I like pink.  I like purple.  I like flowers.  I like ribbons. I like make up. I like baking.  What am I? I am a girl.

I like blue.  I like green.  I like dinosaurs.  I like building stuff.  I like space.  What am I?  I am a GIRL.

What will my baby like?  I don’t know yet. And to begin with, she doesn’t get to choose what she wears…I do. (And Chris of course too :-)) So why do I feel that when I go shopping for baby clothes and decor that I am constantly feeling the pressure into buying stuff for my baby that fits some kind of gender stereotype?

Now as a reminder, I live in Virginia, USA.  Technically I live in a city, so there are plenty of shops to buy baby related items in.  We have all the big department stores and big name brands available.  We also have a handful of boutique shops.  But I don’t live in a city like DC, New York or Boston where there are a multitude of options.  Where I live I feel like there is little choice except for pink and purple (for girls) or blue and green (for boys)…occasionally we will find grey, brown and yellow gender neutral clothing or items.  But they are usually soooo dull (QED old navy’s unisex page)

BTW – we still haven’t bought anything specifically for Rocky yet!!!  I have been looking…but haven’t committed.  Basically I consider it my reconnaissance mission.  I will buy something eventually, but I’m still not really ready for clothing.  We have bought things for Rocky’s nursery however, so we have spent time looking at baby decor.  I set up a pinterest board a while ago and have been adding things as I find them.  I had a vision – Chris had a vision too…so we have worked together on figuring out what we both want.  This process made me realise that many of the ‘high street shops’ separate out girls & boys kids decor.  I often found myself in the boys section where the cool animals were!  (BTW – why are owls always dressed up in pink??!!! Can’t boys like owls too?!)

So what did I do about it? I looked on the web of course…here are a few useful places to look:

Huff’s 12 kids clothing lines that break the gender stereotypes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/kids-clothing-lines-break-gender-stereotypes_n_6925592.html

Baby Gap and H&M aren’t too bad: http://www.gap.com/products/baby-clothes.jsp  http://www.hm.com/us/products/kids/newborn

Interesting Gender Neutral Parenting Article: http://www.parents.com/parenting/gender-neutral-parenting/

Gender EQUAL clothes with a kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mitzaccessories/mitz-apparel-gender-equal-clothing-for-babies-and 

By the way – yes you will see Rocky in pink and flowers…but also many other colours and objects!  I am also not yet of a fully formed opinion about gender neutral parenting.  So I will revisit this topic some time again in the future I have no doubt!

Add in your thoughts and ideas for places to shop into the comments below!!!