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The most intelligent way to begin considering whether or not you're capable of raising your son and daughter without gender bias is to understand what gender bias is. Then to realise that this deision is made under the assumption that you are capable of raising chldren at all and that you will have both a son and daughter.

I only have a daughter and yet I have enough experience with so many other people's children that I can safely say that I can raise a son without gender bias. The key is to alow your children freedom of choice and to appreciate their wants and needs as individuals. Stereotypes and personal biases of parents have a significant part in the influencing of parents' decisions. For instance, if my daughter and son both wanted to play football, i would not further encourage my son just because he is a boy and football is a "boy sport" or encourage my daughter more because she would be overcoming some sort of boundary by doing a "non-female sport". I can recognise that both of my children would have equal potential and therefore would both be jsut as capable of accomplishing their goals. The same applies if they both had interst in a "girly" activity, such as cooking classes or basket weaving.

Both boys and girls are just as capable of performing household chores and they should be assigned equally, not on the basis of whether or not the task is supposedly gender appropriate. Gender bias involves peference of one over the other or different individual treatment based on gender. Although I acknowledge that there would be obvious necessary differences in treatment based on gender, especially after puberty; when it comes to behavioral treatment and availment of opportunities, both boys and gils deserve similar treatment from parents.

Children are individuals as well and we must remember to treat them as such. Most parents make the mistake of denying their children freedom of choice and thus a sense of individuality until they are past a certain age. According to such parents, they would otherwise be too young to understand and therefore incapable of making such decisions of their own volition. However, from another perspective, you realise thatdoing so does not protect them, but, in effect, leaves them more vulnerable than children who are allowed to formulate and express their own opinions. This is as a result of such children having significantly vaster amounts of valuable experience. they would therfore be more developed and be more prepared for the outside world. In the same vein, this judgement should be applied in order to realise that gender should be dismissed as a factor involving equal opportunities. Aslo, children brought up with such values and with such thought trends would contribute positively to the world they live in and would not be susceptible to gender discrimination when they leave their parents' proverbial nest.

Parents should always consider their children's moral rght to equal treatment and do the best they can to provide their best, most loving parenthood and avoid gender bis. It is always possible. The responsibility lies with the parents.

Learn more about this author, Randall Flagg.
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