers — how I don't regret not having a boy for this one is far naughty than any number of boys put together! So the issue of raising the kids in a gender-sensitive manner gets blown out the window in all the hustle.

But in my own way, I try to encourage my girls to do whatever they please, with regard to boy-stuff and girl-stuff. It never crosses my mind to tell them that "girls don't do such things"; "girls should be more demure" etc. It's more a matter of whether it is a good way to behave or not.

However, I do object to anyone telling my kids how girls and boys should behave In fact, I remember how I lectured my elder daughter's 5-year-old friend for saying "girls don't do that". And I urged them both to do just what they hesitated to do. And when adults start off on such discrimination I literally tell them to go take a hike. And I encourage my daughter to do just what they had labeled a 'boy thing'.

My children have an assortment of toys to play with — teddy bears and dolls; cars, bikes and planes; football and cricket bats; kitchen sets and mechanic tool sets; a toy fishing rod and guns. It wasn't at all a deliberate decision to get them all these toys. I believe it's because both my husband and I love bikes and guns and action movies and westerns and sci-fi and so it reflects in the toys we buy for the girls.

It also helps to have intelligent friends. Like the one who gifted my elder daughter with a big bright yellow car, mainly because I mentioned how at a party my daughter and the other girls were given kitchen sets and the boys were given cars.

But more than gender sensitivity, kids need to be taught to respect themselves and other individuals. Let's leave gender out of it. Just learn to respect others. And that should ensure we have a better, brighter and compassionate generation.