MOTHER: I let the boys play with dresses and play with dolls, because if they were girls and they wanted to wear trousers and play with cars, no one would blink an eye.
NARRATOR: Five-year-old twin boys, Caleb and Kai, love their princess dresses and painting their nails, as much as they like toy swords and guns. And their parents are more than happy to let them dress how they want, and play with whatever toys they choose.
BOY: Mommy did it. They're cool aren't they? Mommy but also makeup on me yesterday.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: If they can dress up as pirates, and Darth Vader, and zombies, why can't they dress as princesses? It'd be a bit hypocritical of me if I let them dress up as somebody who marauders over the seven seas, murdering and stealing things, but I can't let them dress as a princess. It doesn't make sense to me.
GABRIELLA HAUGHTON-MALIK: We put a lot of emphasis on encouraging creativity and our children's imaginations. We are quite strict, sometimes. But, within that, they have a lot of freedom to make their own decisions about certain things. That's really important for children because they don't get a lot of choices in what they do.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: We let them choose what they want to, do to a degree. As long as it's safe, then we're pretty relaxed about it.
NARRATOR: Although the practice of gender neutral parenting is growing in popularity, It's not something that Joe and Gabriella consciously followed.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: Before the boys were born, I had no idea what gender neutral parenting was. I'd never heard of it before. So I don't suppose I intended to use it.
GABRIELLA HAUGHTON-MALIK: That was just something that we had done from day one, without realizing it. We live in a community where it's quite normal for children to have toys that are, stereotypically, for girls, and girls to play with toys are, stereotypically, for boys. That's never been an issue for us.
RAYCHEL EDDERSHAW: If I was to have kids I'd choose this type of parenting. It's letting them have their own choice, becoming their own person as they grow.
NARRATOR: However, it seems that not everyone is so open minded.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: They don't like wearing dresses out, just because they've done it before, and when they got to, say a shop or something, they've got embarrassed about doing it outside of the house.
GABRIELLA HAUGHTON-MALIK: We went to Ikea. And we got there and they did get quite self-conscious once they walked through the door. But I think it's more to do with other people, other children, than it is to due about how they feel about it, themselves.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: And I suppose that's just the impact that society has on them. Even at this early age at school, children do get comments about, oh, that's a girls toy, or, oh, you get dressed like a girl or a boy. But I don't think we should put labels on children that are that young.
GABRIELLA HAUGHTON-MALIK: In their own space they are perfectly comfortable with it and it doesn't face them.
JOE HAUGHTON-MALIK: They express themselves how they express themselves.
NARRATOR: Like any parents, Joe and Gabriella just want what's best for their boys.
GABRIELLA HAUGHTON-MALIK: We encourage them to question things. We encourage them to think for themselves. I do feel like we put limits on them in terms of their self belief. They will have a lot of opportunities where they can do exactly what they want to do, and have no limits on their imagination, in that sense.
If somebody came to me and suggested that my parenting skills were, possibly, going to make my sons gay, after I'd stop laughing, I'd point out that sexuality is to do with genetics, and not to do with environment. My hopes for them in the future is that they're happy. I really don't care what they do, or who they are, as long as they're good people, and they're happy. That's all I want for them.