Kids stuff is so ephemeral, here today, gone tomorrow. They grow out if it, lose it, break it, become bored of it. There will be more backpacks.

The gender stuff is very true. We don’t push things onto our kids but our girl loves dresses and our boy loves trucks. They go to daycare 5 days a week. They have more hours in a week interfacing with more adults and kids then they have hours in the week interfacing with us.

That’s result of both of us needing to work to support our family. So while we will retain primary influence, that secondary influence is going to be very strong.

The good thing is these norms will stand in contrast to the way you behave and how you talk about them. While most uncritical parents will raise uncritical kids who have to learn to be critical (or never do), your critical perspective will act ad a counter balance, so long as that perspective isn’t oppressive (I think).

You can’t escape the pressures but you’ll be better equipped to explain why these pressures make no sense, because they will begin to make no sense.