Ugh at bows and ruffles

My kiddo is about 75% tomboy.  She will wear a dress, perhaps, twice a year.  When she does wear "girl clothes", she favors a rocker/punk girl look, with skinny jeans, a modern blouse or girl's funky t-shirt, and a short shrug on top.  She has her own unique sense of style, and we only interfere when she is dressed completely inappropriately, i.e., too small/tight clothes, shorts in the middle of winter, etc. Each morning, I ask her "boy or girl clothes", and we proceed according to her desires.  Some days, she tells me she wants to change her gender; other days, she says she wants to be more "girly".  I realize it's quite common for girls to wish they were boys; often it's a stage.  If it continues when she reaches adolescence, I may take her to a counselor, if only to work through whatever social issues her gender identity may cause, and to make peace with whomever she is meant to be.

My HUGE pet peeve is that finding clothes that please her is near impossible, at least in our budget. For example, if she needs a pair of tennis shoes, her choices appear to be the pink/lavender/white spectrum, usually with girly trim, OR extremely traditionally masculine colors and styles.  Grown women have a variety of colors and options from which to choose.  Those who prefer a classic, more unisex style can go to LL Bean or Eddie Bauer and find non-girly women's shoes, and how many of us have a ton of basic black shoes? S loves to wear black, and we often have to hunt around a great deal to find items similar to what her mother wears.  I find a pair of what appears to be basic girls' jeans, and they are ruined for S because of pink piping or flowers that appear somewhere.  We then check the boy's section, but the designs are TOO boyish for her, and, frankly, the fit is different.  She has a girl's body, not a boy's.

My own style ranges from girly to punkish/goth to outdoorsy unisex.  But I have options for all of these moods.  I can peruse LL Bean for those New England preppy days, the Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy for dressing down while still wearing female silhouettes, and a ton of stores that cater to my love of glam/retro/girly dress-up gear.  But S?   It is a huge headache locating anything that doesn't pigeonhole her into girly girl or drag king boy clothes.  Neither of these are intrinsically wrong- there are a lot of kids who LIKE these items, but there are a lot of kids who fall through the cracks.

Why do we feel the need to pigeonhole kids into girly girl or uber-masculine boy, when, in fact, we don't feel the need to do so for older kids and adults? Are we being prescriptive?  "You are a girl, so you have to wear pink and bows." "You are a boy, so your clothes have to have transportation and space themes." And clothing for toddlers is even worse.  The princess theme was shoved down our throats, and S would have preferred a black t-shirt with aliens to the Trifecta of Disney Princesses.

Gift time is often frustrating.  Though I am grateful for all the gifts we receive,  it is not necessary to purchase pink Legos for my daughter, and sometimes, little girls would rather play with trucks than dolls.  Sometimes, little boys like to play with dolls.  The most egregious example I've seen are a set of twins that are boy/girl.  The girl is constantly presented with PINK everything, while the boy gets the BOY counterpart.  He gets toolsets while she gets jewelry kits, as if the world will fall apart if she picks up the toolset and he picks up the jewelry.  They often get identical gifts, but hers has to be girl colored and his has to be boy colored, as if there is no way they know what gender they are without reminders.  God forbid kids raised this way have gender identification issues.

Again, I am not judgmental of those kids who intrinsically prefer  items that match their gender.  Many girls are naturally girly, and many boys are naturally masculine.  But it shouldn't be so difficult for those on different areas of the gender identity spectrum to find clothes and toys that please them.  There is no reason there can't be lots of jean options for girls that are just plain jeans.  I find myself constantly frustrated.  There are specialty stores that have great clothes my kid would like, but they tend to be higher end, and I don't believe in forking out huge amounts of money on clothes for fast growing children.

Kids are hopefully going to eventually discover their own personal style.  As they begin to buy clothing that fits adults, they can easily find items that suit them.  So, why start them out with this prescriptive "This is how you should be a girl" or "This is how you should be a boy" box?