Thursday, November 09, 2006

Tales of Gender-Free Parenting

When we first found out we were pregnant, Spouse was insistent that we not find out the sex of the baby. I asked why. "The kid has got the rest of its life to be gendered. Why start now?" That spouse, he's a smart one.

  • Making lunch, DQ asks what Daddy is having.
    Spouse: "I'm having a grilled cheese sandwich, just like you."
    DQ: "You can't have that. It's only for girls." Now, this is a phrase we hear a lot these days, and we work very hard to convince her that no, there is really very little that has to be gender-specific in this world.
    Spouse: "Why not?"
    DQ: "Because it's a girl cheese sandwich."

  • At daycare one day, the toddler class had been playing with ponytails, so when I picked him up, Wild Boy had a fantastic spike of hair in the center of his forehead. He thought this was great, so we left it in (and 3 other toddlers, all with at least one ponytail, waved goodbye to us.) That night, at dinner, a 10 year old boy came up to me and asked, "Is that a boy or a girl?"
    Quinn: "He's a boy."
    Boy: "Then why does he have a ponytail?"
    Quinn: "Because he likes it." Convinced that we were weird, the boy left.
    It was only then that I realized the boy had an earring.

4 Comments:

Blogger Jade said...

On Gayle's first day of preschool this year I took a picture of her sitting on the front step of the school holding her Superman lunch bag. A little boy from her class walked by and said to his mom "Why does she have a boy's lunch box?" and the mom looked at him and said "Um... well I guess she must like Superman" After they left Gayle looked at me and said "This isn't a boy's lunchbox! It's Superman! Everyone loves Superman!"

6:55 PM  
Blogger Andy said...

"Is that a boy or a girl?"

The correct answer is simply, "Yes."

1:58 PM  
Blogger belledame222 said...

girl cheese!!

7:43 PM  
Blogger Courtney said...

Wait... if cheese comes from milk, and milk comes from females, then aren't they all girl cheese?

8:23 AM  

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