THE FUTURE NEU-PARENTING

The shift in the way society views gender and sexuality will be most seen in the way generations such as Millennials change the way they parent. It is a focus on allowing children to find their own way on the spectrum of gender. Target announced in August 2015 that it would remove gender-based signage from its store. As a result, the kids Bedding area no longer features suggestions for boys or girls, just kids (Walker, D., Buchanan, V., Stott, R., 2015).

“Rather than conceiving of gender as a binary that can be cautiously crossed, the gender parenting paradigm would enjoin us to introduce our children to a wide variety of different gender identities and expressions.” – LGBT activist, Paige Schilt.

As a result of this, the children of Millennials - Generation Alpha, are found to be better at critical thinking. They are immediately able to question something more than Generation Z and are more accepting of individuality; this observation was drawn from a study by Beano Studios where 650 hours of interviews with young trend-spotters was conducted and found that 58% of 5-9 year olds think that gender doesn’t matter (Friend, H., 2019).