Gender neutral? We should let boys and girls be themselves

THE mother next to me in the “under threes” area of a Dundee indoor play centre smiled sweetly.

There I was, just like her, with my baby. Her little girl was older than ninemonth-old Guthrie — a two-year-old, pretty as a picture in bunches.

We were kindred, calm spirits, her daughter playing with my gurgling, giggling and gooing baby in a pit of blue and red plastic balls.

“It’s nice and gentle here,” she said. “Not like over there,” jutting her head towards the older kids’ area, a blur of climbing, jumping and sliding.

“I like rules. I hate seeing kids running up the slides,” she said.

Cue — at this exact moment — two red-headed boys climbing the wrong way up the slide, shouting “coming to get you poo poo head”.

The other mum let out a “hah” that said “my point exactly, whose kids behave like that?”

The crimson flush to my face gave the answer away. That’ll be my kids then.

Of course I’ll tell them to go down the slide the right way.

But even if I policed them every minute of the day, there’s an inescapable truth: They are boys.

Unlike friends who have girls (and this is a sweeping generalisation but almost any mum I know agrees), boys won’t sit in a cafe colouring in while you catch up with a pal. They will explore, find stairs, cutlery, cakes on stands, you name it. Until you realise going to a cafe with boys is as relaxing as standing barefoot on a plug.

So a news story this week made me laugh. That John Lewis is the latest company to “gender neutralise” by taking off clothes labelled for girls and boys, instead making them unisex.

What next? Toy shops refusing to have sections for girls and boys’ toys? Too late, it’s already happened.

If your boy wants to dress up as a princess, great. But experts are saying it’s “dangerous” to categorise boys as “tractor-loving” and girls as “pretty”.

Hello? It’s in-built. Even at six months of age, my boys went for anything with wheels. I bought a doll just to see what happened. It got lonely.

If it makes a zooming noise, they want it. When the joiner comes round, they get out their toy drill and put a pencil behind their ear to be just like him.

I’m a feminist — up against four boys in the house, I have to be.

But by saying there’s something “wrong” with being a boy or a girl, surely that’s the most dangerous message of all?

To the “experts” who say there’s no difference between the sexes, let me leave you with a summary of my day:

Boom. Make some room. Won’t stay in bed. You’re a poo poo head. Cuddles and cosies. Constant runny nosies. Cars and bikes, Lego and trikes. Nothing’s ever neat. Rinse and repeat.