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GENDER NEUTRAL PARENTING

-Gagandeep Kaur

With more and more women becoming astronauts, pilots, mountaineers, scientists, lawyers, politicians, wrestlers, cricketers, etc., and men sharing the burden of household chores and carrying their infants to the parks and malls in their baby slings, modern India is a result of what is called progressive parenting. The concept of the stronger sex and weaker sex is now changing fast and would soon become a thing of a bygone era, all thanks to our educated parents who have either grown up in a gender-discriminatory environment but want to bring about a change in their future generations or who have themselves been raised in a liberal environment and therefore, want to pass it to their next generations, thereby, teaching them gender equality. 

Modern parents are now more open and let their girls and boys choose the kind of toys, dresses, career and even friends they want rather than imposing gender-specific ideas on them. This kind of parenting empowers kids to be confident in their choices and expressions and makes them open-minded during their conversations to fight gender stereotypes. This also helps them in clearing their minds of any misconceptions about the thought process of other genders and makes them more transparent and open while communicating with each other. The equality in the treatment received by kids of all genders from their parents results in their holistic development which has an indelible impression on their psyche and impacts their personalities when they grow up.

Such progressive parenting amongst the educated class will surely have a ripple effect and change the mindset of traditional parents who have been fostering gender-specific virtues (such as buying pink colour, girly designs, kitchen sets, etc. for their daughters and blue T-shirts, boyish patterns, cricket bats, etc. for their sons) in their hearts for ages and make them abandon such outdated and orthodox thoughts.

The children brought up in such a gender-neutral environment are more responsible, sensitive and empathetic towards the other gender and grow up to be good human beings and not merely good men or women because their care-givers gave them a positive environment and equal opportunities in their formative years of this beautiful journey called life.

After all, love fosters equality and practising this philosophy, the literate parents in our country have been raising their kids in such a manner that has made India receive respect from all the Earthians.

 

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