Stephanie Worsop: The struggles of clothes shopping for a little boy

The boys' clothing is mostly in blue, grey and khaki. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

Parents of boys, say it with me: we want more variety in our kids' store-bought clothing.

With the bursts of fine weather we've been having, I went to a few shops recently to pick up some summer clothes for my son.

As I walked through the aisles of the first shop, trying to find the boys' section, I walked past rack upon rack of cute sundresses, brightly coloured T-shirts, eye-catching overalls and multiple types of sunhats, sandals and togs.

When I finally found the boys' section, my disappointment was twofold.

One, where was all the stock? Having just walked past a sizeable section of girls' clothing, I was a bit miffed to see two tiny racks of designated boys' clothing.

Two, why is the majority of boys' clothing only made in three colours - blue, grey and khaki?

Was there a unanimous vote that I missed? Did all the retailers band together and decide blue, grey and khaki are the only acceptable colours for boys to wear? Or was all the other coloured material in the world used up when making girls' clothing and those three colours were all that was left?

I stood staring at the limited options for about 10 minutes, occasionally picking up an item, then putting it back when I realised I already had several items at home that closely resembled it in both pattern and colour.

Eventually giving up at that particular store, I thought I'd have better luck at another one down the road but I was met with the same problem.

The shelves were brimming with clothing, but 80 per cent of it was specifically for little girls.

I ended up picking out a couple of yellow and red TT-shirts from the girls' section as well as a mustard bucket hat and some brown sandals from the same area.

From the selection of "boys' clothing", I found two shorts and T-shirt sets, one in grey and the other in khaki.

Needless to say, I didn't get as much as I needed because the options just weren't there.

Now, I know I don't have to dress my son in gender-specific clothing and I know there's nothing stopping me buying him clothes from the girls' section.

As I mentioned, I have often done that. But if retailers are going to continue to market children's clothing by gender, the least they could do is make sure it's evenly distributed.

Or better yet, make the gender-specific options limited and have a wider range of gender-neutral clothing - pink overalls with dinosaurs or trucks on them, plain shorts in a range of colours, T-shirts with bumblebees, lemons, cute baby animals or sea creatures.

Clothing that's bright and exciting can and should be worn by all children.

Maybe all this already exists and I have just been looking in the wrong places but if that's the case, I've neither heard about it nor seen it advertised.

So, if anybody knows of a good place to get cool, bright boys' clothing, please get in touch because if I see one more monochrome top-and-bottom set with moustaches on it, I'm going to lose my mind.