Clothes Don’t Make the Kid
Why I stopped expressing myself through my kid’s clothes — and let him express himself instead
by Phoebe Bates
Instagram @phoebejoanna
Beckett examining some wildflowers, dressed in clothes that his mom, Phoebe, picked out: loose-fitting pieces in white, gray, and beige.
My son Beckett was supposed to be a girl. I decided when I got pregnant.
To me, girls were calm and considerate. They complied with requests and didn’t make a fuss. They were “easy.” Boys, on the other hand, were loud, obnoxious, and undisciplined. They liked cars and construction and not paying attention. They didn’t say please or thank you, and they didn’t follow directions.
I was certain that Beckett was going to be a girl right up until my ultrasound appointment, where the technician told me the three words I didn’t want to hear: “It’s a boy.” I got to the car and burst into tears.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I didn’t know how to raise a boy. Really, I didn’t know how to raise a girl, either, but I’d spent most of my life coaching competitive girls’ gymnastics, so I thought I knew. The life I had imagined with a child hinged on that child being a girl. She would be my best friend. We would pick flowers, take walks through the woods, spend our days making crafts, and never watch TV. Logically, I knew I could do these things with a boy, but mentally, I felt like my baby’s gender would create a divide between us.
Rather than create a new image of motherhood, I picked up the pieces of my shattered illusion and taped them back together. I thought I could show that my baby was more than just a rambunctious boy by just dressing him as such, in gender-neutral clothes. I wanted to communicate to myself and the world that Beckett was “one of the good ones.” Don’t worry, everyone, this kid says both please and thank you!
Baby Beckett in plain, white, footie pajamas.
Beckett wearing overalls, a gray shirt, and a knitted bonnet that Phoebe loved (and that Beckett maybe didn’t love that much).
So I picked out a genderless wardrobe full of beige, gray and white. You could argue that any clothes and any colors are for any gender, and you would be correct. The stereotypical blue for boys and pink for girls were only established in the 1940s, by clothing manufacturers. Hyper-gendered children’s clothing as we know it didn’t really exist until the 1980s.
I was concerned with how I would come across as a parent if I dressed my kid in obviously gender-nonconforming styles. As someone who is painfully awkward, generally speaking, I didn’t want to encounter situations where I would need to explain my decisions. It was hard enough having to explain Beckett’s name, which I had also chosen in part for its unconventionality.
I maybe didn’t want to put my kid in a dress, but Beckett wore overalls, blank, beige onesies, and the cutest bonnet I’ve ever come across. My husband warned me that Beckett might not appreciate the impracticality of a crocheted bonnet, but I persisted, grasping at control. I bought Beckett dolls, little wooden animals, and genderless Montessori and Waldorf toys — all of which he ignored, much to my horror, in favor of any vehicle he could get his hands on. I even knit him toy vegetables. He threw them across the room.
I felt that, in rejecting the toys and clothes I chose for him, Beckett was rejecting me as well. I have always used clothing and objects to express my personality and values. If Beckett didn’t want anything to do with the items I offered him, I thought, he didn’t want anything to do with me either.
A corner of Beckett’s sparsely-decorated room, featuring beige, white, and natural wood surfaces, neutral-toned linens, a shelf full of nature books, a mushroom-shaped night light, and a rainbow suncatcher.
A charming wooden house that serves as a parking lot for Beckett’s trucks — the perfect blend of Phoebe and Beckett’s aesthetics.
As Beckett got older, I abandoned my dream of a TV-less toddler and introduced him to shows I thought would further my cause. We watched Octonauts, Puffin Rock, and animal documentaries, all shows that were decidedly slow and gentle: everything I wanted in a child. Beckett showed exactly zero interest. In a moment of desperation — it was 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, and I had run out of things to do — I put on an episode of Blippi, a popular YouTube series, the opposite of slow and gentle. That was a year and a half ago, and Beckett still requests Blippi every day.
My attempts for control sprang from my feelings of rejection as well as from fear. I was terrified that, one day, everything would come crashing down and my child would become something I didn’t know how to handle. There are so many unknowns when one becomes a parent. I just wanted one thing I could predict.
An assortment of gender-neutral clothes Phoebe picked out for Beckett, featuring soft, drawstring shorts and plain and striped tees in earth tones.
It was while I put together this piece of writing — originally intended to be a simple article about gender-neutral kids’ clothes — that I realized my attempts to change my son’s preferences weren’t working and could in fact be actively working against him.
My realization started with an experiment. I planned to let Beckett pick an outfit for himself on one of our Sunday shopping trips, so that I could see what he wanted when getting dressed and whether that differed from what I wanted. Alas, Beckett wasn’t interested in anything he saw or in anything I thought he might like.
As an alternative, I asked him to pick an outfit from the clothes he already has. He started with a green-and-blue-striped shirt from his grandparents: “It’s comfy,” he said. Next, he chose a pair of gray sweatpants with drawstrings; he likes to chew on the drawstrings. Finally, he added his “beep beep” socks — gray with cars, red accents, and the word “beep” knitted into them, courtesy of Daddy. To sum it up, two of the three pieces Beckett chose were not from me.
Beckett’s chosen outfit: a striped shirt in shades of blue, comfy draw-string pants, and his “beep beep” socks.
I can no longer pretend that Beckett is a piece of clay I can form into whatever I want. He likes tractors, excavators, and Blippi — all things I associate with boys — and dislikes everything I’ve ever wanted to buy him. Beckett has his own opinion, and he has the self-confidence to voice it, requesting the shows he wants, picking the socks he likes, and saying, “Bye!” when he gets bored of a conversation. I admire his assuredness. Beckett has shown me that I can simply exist without the pressure of my insecurities weighing down on me. He may not be the reserved child I was hoping for, but I’m glad he is not plagued by the same anxiety that made me the calm and quiet child that I was.
In retrospect, I’ve had a clear case of confirmation bias. I had worked with both boys and girls in my coaching career, including both boys and girls who displayed behaviors I didn’t like. But if a boy was particularly calm and polite, or if a girl was especially rowdy, I considered them an outlier I could disregard.
Beckett striding confidently in an outfit that his mother wouldn’t have saved on Pinterest, but one that he chose himself.
A child’s clothing does not determine or indicate their manners or behaviors; it says more about the parents than the kid. Like choosing a name, choosing clothing allows parents to show the world not only their hopes for their child but also how they hope to be perceived themselves. I wanted people to identify me as a hip, current, eco-friendly mom, so I bought Beckett organic-cotton clothes in earth tones. I got to fit Beckett into my anti-boy box, and I believed that everyone around me thought I was super cool, while I placed on the backburner the things my child actually enjoyed and wanted to wear.
Inadvertently, I was placing restrictions on Beckett that were not unlike those placed on boys expected to fulfill the stereotypical male role. I tried to justify my restrictive behavior by telling myself that I was introducing Beckett to “a new version of masculinity,” but all I was really doing was easing my insecurities. I thought that, if I could get Beckett to look a certain way, the values I wished to instill would just fall into place. Writing this down, I can see the flaw in my thinking: Obviously, one’s aesthetic does not determine behavior. But influencing Beckett’s clothing seemed much simpler than influencing the way he behaved.
A beige and gray “gender neutral” outfit that Phoebe would typically choose for Becket.
Beckett swaps out the neutral socks and shirt for a truck-themed graphic tee, coordinating primary colored socks, and selects sweat pants with a drawstring that he likes to chew on.
To let my son be the best version of himself, I have to warm up to the fact that he does not share my aesthetic choices. His hobbies and preferences are not nearly as important as how he carries himself through the world. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve spent much more time trying to influence the former than I have the latter. The best way to influence a child’s behavior is by modeling what you wish to see. By valuing aesthetics above all else, I was teaching Beckett to do the same.
Now that I’m not focusing so much on clothing choices, I can devote more bandwidth to encouraging respect, kindness and emotional regulation. I can demonstrate how to help those in need, to treat others with respect, and to accept and work through emotions rather than push them down and ignore them. I can show Beckett that his opinions and preferences are valued and that his voice is important — which is impossible to do while forcing him to like something. Only Beckett gets to decide who he becomes.
Last Updated: September 8, 2022
Editor: kat baus | Designer: Haley Burson | Photographer: Phoebe Bates | Copywriter: Meg Chellew | Copy Editor: Katie Frankowicz | Proofreader: Karrie Witkin
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