There was a time when I believed that children became more boyish or girlish as they grew older in response to role models and subtle (and not-to-subtle) cues their parents/tutors gave them. My daughter and son clearly don’t share that belief. Neither my wife nor I are particularly masculine or feminine (you can take hat whatever way you like) but our children could not be closer to stereotypes if you had sent them to Stereotypes R Us school. Daughter loves pink, dresses, new clothes, hanging out with her posse of 4 year olds, cute little furry things, princesses and shoes. The boy, since he could articulate a thought, has
loved trucks, big trucks, cars, hitting things with things, noise, and, uh…princesses and shoes.
Ok…so I’m thinking the shoes fetish will pass. He’s only 2 1/2 so I’m not worried about him prancing about the kitchen in pink princess pumps or his sister’s black patent dressy shoes that he likes to call his “firefighter boots”. Nor do I worry about his name change, last week, to “Mulan” — when I pointed out it was a girl’s name he quickly changed it to “Mulano.” Sometimes, his thought processes are pretty transparent…today his sister decided she would henceforth be known as Princess Mary thereby provoking him to change his
moniker to “Princess Chocolate”, which is wrong in so many ways given his pudgy boyish looks, fair skin and blond hair. After all, “transparent” and “male” kinda go hand-in-hand. Where boy and girl meet, however, is in their capacity to cause me to wonder if there isn’t some old soul buried in their tiny bodies.
The other day I was making myself a pot of coffee — a rare occurrence since my doc ordered me off coffee. As he was passing by he asked “Is that coffee?” Now ours is mostly a tea place so I really don’t know at what point the word “coffee” enters a 2 year old’s vocabulary but I answered matter-of-factly “Why, yes…that is coffee…” He turned away and, walking purposefully away, casually said “ahhhhh…..I love cofee…”
Incredulous, I blurted “What!? You love coffee?”
“Pfack! Blech! No…uh,” he laughs nervously, ” I hate coffee…heh heh…” and walked away, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Now that’s not a boy or girl thing…but it sure felt different