When boys dont like blue

A friend of mine was shocked to discover that my nephew had nail polish on his toe nails.

A shock I could not really understand, frankly.

“Why would you do that to a child?” he asked.

I didn’t know whether to laugh at his wasted concern, or cry.

I told him that my nephew probably asked to be painted.

The concerned friend then turned to my nephew and told him “don’t let anyone ever treat like a girl!”

So in 2018, there are people who truly believe that dressing your child a certain way can make the ‘more’ of a certain gender?

I am assuming then that the same people must believe that men who aren’t as manly as they are expected to be, where treated as girls while they grew up?

How much blue makes a boy a man?

I remember when I was younger; most of my cousins my age were boys.

Our play was soccer and ‘bikes’.

To my mother’s disapproval I also just wanted to wear pants all the time.

It just made sense to me.

I was actually more rational about the whole thing than she was.

But she would insist on dressing me in frilly dresses and white socks, which would be ripped and dirty in no time.

When I started wearing dresses, and enjoying it, it was at no one’s command.

I realised, on my own that they were beautiful garments, and I liked how they looked on me.

And I am the same person.

With our decades of life experience and prejudice we often forget that children are pure in thought, only trying to figure out what the world is and how they fit into it.

They don’t perceive things the way we do.

Their sense of adventure comes from not knowing what we know about life.

And often we let what we know, or what we think we know, hinder their discoveries.

I don’t subscribe to raising children as gender neutral.

That would be really hard.

But we need to see something positive in their experiences as they go through them.

If a little girl wants a Spider-Man T-shirt, she should have it.

Because maybe she just admires the characteristics of the super hero that have nothing to do with the fact that he is a boy!

And if my nephew grows up to be a nail polish wearing man, what will the world have lost?

It is my belief that children should not be raised to reflect who their parents are but to discover who they are.

And I think people who impose their ideals on their children, are often disappointed by how their children turn out.

They make it about them instead of accepting their children’s decisions.

Your idea of gender roles may not even be right.

No amount of nail polish can make your son a girl, or gay!

The same way, no amount of blue will guarantee that your son will be ‘straight’.

Your children will be who they are

And that is your real fear