Gender Differences

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Clarissa

February 18, 2018

A very young teacher assistant at Klara’s school last week: “Look at how quiet they are! It’s because they are all girls. I know it’s not fashionable to say any more but these differences exist.”

Me: “Erm. . . This one here is Leo. This is Luke, and this one is Max. The other four are, indeed, girls.”

The kids this age are so unaware of gender that I can’t convince Klara that the father of her friend Kara is a father and not a mother. The fellow has long, thick hair, so she’s convinced that means he’s a mommy. The fact that he also has a handlebar mustache is not making a difference to her.

People who say that their child “identified as” male or female at 18 months are crazy.

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4 responses to “Gender Differences”

Anon

February 18, 2018

A couple of months ago, my four year old came home from school and said: my friend Max was a girl today. As it happens, Max has (beautiful) long curly hair, and was wearing it in a ponytail that day.

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Spiderbaby

February 18, 2018

Parents are obsessed with gender roles in a way that kids aren’t – until they pick’em up from them, of course.

My uncle has a 3 years old son who wanted to dress up as his favourite cartoon character for carnival, which happens to be a girl.
Now, this girl is a superhero wearing a red, gender-neutral costume, but my uncle and his wife made the kid change his mind, afraid that he was experiencing gender confusion.
It briefly crossed their minds that he might just want to dress like her because she’s cool and can fly, without this meaning that he wants/thinks to be a girl. But no, can’t have a boy identify with a female character, it would be improper.
And this is the progressive part of my family.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 18, 2018
  
  Exactly. At this age, kids are not even intellectually equipped to care. Gender is not a meaningful category for them at all
  
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UDR

February 19, 2018

One of my sisters drives me crazy with this. If my niece is running around and being loud she gets shushed and scolded. If my nephew is behaving in the same way, my sister shrugs her shoulders and says “boys will be boys”

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