Pink on why she's raising her child as gender neutral

Pink has spent her entire career challenging the conforming restrictions of gender norms - and it's a viewpoint she's keen to pass on to her children.

She told The Sunday People that she's intent on raising her daughter Willow as gender neutral, allowing her to make free choices that aren't dictated by what society states women should or shouldn't do.

"We are a very label-less household. Last week Willow told me she is going to marry an African woman. I was like: 'Great, can you teach me how to make African food?" Pink said. "And she’s like: ‘Sure mama, and we are going to live with you while our house is getting ready.'" She joked that her only question to Willow was, "who is paying for this by the way?"

She also praised a school for supporting gender-neutral approaches, adding: "The bathroom outside the kindergarten said: 'Gender Neutral - anybody', and it was a drawing of many different shapes. I took a picture of it and I wrote: 'Progress'. I thought that was awesome. I love that kids are having this conversation."

This certainly isn't the first time Pink, real name Alecia Beth Moore, has spoken out about freeing future generations from gender conformity. Her speech at the VMAs, accepting the Video Vanguard award, was dedicated to Willow, where she spoke of her own fight to teach her daughter the lesson of self-acceptance.

She revealed her shock when Willow told her that she thought of herself as the ugliest girl she knew, all because she looked like "a boy with long hair". Pink's response was to immediately get creative: she made her daughter a Powerpoint presentation, filled with images of musical icons famous for their androgyny, from Prince to David Bowie, from Annie Lennox to Janis Joplin.

"Artists that live their truth," she added. "Are probably made fun of every day of their lives, and carry on, and wave their flag, and inspire the rest of us."

She then explained to her daughter that she was always made fun of for looking like a boy, being too masculine, acting too strong, or having too many opinions. Pink then asked her daughter: "'When people make fun of me . . . do you see me growing my hair? 'No, mama.' Do you see me changing my body? 'No mama.' Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world? 'Yes, mama.'"

"So, baby, girl," she stated. "We don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl." She celebrated the importance of showing the world "more kinds of beauty", before thanking those in music who continue to proudly display their true selves.

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