Gift of gender-creative kids
I WAS so happy to see the headline “I’m not a boy, I’m a child” (September 18). I hope this article opens the conversation around gender-creative kids. I have a fourand-a-half-year-old boy who doesn’t fit the gender stereotype for boys. He has been wearing dresses since he was two and a bit, insists he is a princess, loves doing his nails and his favourite movie is any Barbie movie. We do not force any ideas on him: in fact, he is daily encouraged to like “boy things” and to hang with dad. No matter how much we try, he prefers the “girls’ things”.
I would rather have my child dress up and watch Barbie in my presence than him one day living a life where he does this in secret. I would never want him to develop depression because he couldn’t share a secret with me. If I refuse him the exploration of any “female” activities — who’s to say he wasn’t going to be a wonderful designer, or a rock musician with long hair and black nails?
I have been told that my boy causes confusion for other kids his age when he doesn’t adhere to his “gender box” (when he wears pink nails or doesn’t want to dress up like a pirate but a princess instead) — but I disagree. What a wonderful learning opportunity a child like mine is to teach other children that “gender boxes/stereotypes” do not apply. Most boys do X,Y, Z, but not all. Most girls do X,Y, Z, but not all. How much heartache we will spare if only all kids and adults learnt this truth. — Nicolette, by e-mail