Something I do not look forward to...

heatherchelle

I went grocery shopping and while in the checkout lane there was a little boy, probably about four years old, who loudly asked his mother, "Is that a boy or a girl?" in reference to the cashier.  The mother muttered something to him and and stayed really quiet until they left.

Seriously, how would you address that?  The cashier's appearance was pretty gender ambiguous so it's not like she could have laughed it off and said, "a boy silly!"  or something like that.  In all honesty, if I had to guess I would have said male, but the name listed on my receipt was "Carrie."

 

 

Disclaimer:  This is not in anyway meant to offend anyone.  I had a hard time finding a way to word this appropriately.  I certainly do not feel that people should have to adhere to typical gender stereotypes.

 

SusieDMB

I had  a student named Sam before that I had to look up to see if she was male or female.  She dressed very masculine.

Married678

How embarrassing for everyone (except the little boy!! lol!)! I wonder what she told him after they left.....

Bride7-14-07

Jordan had many of these moments when he was around 3-4 years old. It was not just about gender. He would ask very loudly and point to weight, clothes, gestures, and other things.

triumphantreturnofplanningbug

That is hard. Many of my friends are genderqueer, or intentionally choose sexual ambiguity, and it's hard on them and the people around them because we're generally not equipped, linguistically or otherwise, to talk about it. Adults are frequently uncomfortable around them, whereas kids are more curious.

I truly believe that up to a certain age/attitude, kids don't intend insult, they just try to understand. If they've been taught that people are either boys or girls, that's how they're going to try to understand things.

It's probably strange, but DH and I look forward to these moments as parents. We really hope that by answering questions like that with "well, not all boys look a certain way, and not all girls look a certain way, and some people aren't boys or girls," we'll be able to do the whole cliche "be the change you want to see in the world" thing. Then again, my sister told me that she was going to report me to CPS for being too weird to be a good parent, so that sort of answer is apparently not the right one.

critterchik

triumphantreturnofplanningbug:

It's probably strange, but DH and I look forward to these moments as parents. We really hope that by answering questions like that with "well, not all boys look a certain way, and not all girls look a certain way, and some people aren't boys or girls," we'll be able to do the whole cliche "be the change you want to see in the world" thing.

This. I don't have plans in the immediate future for children, but I too honestly look forward to these "hard" questions. I am in total agreeance with you about the way adults feel towards these types of situations and a lot of their dislike about it comes from not understanding. So I hope that I can communicate these different lifestyles to my children so that they understand that one is not more correct than the other and that everyone is different in a way that will grow with them. I already find it challenging with the children I nanny for. They are at the age where they have all these questions about boy/girls and the relationships that are expected between them. I've even heard them use the word "gay" a time or two (they heard some other kid on the bus call someone gay) and I had to explain to them that that's not what it means and help them understand that people can love whoever they want. It felt good to me though to see their little brains *tick* as they took it in and processed it, nod and smile at me like "ok, i get it".