Over the last 25 years, baby clothes have become increasingly gendered, and neutral options have nearly vanished. Certainly one reason is the technology that allows us to know a baby's sex with nearly 100% certainty long before birth. As a costume historian, my interest is not only in what people choose to do with that information, but how they react to the choice itself. I am hearing from more and more expectant parents who choose NOT to know; not surprisingly, these are also the folks who are the most vocal about the lack of neutral styles and about stereotypical gender binary design. They not only want to wait until birth to know if they are having a son or a daughter, but even then they want to avoid pink, girly things and "little man" outfits.
At the other extreme are parents who embrace early sex identification, because it makes preparations (not only clothing, but nursery designs and naming) more convenient, or because they feel it helps them connect with the baby as a "real" person. For these folks, there is an industry eager to provide the information they crave. I was tipped off to the existence of First Glimpse by references and recommendations in several pregnancy blogs. This is more than the sonograms once used primarily to detect potential problems, which could sometimes also detect genetalia. What was incidental is now central, in First Glimpse's "Gender Determination" packages. Combining elements of medicine, spa treatments, scrapbooking and glamor photography, they offer women a pregnancy experience that is as commodified as a cruise. Maybe that's next.
At the other extreme are parents who embrace early sex identification, because it makes preparations (not only clothing, but nursery designs and naming) more convenient, or because they feel it helps them connect with the baby as a "real" person. For these folks, there is an industry eager to provide the information they crave. I was tipped off to the existence of First Glimpse by references and recommendations in several pregnancy blogs. This is more than the sonograms once used primarily to detect potential problems, which could sometimes also detect genetalia. What was incidental is now central, in First Glimpse's "Gender Determination" packages. Combining elements of medicine, spa treatments, scrapbooking and glamor photography, they offer women a pregnancy experience that is as commodified as a cruise. Maybe that's next.
