There's a great thread over at Womanist Musings about the ongoing challenge of teaching our kids to be openminded about gender, especially when they are in school and experiencing both a bombardment of "this is what girls do; this is what boys do" and also watching peers tease/label/ostracize non-gender-conforming kids.
It's all so familiar to me: the tiring repetition, the feeling that others think you are going too far, and the related backlash: It's going too far to tell my kids that a hurtful term is not acceptable?! Or to fight like hell to keep them from constraining their own options in order to gender conform? Argh.
We've started using the "[That adult] just made a mistake [in assuming
all girls like princesses/that you were a boy because you weren't
wearing any pink/etc.]" line in our household that several commenters talk about. And we're still in the primarily spoon-feeding perspectives stage, where one of us is on hand to provide nearly instant feedback on all questionable statements. So it doesn't get any easier from here, I assume.
I'm sure it's the same any time you're trying to teach your child values that are not commonly held by the culture at large, whether it's gender fluiditiy, religious tolerance, or non-violence. You don't want to let things you find patently offensive and dangerous go by without response, and yet you have to walk the line of not seeming so obsessive you spark a rebellion or even just shut down conversation. I really appreciated hearing from so many parents in that thread who spoke of not freaking out over their daughters' girly phases, merely sticking to the "there's no such thing as girl/boy toys" mantra, and reporting that it "worked" (as in the message stuck with respect to others, not any particular outcome for their kids' interests). There's hope yet . . .
Photo by llamafloor.
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