Babies grow out of clothes quickly, so many parents only buy what they need. They choose items that are easy to put on and take off, comfortable to wear, and easy to wash.
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However, Reddit user F0restghost's mother-in-law thinks she should also dress her daughter according to her gender.
In her post on the subreddit 'Two Hot Takes,' the mom explained that this started when the lady noticed her little girl in blue. Because, you know, it's reserved for boys.
This woman got into an argument with her mother-in-law over her baby girl's clothes
Image credits: Matilda Wormwood (not the actual photo)
As the lady believes that certain colors will make the girl grow up to be a lesbian
Image credits: nanihta (not the actual photo)
Image credits: StudioPeace (not the actual photo)
Image credits: F0restghost
Vicki Broadbent of Honest Mum believes that dressing a certain way alone has no bearing on your child's personality
Image credits: honestmum.com
To get a better understanding of what it takes to dress up your child, we contacted our parenting expert and author of Mumboss (UK) and The Working Mom (US and Canada), Vicki Broadbent.
"I have two boys and a girl, and I've found dress choices over the years (my daughter is almost 2, my eldest son is 13) have mostly been limited to either pink or blue on the high street," Broadbent, who runs the family, food, style, and travel blog Honest Mum, told Bored Panda.
"I've had to seek out brands online for more varied colors, prints, and styles for all of my kids (every color of the rainbow should be available for every child, and shouldn't be gender-specific in my book) and I do love neutral tones too, especially for babies when white and cream clothes tend to stay that way for longer (everything gets stained quickly once kids start to wean/ eat more food)."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting to dress your baby or child in more traditional colors as it were, but often it's more out of lack of choice than wanting to subscribe to some gender-specific notion that blue is for boys and pink is for girls," Broadbent added.
The mother believes that "dressing a certain way has no bearing on your child's personality, identity, and future sexuality nor that it should matter who they identify as, or are attracted to as an adult, anyway." And science agrees with her.
The lady shouldn't be concerned with her granddaughter's sexuality
Image credits: Bob Jenkin (not the actual photo)
Across cultures, 2% to 10% of people report having same-sex relations. In the US, 1% to 2.2% of women and men, respectively, identify as gay.
Despite these numbers, many people, including F0restghost's mother-in-law, still have a flawed understanding of sexuality.
Biologists have documented homosexual behavior in more than 450 species.
In a 2019 issue of Science magazine, geneticist Andrea Ganna at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and colleagues, described the largest survey to date for genes associated with same-sex behavior. By analyzing the DNA of nearly half a million people from the U.S. and the U.K., they concluded that genes account for between 8% and 25% of same-sex behavior.
Molecular biologist Bill Sullivan says that "sexual behavior is widely diverse and governed by sophisticated mechanisms throughout the animal kingdom. As with other complex behaviors, it is not possible to predict sexuality by gazing into a DNA sequence as if it were a crystal ball. Such behaviors emerge from constellations of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of genes, and how they are regulated by the environment."
Not from wearing the wrong color.
While there is no single 'gay gene,' there is overwhelming evidence of a biological basis for sexual orientation that is programmed into the brain before birth, based on a mix of genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus chooses.
In-law relationships are tricky
Image credits: Brett Sayles (not the actual photo)
Vicki Broadbent thinks that keeping the peace with your in-laws is a tricky balance — you have to show respect to family members whilst maintaining boundaries. This includes stating your own wishes and sticking to them on how to name and raise your child too.
"The operative word is 'your'. This is not your in-laws' child, this is your child, however close they might feel they are to the baby, you are in charge and need to be firm about that from the start," Broadbent highlighted. "You must find a way to be kind but firm. Your in-laws must respect your wishes and ways of doing things when it comes to your own child if they want to remain an active part of all of your lives."
One of the reasons why navigating in-law relationships can be tricky is the fact that there is no rulebook for them.
A factor that could contribute to the prevalence of female in-law tension in particular is child-rearing, and its disproportionate impact on women, which could potentially compound any pre-existing conflict.
During the early child-rearing period, new moms and their mothers-in-law may well have more frequent contact than before. "When pregnant, breastfeeding, and caring for a young baby, mothers are faced with a challenging time and need extra support," explains Gretchen Perry, professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and co-author of the paper In-Law Relationships in Evolutionary Perspective: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Although a new mother's partner and father-in-law also help, it's often her own mother and mother-in-law who try to provide the most robust support. Plus, child-rearing is an emotive topic that comes with a plethora of generational differences, and with a mother-in-law expecting to have her grandchild raised one way and an exhausted mom adamant about doing some things differently, the conditions are set for disagreements.
But people who read the story still think that the lady has no business "teaching" the mom how to dress her daughter
