Day one. Our daughter awakes. Her first morning. Slowly her gaze rakes across the recovery room in a nascent attempt to process the relationship to her new world.

As new parents, we awed at this sense of awareness. It’s a precious moment that I’ll treasure forever. A memory frozen in time of her budding self awareness. And a moment of clarity to the age-old question: nature vs. nurture? Clearly nature.

Our early months as parents were filled with more questions than answers. Classes, books and advice prepared us for the great unknown. But when theory transitioned to reality, we found ourselves mostly guided by instinct. We tossed aside what we knew going into parenthood and focused on what was before us. A new human being with her own self-determination. A blank canvas, primed and ready to be painted. A masterpiece unfolding day-by-day.

One of the earliest forms of expression children receive in life is dress. How clothing defines them. Boy, blue. Girl, pink.

The irony, is children have little say in the matter. Thinking back to that first morning in the recovery room with our daughter, the idea of defaulting to gender based dress felt backwards. We discarded the mainstream idea of gender based colors in favor of neutral tones. Returning to that idea of a blank canvas. Little did we know at the time, but giving her the space to develop her own sense of self allowed her to blossom into the talented and confident girl that defines her today.

As Jess Lair writes, “Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded.” A point too often forgotten by adults. Somehow in our early parenting journey, we stumbled upon an alternative path. A style of parenting that ultimately inspired us to develop a brand celebrating children’s individuality, creativity and imagination. To share with others the joy we experienced allowing our children to flourish in self discovery, without bias.

Hey Moona, is our invitation to join our family. To nurture our children’s nature and take pride in the masterpiece that is our children.

Photo by Tatiana