Gender Neutral Baby Clothes – The Bigfoot of Baby Clothes
Yesterday afternoon we went to the local consignment shop to start stocking up on newborn baby clothes. Since we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, and I’m fairly anti-gender confinements for kids, all we wanted was a few cute and simple neutral outfits. Apparently these things don’t exist outside of rare sightings and rumors. Kind of like Bigfoot.
We spent around $35 and did come home with a big bag of stuff, but it took hours of head pounding and aggravation to get that much. Aside from a few cute Sesame street onsies, some basic white shirts, and a dozen yellow outfits I couldn’t find much that wasn’t extremely girl or extremely boy. A lot of the things going as far as to have the words “boy” or “girl” on them to declare exactly what the gender of the baby is. Because gods forbid a stranger not recognize the bald lump of fat as being part of a specific gender. So many times I wanted to grab my camera and share some of the more insane outfits I found. Like a hot pink and black bikini, with triangle cups, in a 0-3 months size. A bikini. In hot pink. With little triangle tops like there are boobs that need to be covered, but only just a little. Surprisingly my head did not explode at the idea of a practically newborn baby needing to flash more sex appeal.
Less twitch inducing were the thousands of “Little Princess” “Diva in Training” “All Boy” and “Future Mr. Right” shirts, onsies, and pajamas starting back at me. All with either pink and/or purple flowers or blue tools/dinosaurs/sports equipment covering them. I was very nearly tempted to decide to just get what I thought was cute and screw trying to be gender neutral, but the idea of listening to certain family members explode at the idea of a girl wearing blue footballs or a boy wearing pink flowers is a bit too much for me. At least while I’m still in the hormonal new mama stage.
Thank gods for still having some cute stuff that I saved from the boys. I know there are several neutral outfits in there that will hopefully fit. Like the 2 pairs of Robeez baby shoes that Trey had when he was little. Turtles and fish, cute without screaming “My parents need you to know what gender I am!!!”
Have you noticed that all the neutral outfits have giraffes on them or is that just my experience?
The idea of the bikini is …well….ew.
I found a pink camouflage baby tee shirt one day in the thrift shop that said “Future Army Wife”. That was a very “WTF?” moment for me.
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Future Army Wife? Oh GOD. Bikini? Sick! It takes an attitude of constant vigilance from the day the baby’s born to avoid all this stuff, doesn’t it? I’m constantly amazed how our culture just won’t let a child be a child.
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Summer Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 11:08 am
You really do have to battle this stuff from day 1. I don’t understand why kids can’t be kids instead of mini-sex objects. Did you see the baby booties made to look like stiletto heels some company was selling? Just insane!
Hi
Have you tried to find BLACK baby clothes? Riiight.
Unless you go during Halloween season and stock up, it’s not an easy thing.
As for the babies-as-sex-objects thing, it’s disgusting. Like we need to give some sicko a reason to be turned on by our infant? Ick.
It’s pathetic how our society wants to assign stereotypes as soon as our kids come out. And we go along with it! If there was no demand, there would be no supply!
Rebecca
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Summer Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Black baby clothes are so hard to find. I think we have one, a black t shirt with the Ramones on it.
Even with plain old blue jeans you can’t go gender neutral. I was going to hand down some of my boys’ jeans to my niece. WRONG!
If they don’t have a car or tools somewhere on them, they have all kinds of boyish looking pockets and carpenter loops. It’s ridiculous. What child in a size 6-9 months needs a place to hang their hammer?
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Summer Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Ugh, I know. I tried to find a few pair of plain jeans and jean shorts and they all either had flowers/ribbons/lace all over them or blue cartoon dogs playing football. No just plain, ordinary, simple baby jeans.
OMG that bikini is gross…I’m in the same position as you! Don’t know what we’re having yet, and so far all i’ve been able to find that is completly gender neutral is a gray sweatsuit in NB size that cost me 50$!!! It’s like .1 meters in fabric!! but I was so excited to find SOMETHING ANYTHING that I could buy this early on that I was like…I don’t even care, I’m buying it.
I actually found it in this trendy little locally owned boutique…you should try those places I have had NO luck with sears/walmart/all other big stores!
Courtney, the problem with those types of boutique is, as you found, paying $50 for one little outfit. That’s just insane on so many levels. I’m not willing to spend that much on my clothes, I certainly would never pay that for baby clothes. Considering how little they are worn before being outgrown if I can’t get it used at a thrift store I just don’t buy it at all. Not even in the big chain stores. It’s used or nothing at all.