Loving the discussion about clothes and gender assumptions from strangers. My kiddo is 7 and they dress in clothes mostly from the "girl section" and a few things from the "boy section" and I am always fascinated with how differently strangers treat them based on what they assume is their gender. When they dress in their more boyish outfits it's always about how smart, athletic, and big they are. When they dress more girlish the reaction is about how pretty they are and how they love their clothes or something like that. I also agree that the girls section can be more neutral than the boys section. My kid really likes bright colors so they are naturally attracted to the girls clothes and once we realized that it was so upsetting how drab the colorways are for boys gendered clothing.
@@jessicajoannemua nah i was dressed in my brother's hand-me-downs as a tiny baby girl and my mum put a lace bonnet on my brother for laughs and giggles once - you'll never know, babies are hairless genderless wonders 😂 you could put them in a ballerina outfit with sparkly hair and i would still think this could totally be a pretty boy dressed by a mum who wanted a baby girl to play dress-up with 😬 bc let's face it these mums exist - esp in Asia where 50-year-old women can pass for 30 to the non-asians and buy Hello Kitty merch to feel young 😬 someone actually wrote a viral cantopop song about this: guy placed (ex)girlfriend on pedestal, girl responded in next verse: I've literally never even liked hello kitty before, you're just in love with who you think i am/want me to be. pls move tf on for your own health and sanity.
@@jessicajoannemua Isn't it good they didn't assume your child's gender based on their clothes? Gender roles and assumptions is what the original poster was complaining about
It's not like this was any kind of surprise pregnancy, they HAD to have discussed how things were going to work when (not if) Jessica became unable to do something.
@@bunhelsingslegacy3549 yes exactly, but Jessica was still feeling bad about not being able to help Claudia more. Hannah could have told her “it’s ok, don’t feel bad, etc.”, but she didn’t. She just shutdown that guilt, I loved it. More people should be straightforward like that.
A Jessica collab AND some Rowan vocal cameos?! We have been blessed this day. Follow-up question for both of you: How do you approach/are thinking about approaching talking about being disabled with your kids? I'm always super wary about discussing my neurodivergence with adults because of all of the ableism/sanism that they've had years upon years to absorb, but children have a distinct advantage in that area. Y'all are such cool parents; thanks for your vulnerability and authenticity!
I wish there was a way in the German language to refer to somebody in a gender neutral way as effortless and natural as it is in the English language. We have our work-arounds but it's definitely more complicated.
I would like to ask if you can share, what are some of the workarounds? I'm learning German and have a nonbinary sibling (plus am nonbinary myself) so I know that's something I want to look into
@@dragonflies6793 well, there are neopronouns that work as in any other language, meaning completely made up new terms (look into dey/a) and also ways to refer to someone‘s profession/title in a verbal adjective kind of way (like the teacher → the Teaching, der Lehrer/die Lehrerin → der/die Lehrende) but this only works for plural, since the „the“ will still be gendered. Another form is to use a * and pronounce it like a gap in the word (Lehrer*in). For me, I ask people who I know more closely to swap between pronouns and for addressing me in work mails and admin stuff, I just use my full name, so first name instead of Mr/Mrs :D If you want to really get into it, I would propose to look at the link below (maybe with google translate). There is no one preferred answer to non gendered language in German, so you can‘t really do anything wrong when choosing something for you and your sibling :) nibi.space/pronomen
I feel like the problem is not that we don't have any options (Lotta mentioned a few), but that they are all very obvious and can even be perceived as provocative by those that don't "believe" in gender-inclusivity and try to gate-keep the German language.. Using the neutral plural form ("Studierende" instead of "Studentinnen und Studenten"/"Student*innen") and repeating the name instead of using any pronouns are options that feel the most natural. Luckily for me I have yet to meet someone who would prefer one of the neopronouns instead of their name, because they still feel very icky to use...
Well, das Kind & das Baby (like Jessica's English examples) apply to all genders of children and babies, so at least there's that! I guess you do have to pick gendered pronouns for all humans, though.
Same thing in Welsh, where the third person plural can’t be used as a first person singular, and no neutral pronoun or gender exists in the language at all. All nouns are grammatically gendered as well, which makes choosing your own name as an enby a pain
My kids are already adults but it felt so warm and validating to realize: yup, that's the approach to parenting that I was aiming at when they were small (I attended a Montessori kindergarten from age 3 to 5 myself and it was awesome). As soon as each could sit steadily enough, on laundry days they would get a pile of dirty laundry to "sort" and I would every now and then ask for a red sock or a yellow shirt and always thank them profusely for their help. It was super cute when not quite two year old firstborn graduated to vacuuming all of 20 seconds to begin with and SO proud to be a helper ❤
I'm not a parent but people always assume my dainty dog is a girl. I usually tell them that while he does his best to defy stereotypes, he is technically a boy. Say it with a smile and you've both corrected people, and told them not to assume in a way that shows you're not offended.
When people ask boy or girl for our oldest dog, I say her name, then, "She doesn't care about pronouns, but we use she/her." It's a good way to remind people that pronouns are important yet can be casually inquired about and provided, in the low stakes discussion about how cute doggie is. It can plant the seed of a thought: maybe I should ask human people their pronouns, too.
i was a montessori student through grade 5, and now at almost 24 i’ve been able to look back and recognize and appreciate the education i was given! i truly do accredit so much of my integral character and values to the learning environment i was brought up in. the montessori schooling style encouraged a space of autonomy, gratitude, equity, and generosity… and although i don’t personally plan to have kids, i do believe montessori is a great option for those with small children! 💕⭐️
Jessica ' I have never once set my head on fire' Hannah 'Good to know..' 😂 This felt like watching a conversation between true friends and cheered me up, thanks both 😊
Yay, two fo my favourites! As a whole, I think gender neutraul clothing/ more androgynous outfits skew towards the masculine for all ages. I remember discussions about this in a gender studies class I took but I am sure there is amazing analysis of this available on TH-cam.
I know in antiquity trousers weren't seen as masc or fem, but instead barbarian and skirts were seen as civilised. I wonder if the modern gender stereotypes on clothes originate from Rome's conquest by the northern barbarian tribes.
I think it's more the way we percive clothing's gender. Most clothes are considered acceptable for fem people to wear but, the opposite is not true for mascs. So, "feminine clothes" end up being whatever masculine people are expected not to wear. Thus anything not explicitly labeled fem is thrown into the masc category
We've been given a lot of hand-me-downs and even though my daughter is put in stereotypical boy and girl clothes, ALL of the new clothes that we have been gifted are SOOO stereotypically girly (despite having asked for gender neutral things... So annoying). Also in France, it is so much harder to find gender neutral clothing than it is in the UK. But baby clothes are fricking expensive so if the next one's a boy, he'll be wearing the pink and frilly clothes everyone bought for his sister! Clothes are clothes 🤷
Trying to find gender neutral clothing in France is indeed a nightmare! All the stuff in the girls’ section is glittery, frilly, pink or purple with hearts and flowers on it! Some of the newborn stuff is a little better, in white/cream and grey, with pandas or koalas on it, but most of it is very gendered! I managed to find some plain bibs and some onesies that could be suitable for either a boy or a girl, but I think they came from the boys’ section.
Before I knew my brother and his wife were having a girl, I got gender neutral clothing for her, and am still trying to do that. I have chosen ducks/geese and giraffes as animal themes , so have found some suitable items in cream/beige/yellow/teal. I have got a giraffe cuddly toy with a tutu and a babygro with a few flounces on it, but everything else is pretty gender neutral.
Oh this is my kind of content, I thought about this a lot since having my son. Honestly I don't have the energy to discuss gender with randos, and even when he was wearing very plain purple clothes, people assumed he was a girl, which, as you guys said, nobody cares. I don't care, he doesn't even register it, let's move on. I do find it's an issue with language, cause my native language is very gendered and you can't talk about a kid without using gendered pronouns. So yeah, a lot of conversations do start like "is it a boy or girl?" just so I can ask other stuff about them. And since I am also buying like 90% of his clothes 2nd hand, idk how it is elsewhere but I usually have a pick of blue, dark blue and grey. 😐 and I did also check some girl clothes, but I only found frilly lacey dresses, tights and sparkly tops. And the stuff that relatives etc buy for him are of course very dark colors as well. So stupid, and unsustainable.
Judaism is an ethnoreligion. I don’t get how Dan can be struggling with this after all the time together and after presumably celebrating or seeing others celebrate Christmas as more of a cultural thing all around the UK etc. Hopefully he’s supportive though overall! I’m so excited and honoured to be a part of Jewish celebrations, culture etc that my spouse’s family let’s me be a part of and would be so happy to help my husband pass down his Jewish culture along with my non-Jewish one to our potential future kid. And we’re both completely non-religious.
@@erinl.2292 I do watch her channel. Which is why I know she has repeatedly stated that when listing disabilities, she tends to forget that one. And that she is blind in one eye.
@@really-quite-exhausted She has said multiple times that she tends to forget deafness and being blind in one eye because the other ones affect her much more in her daily life.
It's so cool seeing you guys collab. I found your channel, Jessica's channel, dodie's channel and Mel's channel all totally seperately, so the fact that you are friends with them all is so funny. Clearly I have youtube channel type...
I think so too! I’m Swedish, its usually just called Lucia and is celebrated on the 13th of december, the burning candle crown is very real and also a fire hazard like Jessica implied haha
Funnily enough, I was never really a girly girl, and so when I had my daughter I chose ONLY gender neutral, and I even skewed way towards boy. As soon as my daughter was old enough (2ish) she started showing a strong preference to the most girly girl pink bright clothes she could find. Literally bright pink and red. No matter how hard I tried. Now I've embraced the girly and she gets to dress up all pink and girly now (which she loves), and I've given up.
Yup! We started having our little pick clothes sometime after she turned one, but basically as soon as she could point, and she's ALL about the pink and glitter and ballerinas. But she also loves playing with trucks and getting muddy in the garden, so it's all a balance. I am NOT femme presenting much anymore, but it's fun to explore the options with a little person!
My husband has severe eczema which does feel like a disability at times and we know realistically he won't be able to do all that other fathers do e.g. helping with night feeds if he is struggling with his skin. We however don't want that to stop us having a child. It easy to compare what others parents are doing but not one size fits all.. I try to remind myself that.
As a neurodivergent and autoimmune parent I completely relate to what Jessica is saying about guilt towards your other half. Especially having postpartum depression, it felt like such a relief and so refreshing to hear your take on this. 🥲
I’ve had severe ulcerative colitis since I was 15 (In remission since having my bubbah) I have a 18 month old girl who loves trucks and fluffy dresses and this was just THE VIDEO FOR ME 🙌🏼💯❤️
I loved this video! You guys are such a great duo. Just fyi at 16:56 Jessica says, 'We bring out the Santa Lucia' - the captions had trouble with the Swedish haha
I could listen to you talk for ages. The conversation just flows so soft and naturally and your conversations and the meeting of your different viewpoints are really interesting
Omg yes!!! The gendered clothing debacle. Whilst pregnant I was shocked to see in stores that, for the most part, it was still very pink/blue (it's 2022 c'mon guys!). I tended to go for very brightly coloured clothes and lots of animals. My daughters wardrobe is now mostly teal, mustard yellow and minty green. I love it. When I came home from the hospital though it did take a hot minute to get used to the barrage of pink which awaited. Like you, I have some clothes which have never been pictured but I hope some other pink mad mother can get use of it some day. We also have a lovely blue pram I bought second hand from a colleague (who also had two daughters!) so completely understand the strangers commenting point. It doesn't bother me one bit and I don't bother to correct them otherwise.
My son was a very beautiful baby. He had big eyes, with dark eyelashes, rosy cheeks, and dark lush hair. Everyone thought he was a girl. I could dress him head to toe blue, but people would still think he was a girl. It didn’t bother me. I tended to dress him in simple one one color items, I hated most patterns. But one time an older lady came up, my son when my son was about a year and a half, was in a yellow top and brown pants, and complimented me on my beautiful daughter. I thanked her, but also corrected her. “Thank you. He is so my beautiful boy!” “What?! He’s to pretty to be a boy! Little girls better watch out.” That was the end of it but I felt so confused.
I love that you have each other to relate to, I am not someone who plans on children, but seeing other disabled people navigating parenting and relationships gives me so much hope. I do have a partner though, and I totally relate to worrying that I can't give them enough support at times when I'm in a flare, or unable to get out of bed. I love it when you make videos together, and all the happy baby noises in the background were very cute
Thank goodness that you are both investing the necessary time in teaching your kids about food culture. #priorities straight Socially, religiously, culturally, racially, all of them, life revolves around food and using it as a tool to educate and share heritage is so lovely and easy for kids to engage with. Love it 😘💕🥰
I love you speaking about a religion as a culture. Because I say I'm culturally Catholic, because, it's not my religion, it doesn't explain my beliefs, but it fully explains my upbringing and family history and culture. It's important to me! But, it has nothing to do with the belief in God.
When were out if my toddler child isn't wearing pink or if I dont have her hair up in a ponytail or pigtails, most people tell me my son is super cute or handsome or sweet or whatever. I thank them for the compliment, and I don't correct them. But when I call her by her name/ nickname or they may realize. And I just say she doesn't know the difference.
OH MY GOD - babyclothes. I have so much thoughts about that. I have three children which are teenagers now (17, 15 & 11). My first child is a boy and my husband and I always knew we wanted multible children. Also he had a lot of dark hair from the beginning and yellow/orange/red does suit him very good. However in those days (2005) there was really few colours of babyclothes available than nowadays. Really mostly blues and pinks. But I managed to get a bunch of clothes in other colours which all of my kids then wore. Also I am the eldest of 5 siblings and I passed on the clothes to my siblings. So really most of the clothes got worn really good. I loved to see my nieces and nephews in these clothes. Whilst having my second child, that was a girl, I also started to sew more clothes for her and then her sister and younger nieces and nephews. I most often choose gender neutral patterns and colours but the still had dresses and a bit pink stuff when they where older and requested that. My daughter was actually a big dresses and skirts lover in her preschool and primary school age. My second daughter not as much.
I’m part Swedish too, and yes it’s also definitely around Christmas that it comes out + I read a lot of Swedish children’s books as a child (would recommend Elsa Beskow, very cottagecore lol)
Everyone always thinks my 4 month old baby is a boy. I usually dress her in clothes from the boys section for 3 reasons - 1) she has the most incredible bright blue eyes and I like dressing her in blue to match, 2) I love animals and the girls versions of things are always floral whereas the boys version have farm animals, woodland creatures etc on and I'm always going to choose a fox over a rose, and 3) I just don't like pink as a colour personally. Because she doesn't go around in pink with bows on her head (not in her hair because she has f all hair) everyone assumes she's a boy. It doesn't matter but also... Why can't a girl wear a top with a collie in a tractor and leggings with Highland cows on them?
@@witchy.business So you’re intentionally dressing HER like a boy, and don’t see how this can be harmful to a child? They definitely have girl clothes that make blue eyes look good, if that’s such a concern. And no, it’s not because she’s not in pink, everyone thinks she’s a boy because you put her in BOY clothes.
Watching this feeling sort of jealous that you both have such supportive partners meaning that when you have a bad disability day you can be unable to parent temporarily. I have fibromyalgia, endometriosis, scoliosis, chronic fatigue syndrome and post concussion syndrome which is basically a forever concussion. I've had days where I've been in too much pain to hold my baby etc etc but I haven't had the ability to temporarily take a back seat so I've just had to struggle. Not even disability related all the time - once I had a terrible sickness bug when my baby was 2 months old. I was throwing up while holding my clingy baby who would cry when put down, or having terrible diarrhoea while breastfeeding my baby. And crying. Chaos.
Parenting is tough! Sometimes it's just survival, chaos, exhaustion and overwhelm. Hope you're doing ok and you get to enjoy life and time with your children despite the challenges. Sending love
If I'm lucky enough to have babies in my future, I think I'll dress them in anything I find cute 😂 I'm not a huge fan of being pure gender neutral (far too restrictive), but I won't limit my infants wardrobe to their gender. Who decided dresses were just for girls? Not my Victorian ancestors! I'll be putting my baby boys in dresses until they're old enough to choose! Studies have shown that children don't develop a gender until they're between 18 months and 3 years old anyway 😂 The second they start telling me what they like though, I'll let them decide (unless they decide not to wear a coat in Winter, then we might have to have words).
Oh baby clothes...I am here for this discussion! I'm also the parent of a small boy. My aesthetic is bright colors! A lot of my toddlers wardrobe is from the 'girls' section, today's he's wearing a blue top with stars, and red leggings 🤷 and he also has a couple dresses. Yup. He chooses his outfit each morning, sometimes he chooses a dress. We are lucky to live in a very affirming community though, so I don't worry much about what others might say (or fear for his safety) thank goodness.
If people send you clothes expecting a photo, is the present for baby or for them? Watching with my 5mo- she's in a rare pink onesie (gift)! :D Usually go gender neutral so more re-usability for other family/friend babies. Good idea about not taking photos of babies in gifted clothes, haven't had much pink from family as they have respected us saying gender neutral when I was pregnant. I've mentioned to family to go second hand and wooden toys for christmas to be more sustainable- hope they continue to respect this too! :)
Yay! I feel like I've seen so much Jessica this week- Stevie Boebi's video, then your collab yesterday, now this video! 🥰 Also, does anyone know where Jessicas dress is from?
Really interesting video :) I find parenting stuff interesting because I feel like it teaches me how to parent myself as an adult :? Like there’s many things that apply to all people and not just children, plus it’s useful to know what I might have missed out on in my childhood (because of what information was available at the time and my parents personalities & abilities) and how to resolve that in myself as an adult
I know my relatives raise their kids very gendered so I just try to buy non-pink stuff for girls and non-blue stuff for boys, and never say something is for girls/boys. Painting nails comes to mind; I was painting mine and offered to paint the toenails of my cousin. He liked to colour his fingernails with watercolours for a bit afterwards🤗 His dad was kinda not-approving, though at least not directly forbidding either... Once I randomly helped a class of pre-schoolers plant and water trees. I said to one kid "I don't have anymore watering cans right now; you can help that girl carry the last one." Instant regret about saying they were a girl; most likely that is how they were being raised, but I didn't *know.* I just assumed based on their clothes that they were a girl, which is understandable, but there was no reason to *call* them a girl; my language doesn't even have gendered pronouns for an excuse. I decided when I was about 10 to not wear pink anymore. I just had enough of it being THE colour always offered to me, when my favourite colours were blue green and yellow. There was many compromises; I really liked a quirky shirt despite it being pink so I wore it, and I had plenty of pink undies that I kept wearing since nobody would see them. I repeatedly told relatives and classmates that pink was my least favourite colour; anything but pink should be pretty easy, right? Apparently not when the relatives are used to colour-coding kids by their gender, and girls' toys and things are liberally splashed with pink. When I started buying my own clothes I started being even more strict: no pink drawstrings, slogans, trimmings, thread... the brand tag on the inside is sometimes acceptable even if it has pink. I vote with my wallet to stop putting a pink code on every single girls'/women's piece of clothing. I wore a lot of pink-leaning purple as a kid, that was the other option besides the girliest pink in the 90's/2000's. I was pretty darn pleased when Frozen and Elsa become a hit when I was an adult. Though I sadly noticed that things usually had a pink trim or pink text even when they were Elsa-blue... but at least there was plenty of blue for girls, even if it is a soft blue with pink additions. Colours should not have genders. That same cousin who briefly enjoyed painting his nails, always reached for the orange colouring pen first, but if asked what his favourite colour was said blue. I don't think he had any orange clothes; blue green black, occasional strong red. And orange is not even particularly gendered, it's just not "a boy colour" either.
I have a girl and a boy, dressed them in similar clothes but they do look more boy I suppose… but just tops and trousers! Babies in dresses are ridiculous 😂. We also gave them both gender neutral names and its caused some very funny awkward moments.
Hey Hannah, if it helps with talking to Dan about Jewish culture - It was really helpful to me to parse out my own Jewish identity when I realized that Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity. I can be an atheist religiously, but I'm still ethnically Jewish, and those things don't have to go together. I think this is hard to grasp because it is different from other religions, but it really helped me in figuring out how and why I might still want to do the holidays and food and so on without actually taking part in any of the religious ceremony or belief.
Omg heck yeah Lucia! I'm Swedish, living in the UK for 3,5 years now and I haaaated Lucia before I moved but now I'm literally gonna take a 1h train to a different city just to go to a Lucia celebration x))
left a similar comment on the other video, but I have been watching both of you for a very long time and these two videos just made me so happy, thank you
My mom always tells me that when I was a baby I hated wearing dresses. I couldn't crawl in them, so I would hike it up around my cloth diaper, stick it in my mouth, and hold it like that as I crawled. My parents quickly stopped putting me in dresses.
Oh Hannah, Jessica, I call children adorable little petri dishes. My dog has a massive fan club among the children of our neighborhood where the school is at the end of our street. I walk the dog, the children appear out of nowhere to give belly rubs and teach the smallers how to approach, touch, pet, interact with strange dogs. This is a huge success for me because my first gen of neighborhood kids are now teaching their younger siblings. Love all this. However they are covered in kid cooties, and then they cover my dog in kid cooties, and I end up with kid cooties. I try to look for snot on kids. We carry hand sanitizer. Not that I have much faith in their appropriate use. But it can't hurt. I dressed my daughter out of charity shops and preferred non binary outfits that were warm, sturdy, and fit. My Mother was into dresses. My daughter owned many dresses she never wore. My daughter didn't have much hair for some time, and my mother taped bows to her head. With adhesive tape! Nope. She never stopped. I never stopped removing them. Jessica, I saw you signing some of your discussion with Rupert. I know ASL, you are teaching me BSL! Hannah, you have a culture which is associated with a religion, but not always. But it's always a culture. Oh dear, I am subscribing to yet another channel to mess with my YT algorithm. But they keep telling me I should watch you and sometimes I do - done.
When you mentioned religion and Jewishness in parenting, I also got interested in hearing Jessica's perspective. I know she is a Quaker and Claudia isn't, but I don't recall then ever mentioning the route they wanted to go down with Rupert about this topic. Maybe there's a standard Montessori answer for religious upbringing though.
Quakers are very not evangelical (and also generally pretty humanist). I imagine Rupert will be exposed to Quaker life to some extent (it certainly won't be a secret), but it won't be pushed if he isn't interested in it.
I dress my kiddo in whatever the heck she wants. She's 2 and she has opinions and I'm totally open to them. She gravitates towards yellow green and blue. She has very little hair and unless she's head to toe in pink, everyone will assume she's a boy. Always. I never correct people because I literally couldn't care less. My daughter isn't phased and is very confident in being a girl so far so I just follow her lead. If she corrected them I'd support her.
I dressed my girl in second hand boy clothes and gender neutral stuff until she got to age one and realised she loves pink/unicorns and sparkly things 😂 there’s no way she’s wear blue/trouser etc now 😂
RE gender neutral clothes: I think it makes sense that your babies are wearing sensible clothing for their age-- i think most parents will dress their children sensibly in a onesie or shirts and pants (with very gendered colors mind you). I think it makes more sense gender boundaries in dressing to get more flux as they are more conscious about what they want to wear, and all clothing is sensible within their ability to move around in them. My very athletic nephew who is an older toddler now almost exclusively wears dresses and leggings. He's been interested in them since seeing them in the store. Basically, I think right now it makes sense if they are just wearing baby sensible clothes and when they are older, you give them the option for all clothing and they pick what they want.
My son is nearly 6 and has long blond hair past his shoulders. Much as I admit I would be sad if he wanted to cut it, it is his choice. However, he gets cross at any suggestion (like when he's struggling with knots) as he loves it and says he wants it past his bottom 😁. It is amazing the number of people that assume he's a girl, even when every other thing about how he's dressed might stereotypically indicate 'boy' (depends on the day, he has a love of pink T shirts, though plain not unicorns and rainbows). It's as if long hair trumps everything else! Haven't these people ever been to a music festival or a surfing beach!
I’m new to the channel and the open breastfeeding was a shock, but a welcome one. I’m not use to seeing it openly even though it is a beutiful thing, society has just shamed people so much that its strange to me to see someone feeding their baby.
Hey Hannah, this was so interesting, especially the part about gender and clothes. I've never heard anyone describe what I feel so perfectly! I have a little boy and I try to avoid the stereotypical clothing as well as not gendering other people's children. Unfortunately, I don't live in a country where we have a singular they or something similar, so if I don't want to call other kids "it", which would be really rude, I have to refer to them as "her" or "him" which I find super annoying that I have to make that decision. I'd love a more in-depth video of the topic! There's so much to discuss about stereotypes, clothes etc.
I always laugh cause my son had long hair till about 6 months ago, before he turned 4. People would be "oh what a gorgeous girl. Her hair is so beautiful " and he would correct them, I never corrected anyone, but when he started talking he started correcting them himself lol. It was not the reason he wanted to cut his hair, he decided his hair was getting in the way of his play lol
I loved this video! Very interesting the talk about gender clothing and assumptions. My baby was clearly dressed as a boy (gifted clothes) but having a pink flaningo soft toy next to him in the pram and they all thought he was a girl, just because of the pink toy! Ridiculous! I also have a friend that has a baby boy, couple of months older than mine, so I get a lot of her second hand clothes, but they are SO MUCH obvious boy clothes, that don't fit my style and my ideas, but is more sustainable using them than buying new baby clothes just for "style choices"....what would you do in that case?
For the Jewish thing, I would say it's the same as celebrating Christmas as someone who is non religious. Most European non religious people are culturally Christian. And Hannah happens to be culturally Jewish.
Absolutely had ALL these conversations about baby clothes. Almost never put my daughter in a dress, not really until she was old enough to choose to wear them to “dress up”, even to this day as an 8 year old will almost exclusively pick trousers or leggings for herself. She was frequently misgendered as a baby and toddler as she pretty much had no hair for 1st 2 years because baldy baby obviously equals boy right?! 😂 I remember an elderly gentleman TELLING ME OFF for confusing him because I’d put her in a baseball cap. It was beside the point that the hat was bright pink 😝 but apparently it was my job to make him comfortable by announcing her gender in clothing form. Certainly wasn’t the only time something like that happened. It was either that or people assuming I was childminding (as their go to assumption) because disabled people don’t have children right!?
I suffer from chronic migraine and I'm terrified that it's going to impact my parenting when I have kids, like the idea of being home alone with a screaming baby when my head feels like it's being hit with a hammer is horrible, hoping before I have kids I can find something to reduce the amount of attacks I have
i've been wondering for months if you're considering montessori as it fits so well with your ethos around sex ed and autonomy etc. the crossover i always wanted
I hope people will eventually recognize that "gender neutral clothing" should be about fitting everybody in sizes and fits and not about colors and masculine or feminine details
The clothing thing is so weird. I don't like the "only pink or blue" thing at all but I also feel like what's thought of as gender neutral is often quite dull colours. So I basically have just dressed my daughter in anything I like the look of, which has been anything from like goth clothes to rainbow leggings to shirts with trucks on to sparkly dresses 😂 it's easier now that she's nearly 4 as she can choose and I know she likes a bit of everything. One annoying thing though is that she especially likes clothes with her favourite characters and those seem to be weirdly separated into boys and girls. Are girls not allowed to like Mario? 😅 We also try very hard to do parenting that leans towards being gentle/Montessori etc but really I feel like I'm making stuff up on the spot half the time. Things that are supposed to always work just seem to go out the window with a screaming three year old! I think you do get to a point again though where it's easier as now they can understand reasoning much better and explain their feelings.
Jessica, I would love to hear how (if at all) your Quaker faith is something you discuss/pass on to Rupert? I know Quakerism is more a choice Rupert could make for himself later on but I would imagine you’ll take him to kids meetings at some point? Curious for myself :) xx
With a bit of practice, kids can crawl around in a dress pretty well. When I was little my parents took me to medieval re-enactment events in my little dress, apparently I figured out how to crawl well enough :)
I am having a baby girl in January and so far a lot of the clothes I've been gifted are pink and frilly, despite me wanting to be as gender neutral as possible 🤦😂
I like your approach of not labelling other children. However, it might depend on the language. Not all languages have gender neutral terms for children. With our child, we will speak German and Spanish and we live in France. French and German do have a gender neutral term but Spanish hasn't. In German, we don't change the adjectives depending on gender, but Spanish and French do. So, that's gonna be interesting 😄
I have a girl and found out throughout the process of trying to dress her gender neutral that any clothes that are not pink or floral are boy clothes. Strangers assume that she is a boy much more than a baby girl
My parents didn’t find out what sex I’d be before I was born and thus bought/ were given a load of gender neutral baby clothes, which were technically ‘boys’ clothes. Though i think gendered baby clothes are fine I think it’s nice that I just had neutral clothing. Because I didn’t look like a cute baby girly-wirly, I just looked like myself. Although my college theatre teacher (who was a bitch) told me that I looked like a boy in my baby pic that we were asked to bring in for our last lesson Just because in it I was wearing a plain orange T-shirt
I hate when I "can't life today" because it makes me feel like a shitty partner. House stuff can wait, we can order in, I have sick leave for work so finances aren't impacted, but kids JUST CAN"T BE PUT OFF so my husband has to take care of them, fully, plus me, instead of me being able to share the kid-load. He completely understands, but I know that even doing my best, I'm not pulling my weight.
Loving the discussion about clothes and gender assumptions from strangers. My kiddo is 7 and they dress in clothes mostly from the "girl section" and a few things from the "boy section" and I am always fascinated with how differently strangers treat them based on what they assume is their gender. When they dress in their more boyish outfits it's always about how smart, athletic, and big they are. When they dress more girlish the reaction is about how pretty they are and how they love their clothes or something like that. I also agree that the girls section can be more neutral than the boys section. My kid really likes bright colors so they are naturally attracted to the girls clothes and once we realized that it was so upsetting how drab the colorways are for boys gendered clothing.
So interesting (and annoyingly unsurprising) people’s reactions
That never happened 🤣
I had my child dressed fully in pink when she was tiny and was asked girl or boy ummmm she's in pink with bobbles in her hair
@@jessicajoannemua nah i was dressed in my brother's hand-me-downs as a tiny baby girl and my mum put a lace bonnet on my brother for laughs and giggles once - you'll never know, babies are hairless genderless wonders 😂
you could put them in a ballerina outfit with sparkly hair and i would still think this could totally be a pretty boy dressed by a mum who wanted a baby girl to play dress-up with 😬
bc let's face it these mums exist - esp in Asia where 50-year-old women can pass for 30 to the non-asians and buy Hello Kitty merch to feel young 😬
someone actually wrote a viral cantopop song about this: guy placed (ex)girlfriend on pedestal, girl responded in next verse: I've literally never even liked hello kitty before, you're just in love with who you think i am/want me to be. pls move tf on for your own health and sanity.
@@jessicajoannemua Isn't it good they didn't assume your child's gender based on their clothes? Gender roles and assumptions is what the original poster was complaining about
Hannah flat out having no sympathy for Claudia: “She knew what she was getting into”. I love forthright people!
Yeah that was savage 💀 But also true 😂
It's not like this was any kind of surprise pregnancy, they HAD to have discussed how things were going to work when (not if) Jessica became unable to do something.
@@bunhelsingslegacy3549 yes exactly, but Jessica was still feeling bad about not being able to help Claudia more. Hannah could have told her “it’s ok, don’t feel bad, etc.”, but she didn’t. She just shutdown that guilt, I loved it. More people should be straightforward like that.
I mean she’s disabled, it would be horrible for her wife to get upset when she acts disabled haha
@@nevelansdown8297
Acts disabled? What does that mean? /gen
A Jessica collab AND some Rowan vocal cameos?! We have been blessed this day. Follow-up question for both of you: How do you approach/are thinking about approaching talking about being disabled with your kids? I'm always super wary about discussing my neurodivergence with adults because of all of the ableism/sanism that they've had years upon years to absorb, but children have a distinct advantage in that area.
Y'all are such cool parents; thanks for your vulnerability and authenticity!
Jessica has since made a video about this!
I wish there was a way in the German language to refer to somebody in a gender neutral way as effortless and natural as it is in the English language. We have our work-arounds but it's definitely more complicated.
I would like to ask if you can share, what are some of the workarounds? I'm learning German and have a nonbinary sibling (plus am nonbinary myself) so I know that's something I want to look into
@@dragonflies6793 well, there are neopronouns that work as in any other language, meaning completely made up new terms (look into dey/a) and also ways to refer to someone‘s profession/title in a verbal adjective kind of way (like the teacher → the Teaching, der Lehrer/die Lehrerin → der/die Lehrende) but this only works for plural, since the „the“ will still be gendered. Another form is to use a * and pronounce it like a gap in the word (Lehrer*in).
For me, I ask people who I know more closely to swap between pronouns and for addressing me in work mails and admin stuff, I just use my full name, so first name instead of Mr/Mrs :D
If you want to really get into it, I would propose to look at the link below (maybe with google translate). There is no one preferred answer to non gendered language in German, so you can‘t really do anything wrong when choosing something for you and your sibling :)
nibi.space/pronomen
I feel like the problem is not that we don't have any options (Lotta mentioned a few), but that they are all very obvious and can even be perceived as provocative by those that don't "believe" in gender-inclusivity and try to gate-keep the German language..
Using the neutral plural form ("Studierende" instead of "Studentinnen und Studenten"/"Student*innen") and repeating the name instead of using any pronouns are options that feel the most natural. Luckily for me I have yet to meet someone who would prefer one of the neopronouns instead of their name, because they still feel very icky to use...
Well, das Kind & das Baby (like Jessica's English examples) apply to all genders of children and babies, so at least there's that! I guess you do have to pick gendered pronouns for all humans, though.
Same thing in Welsh, where the third person plural can’t be used as a first person singular, and no neutral pronoun or gender exists in the language at all. All nouns are grammatically gendered as well, which makes choosing your own name as an enby a pain
My kids are already adults but it felt so warm and validating to realize: yup, that's the approach to parenting that I was aiming at when they were small (I attended a Montessori kindergarten from age 3 to 5 myself and it was awesome).
As soon as each could sit steadily enough, on laundry days they would get a pile of dirty laundry to "sort" and I would every now and then ask for a red sock or a yellow shirt and always thank them profusely for their help. It was super cute when not quite two year old firstborn graduated to vacuuming all of 20 seconds to begin with and SO proud to be a helper ❤
I'm not a parent but people always assume my dainty dog is a girl. I usually tell them that while he does his best to defy stereotypes, he is technically a boy. Say it with a smile and you've both corrected people, and told them not to assume in a way that shows you're not offended.
When people ask boy or girl for our oldest dog, I say her name, then, "She doesn't care about pronouns, but we use she/her." It's a good way to remind people that pronouns are important yet can be casually inquired about and provided, in the low stakes discussion about how cute doggie is. It can plant the seed of a thought: maybe I should ask human people their pronouns, too.
i was a montessori student through grade 5, and now at almost 24 i’ve been able to look back and recognize and appreciate the education i was given! i truly do accredit so much of my integral character and values to the learning environment i was brought up in. the montessori schooling style encouraged a space of autonomy, gratitude, equity, and generosity… and although i don’t personally plan to have kids, i do believe montessori is a great option for those with small children! 💕⭐️
Jessica ' I have never once set my head on fire' Hannah 'Good to know..' 😂
This felt like watching a conversation between true friends and cheered me up, thanks both 😊
Yay, two fo my favourites! As a whole, I think gender neutraul clothing/ more androgynous outfits skew towards the masculine for all ages. I remember discussions about this in a gender studies class I took but I am sure there is amazing analysis of this available on TH-cam.
Yes I wonder if it’s because male is seen as “default” and “neutral” in a male/masc dominated society?
Trousers: neutral. But also masculine
I know in antiquity trousers weren't seen as masc or fem, but instead barbarian and skirts were seen as civilised. I wonder if the modern gender stereotypes on clothes originate from Rome's conquest by the northern barbarian tribes.
I think it's more the way we percive clothing's gender. Most clothes are considered acceptable for fem people to wear but, the opposite is not true for mascs. So, "feminine clothes" end up being whatever masculine people are expected not to wear. Thus anything not explicitly labeled fem is thrown into the masc category
We've been given a lot of hand-me-downs and even though my daughter is put in stereotypical boy and girl clothes, ALL of the new clothes that we have been gifted are SOOO stereotypically girly (despite having asked for gender neutral things... So annoying). Also in France, it is so much harder to find gender neutral clothing than it is in the UK.
But baby clothes are fricking expensive so if the next one's a boy, he'll be wearing the pink and frilly clothes everyone bought for his sister! Clothes are clothes 🤷
Trying to find gender neutral clothing in France is indeed a nightmare! All the stuff in the girls’ section is glittery, frilly, pink or purple with hearts and flowers on it! Some of the newborn stuff is a little better, in white/cream and grey, with pandas or koalas on it, but most of it is very gendered! I managed to find some plain bibs and some onesies that could be suitable for either a boy or a girl, but I think they came from the boys’ section.
Before I knew my brother and his wife were having a girl, I got gender neutral clothing for her, and am still trying to do that. I have chosen ducks/geese and giraffes as animal themes , so have found some suitable items in cream/beige/yellow/teal. I have got a giraffe cuddly toy with a tutu and a babygro with a few flounces on it, but everything else is pretty gender neutral.
Before my niece was born, her parents told everyone to call her kiddo instead of princess, and it's been great.
🙄
Oh this is my kind of content, I thought about this a lot since having my son. Honestly I don't have the energy to discuss gender with randos, and even when he was wearing very plain purple clothes, people assumed he was a girl, which, as you guys said, nobody cares. I don't care, he doesn't even register it, let's move on. I do find it's an issue with language, cause my native language is very gendered and you can't talk about a kid without using gendered pronouns. So yeah, a lot of conversations do start like "is it a boy or girl?" just so I can ask other stuff about them. And since I am also buying like 90% of his clothes 2nd hand, idk how it is elsewhere but I usually have a pick of blue, dark blue and grey. 😐 and I did also check some girl clothes, but I only found frilly lacey dresses, tights and sparkly tops. And the stuff that relatives etc buy for him are of course very dark colors as well. So stupid, and unsustainable.
Judaism is an ethnoreligion. I don’t get how Dan can be struggling with this after all the time together and after presumably celebrating or seeing others celebrate Christmas as more of a cultural thing all around the UK etc. Hopefully he’s supportive though overall! I’m so excited and honoured to be a part of Jewish celebrations, culture etc that my spouse’s family let’s me be a part of and would be so happy to help my husband pass down his Jewish culture along with my non-Jewish one to our potential future kid. And we’re both completely non-religious.
Once again, Jessica forgets she's deaf and that's considered a disability😂
I guess it's because *she* doesn't really consider it a disability in the context of parenting Rupert.
@@really-quite-exhausted it probably just didn't came up, but Rupert learns sign language because of Jessica's deafness. Cool impact actually
No, she doesn't consider it a disability. Watch her channel.
@@erinl.2292 I do watch her channel. Which is why I know she has repeatedly stated that when listing disabilities, she tends to forget that one. And that she is blind in one eye.
@@really-quite-exhausted She has said multiple times that she tends to forget deafness and being blind in one eye because the other ones affect her much more in her daily life.
I love when these two get together! great hearing about parenting with disabilities.
It's so cool seeing you guys collab. I found your channel, Jessica's channel, dodie's channel and Mel's channel all totally seperately, so the fact that you are friends with them all is so funny. Clearly I have youtube channel type...
Regarding the subtitles: I think at 16:56 Jessica is not mumbling but saying Santa Lucia which is a very famous Swedish tradition haha :)
I think so too! I’m Swedish, its usually just called Lucia and is celebrated on the 13th of december, the burning candle crown is very real and also a fire hazard like Jessica implied haha
I'm half Norwegian (We have the same tradition on the 13th) so I knew exactly what she was on about 😅
Funnily enough, I was never really a girly girl, and so when I had my daughter I chose ONLY gender neutral, and I even skewed way towards boy. As soon as my daughter was old enough (2ish) she started showing a strong preference to the most girly girl pink bright clothes she could find. Literally bright pink and red. No matter how hard I tried. Now I've embraced the girly and she gets to dress up all pink and girly now (which she loves), and I've given up.
Yup! We started having our little pick clothes sometime after she turned one, but basically as soon as she could point, and she's ALL about the pink and glitter and ballerinas. But she also loves playing with trucks and getting muddy in the garden, so it's all a balance. I am NOT femme presenting much anymore, but it's fun to explore the options with a little person!
Pretty sure what Jessica said at 16:56 (just captioned as "mumbling") was Santa Lucia
My husband has severe eczema which does feel like a disability at times and we know realistically he won't be able to do all that other fathers do e.g. helping with night feeds if he is struggling with his skin. We however don't want that to stop us having a child. It easy to compare what others parents are doing but not one size fits all.. I try to remind myself that.
As a neurodivergent and autoimmune parent I completely relate to what Jessica is saying about guilt towards your other half. Especially having postpartum depression, it felt like such a relief and so refreshing to hear your take on this. 🥲
Lovely colab! I'm not even a mum, don't intend to be, but I find parenting content fascinating because of having younger siblings.
My 7 month old daughter has RSV and strep and is teething SIMULTANEOUSLY and we just laid down with some TH-cam and she is fascinated with you two.
I’ve had severe ulcerative colitis since I was 15 (In remission since having my bubbah) I have a 18 month old girl who loves trucks and fluffy dresses and this was just THE VIDEO FOR ME 🙌🏼💯❤️
I loved this video! You guys are such a great duo. Just fyi at 16:56 Jessica says, 'We bring out the Santa Lucia' - the captions had trouble with the Swedish haha
I could listen to you talk for ages. The conversation just flows so soft and naturally and your conversations and the meeting of your different viewpoints are really interesting
Omg yes!!! The gendered clothing debacle. Whilst pregnant I was shocked to see in stores that, for the most part, it was still very pink/blue (it's 2022 c'mon guys!). I tended to go for very brightly coloured clothes and lots of animals. My daughters wardrobe is now mostly teal, mustard yellow and minty green. I love it. When I came home from the hospital though it did take a hot minute to get used to the barrage of pink which awaited. Like you, I have some clothes which have never been pictured but I hope some other pink mad mother can get use of it some day. We also have a lovely blue pram I bought second hand from a colleague (who also had two daughters!) so completely understand the strangers commenting point. It doesn't bother me one bit and I don't bother to correct them otherwise.
My son was a very beautiful baby. He had big eyes, with dark eyelashes, rosy cheeks, and dark lush hair. Everyone thought he was a girl. I could dress him head to toe blue, but people would still think he was a girl. It didn’t bother me. I tended to dress him in simple one one color items, I hated most patterns.
But one time an older lady came up, my son when my son was about a year and a half, was in a yellow top and brown pants, and complimented me on my beautiful daughter. I thanked her, but also corrected her.
“Thank you. He is so my beautiful boy!”
“What?! He’s to pretty to be a boy! Little girls better watch out.”
That was the end of it but I felt so confused.
I love that you have each other to relate to, I am not someone who plans on children, but seeing other disabled people navigating parenting and relationships gives me so much hope. I do have a partner though, and I totally relate to worrying that I can't give them enough support at times when I'm in a flare, or unable to get out of bed. I love it when you make videos together, and all the happy baby noises in the background were very cute
Thank goodness that you are both investing the necessary time in teaching your kids about food culture.
#priorities straight
Socially, religiously, culturally, racially, all of them, life revolves around food and using it as a tool to educate and share heritage is so lovely and easy for kids to engage with. Love it 😘💕🥰
I love you speaking about a religion as a culture. Because I say I'm culturally Catholic, because, it's not my religion, it doesn't explain my beliefs, but it fully explains my upbringing and family history and culture. It's important to me! But, it has nothing to do with the belief in God.
When were out if my toddler child isn't wearing pink or if I dont have her hair up in a ponytail or pigtails, most people tell me my son is super cute or handsome or sweet or whatever. I thank them for the compliment, and I don't correct them. But when I call her by her name/ nickname or they may realize. And I just say she doesn't know the difference.
OH MY GOD - babyclothes. I have so much thoughts about that.
I have three children which are teenagers now (17, 15 & 11). My first child is a boy and my husband and I always knew we wanted multible children.
Also he had a lot of dark hair from the beginning and yellow/orange/red does suit him very good.
However in those days (2005) there was really few colours of babyclothes available than nowadays. Really mostly blues and pinks.
But I managed to get a bunch of clothes in other colours which all of my kids then wore.
Also I am the eldest of 5 siblings and I passed on the clothes to my siblings. So really most of the clothes got worn really good.
I loved to see my nieces and nephews in these clothes.
Whilst having my second child, that was a girl, I also started to sew more clothes for her and then her sister and younger nieces and nephews.
I most often choose gender neutral patterns and colours but the still had dresses and a bit pink stuff when they where older and requested that.
My daughter was actually a big dresses and skirts lover in her preschool and primary school age. My second daughter not as much.
My two absolute faves in one video? YAAAS ❤
I just watched Jessica with Stevie Boebi! I love watching you all! I'm looking forward to Jessica's paired video on both channels.
I’m part Swedish too, and yes it’s also definitely around Christmas that it comes out + I read a lot of Swedish children’s books as a child (would recommend Elsa Beskow, very cottagecore lol)
Everyone always thinks my 4 month old baby is a boy. I usually dress her in clothes from the boys section for 3 reasons - 1) she has the most incredible bright blue eyes and I like dressing her in blue to match, 2) I love animals and the girls versions of things are always floral whereas the boys version have farm animals, woodland creatures etc on and I'm always going to choose a fox over a rose, and 3) I just don't like pink as a colour personally. Because she doesn't go around in pink with bows on her head (not in her hair because she has f all hair) everyone assumes she's a boy. It doesn't matter but also... Why can't a girl wear a top with a collie in a tractor and leggings with Highland cows on them?
Ikr? It's bizarre how people gender things. Why are flowers for girls and animals for boys? Makes no sense
@@witchy.business So you’re intentionally dressing HER like a boy, and don’t see how this can be harmful to a child? They definitely have girl clothes that make blue eyes look good, if that’s such a concern. And no, it’s not because she’s not in pink, everyone thinks she’s a boy because you put her in BOY clothes.
Watching this feeling sort of jealous that you both have such supportive partners meaning that when you have a bad disability day you can be unable to parent temporarily. I have fibromyalgia, endometriosis, scoliosis, chronic fatigue syndrome and post concussion syndrome which is basically a forever concussion. I've had days where I've been in too much pain to hold my baby etc etc but I haven't had the ability to temporarily take a back seat so I've just had to struggle. Not even disability related all the time - once I had a terrible sickness bug when my baby was 2 months old. I was throwing up while holding my clingy baby who would cry when put down, or having terrible diarrhoea while breastfeeding my baby. And crying. Chaos.
❤
Parenting is tough!
Sometimes it's just survival, chaos, exhaustion and overwhelm.
Hope you're doing ok and you get to enjoy life and time with your children despite the challenges.
Sending love
If I'm lucky enough to have babies in my future, I think I'll dress them in anything I find cute 😂 I'm not a huge fan of being pure gender neutral (far too restrictive), but I won't limit my infants wardrobe to their gender. Who decided dresses were just for girls? Not my Victorian ancestors! I'll be putting my baby boys in dresses until they're old enough to choose! Studies have shown that children don't develop a gender until they're between 18 months and 3 years old anyway 😂 The second they start telling me what they like though, I'll let them decide (unless they decide not to wear a coat in Winter, then we might have to have words).
Oh baby clothes...I am here for this discussion! I'm also the parent of a small boy. My aesthetic is bright colors! A lot of my toddlers wardrobe is from the 'girls' section, today's he's wearing a blue top with stars, and red leggings 🤷 and he also has a couple dresses. Yup. He chooses his outfit each morning, sometimes he chooses a dress. We are lucky to live in a very affirming community though, so I don't worry much about what others might say (or fear for his safety) thank goodness.
If people send you clothes expecting a photo, is the present for baby or for them?
Watching with my 5mo- she's in a rare pink onesie (gift)! :D Usually go gender neutral so more re-usability for other family/friend babies. Good idea about not taking photos of babies in gifted clothes, haven't had much pink from family as they have respected us saying gender neutral when I was pregnant. I've mentioned to family to go second hand and wooden toys for christmas to be more sustainable- hope they continue to respect this too! :)
Yay! I feel like I've seen so much Jessica this week- Stevie Boebi's video, then your collab yesterday, now this video! 🥰
Also, does anyone know where Jessicas dress is from?
I think it's Son de Flor!
@@morehannah Ah, I was thinking it looked like Son de Flor. It's my aspiration to own a dress from there someday!
Really interesting video :) I find parenting stuff interesting because I feel like it teaches me how to parent myself as an adult :? Like there’s many things that apply to all people and not just children, plus it’s useful to know what I might have missed out on in my childhood (because of what information was available at the time and my parents personalities & abilities) and how to resolve that in myself as an adult
I know my relatives raise their kids very gendered so I just try to buy non-pink stuff for girls and non-blue stuff for boys, and never say something is for girls/boys. Painting nails comes to mind; I was painting mine and offered to paint the toenails of my cousin. He liked to colour his fingernails with watercolours for a bit afterwards🤗 His dad was kinda not-approving, though at least not directly forbidding either...
Once I randomly helped a class of pre-schoolers plant and water trees. I said to one kid "I don't have anymore watering cans right now; you can help that girl carry the last one." Instant regret about saying they were a girl; most likely that is how they were being raised, but I didn't *know.* I just assumed based on their clothes that they were a girl, which is understandable, but there was no reason to *call* them a girl; my language doesn't even have gendered pronouns for an excuse.
I decided when I was about 10 to not wear pink anymore. I just had enough of it being THE colour always offered to me, when my favourite colours were blue green and yellow. There was many compromises; I really liked a quirky shirt despite it being pink so I wore it, and I had plenty of pink undies that I kept wearing since nobody would see them. I repeatedly told relatives and classmates that pink was my least favourite colour; anything but pink should be pretty easy, right? Apparently not when the relatives are used to colour-coding kids by their gender, and girls' toys and things are liberally splashed with pink.
When I started buying my own clothes I started being even more strict: no pink drawstrings, slogans, trimmings, thread... the brand tag on the inside is sometimes acceptable even if it has pink. I vote with my wallet to stop putting a pink code on every single girls'/women's piece of clothing.
I wore a lot of pink-leaning purple as a kid, that was the other option besides the girliest pink in the 90's/2000's. I was pretty darn pleased when Frozen and Elsa become a hit when I was an adult. Though I sadly noticed that things usually had a pink trim or pink text even when they were Elsa-blue... but at least there was plenty of blue for girls, even if it is a soft blue with pink additions.
Colours should not have genders. That same cousin who briefly enjoyed painting his nails, always reached for the orange colouring pen first, but if asked what his favourite colour was said blue. I don't think he had any orange clothes; blue green black, occasional strong red. And orange is not even particularly gendered, it's just not "a boy colour" either.
I have a girl and a boy, dressed them in similar clothes but they do look more boy I suppose… but just tops and trousers! Babies in dresses are ridiculous 😂. We also gave them both gender neutral names and its caused some very funny awkward moments.
Hey Hannah, if it helps with talking to Dan about Jewish culture - It was really helpful to me to parse out my own Jewish identity when I realized that Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity. I can be an atheist religiously, but I'm still ethnically Jewish, and those things don't have to go together. I think this is hard to grasp because it is different from other religions, but it really helped me in figuring out how and why I might still want to do the holidays and food and so on without actually taking part in any of the religious ceremony or belief.
Love both of your content. What a great collab. 💜💛
I’d watch a dozen episodes of you two talking!
Omg heck yeah Lucia! I'm Swedish, living in the UK for 3,5 years now and I haaaated Lucia before I moved but now I'm literally gonna take a 1h train to a different city just to go to a Lucia celebration x))
left a similar comment on the other video, but I have been watching both of you for a very long time and these two videos just made me so happy, thank you
My mom always tells me that when I was a baby I hated wearing dresses. I couldn't crawl in them, so I would hike it up around my cloth diaper, stick it in my mouth, and hold it like that as I crawled. My parents quickly stopped putting me in dresses.
Oh Hannah, Jessica, I call children adorable little petri dishes. My dog has a massive fan club among the children of our neighborhood where the school is at the end of our street. I walk the dog, the children appear out of nowhere to give belly rubs and teach the smallers how to approach, touch, pet, interact with strange dogs. This is a huge success for me because my first gen of neighborhood kids are now teaching their younger siblings. Love all this. However they are covered in kid cooties, and then they cover my dog in kid cooties, and I end up with kid cooties. I try to look for snot on kids. We carry hand sanitizer. Not that I have much faith in their appropriate use. But it can't hurt. I dressed my daughter out of charity shops and preferred non binary outfits that were warm, sturdy, and fit. My Mother was into dresses. My daughter owned many dresses she never wore. My daughter didn't have much hair for some time, and my mother taped bows to her head. With adhesive tape! Nope. She never stopped. I never stopped removing them. Jessica, I saw you signing some of your discussion with Rupert. I know ASL, you are teaching me BSL! Hannah, you have a culture which is associated with a religion, but not always. But it's always a culture. Oh dear, I am subscribing to yet another channel to mess with my YT algorithm. But they keep telling me I should watch you and sometimes I do - done.
When you mentioned religion and Jewishness in parenting, I also got interested in hearing Jessica's perspective. I know she is a Quaker and Claudia isn't, but I don't recall then ever mentioning the route they wanted to go down with Rupert about this topic. Maybe there's a standard Montessori answer for religious upbringing though.
Quakers are very not evangelical (and also generally pretty humanist). I imagine Rupert will be exposed to Quaker life to some extent (it certainly won't be a secret), but it won't be pushed if he isn't interested in it.
I dress my kiddo in whatever the heck she wants. She's 2 and she has opinions and I'm totally open to them. She gravitates towards yellow green and blue. She has very little hair and unless she's head to toe in pink, everyone will assume she's a boy. Always.
I never correct people because I literally couldn't care less. My daughter isn't phased and is very confident in being a girl so far so I just follow her lead. If she corrected them I'd support her.
I dressed my girl in second hand boy clothes and gender neutral stuff until she got to age one and realised she loves pink/unicorns and sparkly things 😂 there’s no way she’s wear blue/trouser etc now 😂
You two continue to make a great team. I'd watch hours more of you collabing!!
Oh my god this is the collab I have been dreaming of!
SO EXCITED!! 🍃🤎🦃🦃🍃🧡🧡🍂🍃🤎🦃🦃🍃🍂🧡🍂🍂🤎🦃🍃🍂🍁🍁❤️❤️🍂🧡🧡🧡🍃🤎🦃🦃🤎🍂🧡🧡🍁🍁❤️❤️❤️🍂🧡🧡🍂🤎🦃🦃🤎🍂🍂🧡🧡🍂🤎📚🦃🤎🍃🧡❤️❤️🍁🍂
Two worlds brought together (in my TH-cam-stream at least). I'm a longtime viewer of both of you and didn't know you know each other 😍
RE gender neutral clothes: I think it makes sense that your babies are wearing sensible clothing for their age-- i think most parents will dress their children sensibly in a onesie or shirts and pants (with very gendered colors mind you). I think it makes more sense gender boundaries in dressing to get more flux as they are more conscious about what they want to wear, and all clothing is sensible within their ability to move around in them. My very athletic nephew who is an older toddler now almost exclusively wears dresses and leggings. He's been interested in them since seeing them in the store. Basically, I think right now it makes sense if they are just wearing baby sensible clothes and when they are older, you give them the option for all clothing and they pick what they want.
My son is nearly 6 and has long blond hair past his shoulders. Much as I admit I would be sad if he wanted to cut it, it is his choice. However, he gets cross at any suggestion (like when he's struggling with knots) as he loves it and says he wants it past his bottom 😁. It is amazing the number of people that assume he's a girl, even when every other thing about how he's dressed might stereotypically indicate 'boy' (depends on the day, he has a love of pink T shirts, though plain not unicorns and rainbows). It's as if long hair trumps everything else! Haven't these people ever been to a music festival or a surfing beach!
I’m new to the channel and the open breastfeeding was a shock, but a welcome one. I’m not use to seeing it openly even though it is a beutiful thing, society has just shamed people so much that its strange to me to see someone feeding their baby.
Hey Hannah, this was so interesting, especially the part about gender and clothes. I've never heard anyone describe what I feel so perfectly! I have a little boy and I try to avoid the stereotypical clothing as well as not gendering other people's children. Unfortunately, I don't live in a country where we have a singular they or something similar, so if I don't want to call other kids "it", which would be really rude, I have to refer to them as "her" or "him" which I find super annoying that I have to make that decision. I'd love a more in-depth video of the topic! There's so much to discuss about stereotypes, clothes etc.
Love this collab! So interesting ❤
BEST COLLAB LADIES!! Love you both 🦃🤎🍂🍂🧡🦃❤️❤️🦃🤎🍂🍂🤎🦃❤️🦃🤎🍂🍂🍂🤎🦃🦃❤️❤️🦃🧡🍂🍂🍂🍂🍃🍃🍃🍃🍂🍂🧡🦃❤️❤️❤️🦃🧡🍂🍂🍂🧡❤️❤️🧡🍂🍃🍁🍁🍃🍃🍃🍂🤎🧡🦃❤️❤️❤️🦃🤎🍂🍂🍁🍁
Solo playing is a very good things for babies and little child !
Hi Hannah! - just out of curiosity, how comes you and Dan still refer to Rowan as ' he' or 'our son' ? Genuinely interested! Love your videos :)
Probably because they aren’t really as insane as they have to act on the internet to stay relevant.
I got so excited when I saw that you two had done another collab!!!!!
Two videos by my two fav creators love itttt ❤
I also accidentally dress my son matching to me, and I can only assume it’s cos I pick for him what I also feeling like wearing that day?
I always laugh cause my son had long hair till about 6 months ago, before he turned 4.
People would be "oh what a gorgeous girl. Her hair is so beautiful " and he would correct them, I never corrected anyone, but when he started talking he started correcting them himself lol. It was not the reason he wanted to cut his hair, he decided his hair was getting in the way of his play lol
Tbf food is a huge part of Chinese Malay culture so I'm not surprised that Claudia knows all the food words
I loved this video! Very interesting the talk about gender clothing and assumptions. My baby was clearly dressed as a boy (gifted clothes) but having a pink flaningo soft toy next to him in the pram and they all thought he was a girl, just because of the pink toy! Ridiculous! I also have a friend that has a baby boy, couple of months older than mine, so I get a lot of her second hand clothes, but they are SO MUCH obvious boy clothes, that don't fit my style and my ideas, but is more sustainable using them than buying new baby clothes just for "style choices"....what would you do in that case?
For the Jewish thing, I would say it's the same as celebrating Christmas as someone who is non religious. Most European non religious people are culturally Christian.
And Hannah happens to be culturally Jewish.
Yay, I love Jessica, such a warm presence :-)
Absolutely had ALL these conversations about baby clothes. Almost never put my daughter in a dress, not really until she was old enough to choose to wear them to “dress up”, even to this day as an 8 year old will almost exclusively pick trousers or leggings for herself. She was frequently misgendered as a baby and toddler as she pretty much had no hair for 1st 2 years because baldy baby obviously equals boy right?! 😂 I remember an elderly gentleman TELLING ME OFF for confusing him because I’d put her in a baseball cap. It was beside the point that the hat was bright pink 😝 but apparently it was my job to make him comfortable by announcing her gender in clothing form. Certainly wasn’t the only time something like that happened. It was either that or people assuming I was childminding (as their go to assumption) because disabled people don’t have children right!?
Everyone knows most babies don’t have much hair. She was “misgendered” because you dressed her like a boy! 🤯
@@Badfishtooo 🤣
I didn’t know Jessica, love the video. Love you, as always, Hannah. Jessica looks so mush like Anna Kendrick, in the best way.
Love your energy together
AAAAAHHHHH I WAS WAITING FOR THIS SO MUCH 😍
I don’t have kids, but still fully enjoyed both videos.
This was so interesting, thank you !
I suffer from chronic migraine and I'm terrified that it's going to impact my parenting when I have kids, like the idea of being home alone with a screaming baby when my head feels like it's being hit with a hammer is horrible, hoping before I have kids I can find something to reduce the amount of attacks I have
i've been wondering for months if you're considering montessori as it fits so well with your ethos around sex ed and autonomy etc. the crossover i always wanted
When I looked on montesori, I was totaly shocked find out abowth author of this metod and her "parenthood".
I hope people will eventually recognize that "gender neutral clothing" should be about fitting everybody in sizes and fits and not about colors and masculine or feminine details
The clothing thing is so weird. I don't like the "only pink or blue" thing at all but I also feel like what's thought of as gender neutral is often quite dull colours. So I basically have just dressed my daughter in anything I like the look of, which has been anything from like goth clothes to rainbow leggings to shirts with trucks on to sparkly dresses 😂 it's easier now that she's nearly 4 as she can choose and I know she likes a bit of everything. One annoying thing though is that she especially likes clothes with her favourite characters and those seem to be weirdly separated into boys and girls. Are girls not allowed to like Mario? 😅
We also try very hard to do parenting that leans towards being gentle/Montessori etc but really I feel like I'm making stuff up on the spot half the time. Things that are supposed to always work just seem to go out the window with a screaming three year old! I think you do get to a point again though where it's easier as now they can understand reasoning much better and explain their feelings.
Jessica, I would love to hear how (if at all) your Quaker faith is something you discuss/pass on to Rupert? I know Quakerism is more a choice Rupert could make for himself later on but I would imagine you’ll take him to kids meetings at some point? Curious for myself :) xx
With a bit of practice, kids can crawl around in a dress pretty well. When I was little my parents took me to medieval re-enactment events in my little dress, apparently I figured out how to crawl well enough :)
Yeah, I think dresses are very practical, tbh.
I am having a baby girl in January and so far a lot of the clothes I've been gifted are pink and frilly, despite me wanting to be as gender neutral as possible 🤦😂
Adore you both! What a great collab!
I like your approach of not labelling other children. However, it might depend on the language. Not all languages have gender neutral terms for children. With our child, we will speak German and Spanish and we live in France. French and German do have a gender neutral term but Spanish hasn't. In German, we don't change the adjectives depending on gender, but Spanish and French do. So, that's gonna be interesting 😄
This is so exciting!!!
Follow up question for Jessica: you said you have lots of Montessori books and I want some recommendations.
Hannah and Jessica please so more together videos xoxo 😚 🦃❤️🍂🍂🦃🍃🤎🦃❤️🍂🍂🤎🍃🍃🦃❤️🍂🍂🍁🍂🍂🍂❤️🦃🤎🍃🍃🍃🤎🍂🍂🍁🍁🍂🍂❤️🦃🤎🍃🍃🍃🤎🦃🍂🍂🍁🍁🍂🍂❤️🤎🍃🍃🍃🤎🦃🧡🧡🍁🍁🧡🦃🦃
I have a girl and found out throughout the process of trying to dress her gender neutral that any clothes that are not pink or floral are boy clothes. Strangers assume that she is a boy much more than a baby girl
omg I LOVE jessica's dress!! does anyone know where it's from?
It looks like it might be the Son de Flor Butterfly dress. Hopefully that helps!
My parents didn’t find out what sex I’d be before I was born and thus bought/ were given a load of gender neutral baby clothes, which were technically ‘boys’ clothes.
Though i think gendered baby clothes are fine I think it’s nice that I just had neutral clothing. Because I didn’t look like a cute baby girly-wirly, I just looked like myself.
Although my college theatre teacher (who was a bitch) told me that I looked like a boy in my baby pic that we were asked to bring in for our last lesson
Just because in it I was wearing a plain orange T-shirt
I love this so much!!!!
A wonderful collab
I hate when I "can't life today" because it makes me feel like a shitty partner. House stuff can wait, we can order in, I have sick leave for work so finances aren't impacted, but kids JUST CAN"T BE PUT OFF so my husband has to take care of them, fully, plus me, instead of me being able to share the kid-load. He completely understands, but I know that even doing my best, I'm not pulling my weight.