by Carole Somerville

Created on: September 14, 2009   Last Updated: September 15, 2009

In recent years there has been an upsurge in child-rearing styles toward gender transcendence or moving outside traditional notions of gender.

Gender Development and Child Rearing Styles

In the 1950s and 1960s social psychologists started to pay more attention to the role of parents in shaping childhood gender. The prime focus of psychology studies at that time was how parents might take measures to ensure that boys turn out masculine and girls, feminine. The main concern (driven by the cultural understandings prevalent at the time) was to help children take up their natural place within the family and in society.

Toward the end of the 21st century, a new set of ideas about gender has entered into popular and psychological debates about how children should be raised. It has been noted how severe stereotypes prohibited boys and girls from fulfilling the true potential. The movement toward more gender-neutral child rearing increased in momentum through the 1980s and 1990s.

Choosing a Gender-Neutral Environment for Baby

There are both practical and personal reasons why some parents will choose a gender-neutral child rearing style. Some will go as far as trying to raise a child as if it was both sexes: both girl and boy, allowing the child to have all types of clothing such as blue and pink and to play with whatever toys they wish to play with.

Others might choose to dress their child in gender-neutral clothing, give a gender-neutral name and raise their child in a gender neutral environment in order to prevent any form of gender bias towards them and to allow the child to develop a sense of self without gender-related influence from others.

Gender-Neutral Child Rearing

Gender neutral child rearing is the act of raising a child without well-defined gender roles. This allows for the child to grow as a person as opposed to as a little girl, or boy. Clothing, activities and decor are not assigned a gender in households that practice gender neutral child rearing.

Raising Children without Gender Bias

Children start to become gender-specific for many reasons. They observe the world around them and see that women are different from men, and keeping these differences away from a child would be virtually impossible. Even so, parents don't have to go to the extreme of raising a child without acknowledging its gender to have the child recognised as an individual and treat as such.

To make this possible they might:

* Always consider their child's moral right to equal treatment

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