I was out for lunch with the wonderful god-mummy of my precious bundle of human today, and one of the staff clearing our plates comments on the sleeping bub.
“Oh what a cute.... girl?”
“Boy”
“Oh, but he’s too pretty to be boy” Short pause, maybe reflecting on the fact this comment may upset some people “My son was the same, far too pretty to be a boy. Sorry I can’t tell when baby’s are wearing lemon” – it was lime.
Lime, lemon, girl, boy it’s a baby, a young one, 8 weeks and a day. I was not offended, doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t bother him. He is rather beautiful, if I do say so myself, and it was a bit of a relief that someone else said that he is too pretty, I’ve caught myself in the early days saying ‘good girl’, I attributed this to my dog being female, and phrase had been used so often it just rolled off my tongue. At this point in his life it really doesn’t matter. Assigning gender roles to creatures that cannot hold their head up for longer than 5 seconds doesn’t hold much weight for me. Even when he can hold his head up I really would prefer that his sex isn’t a major contributing factor in the way people interact with him. Trucks and fire engines for boys, fairies and princesses for girls – it seems so limiting and somehow old fashioned. We so quickly shove our babies into gender roles -my friend in the UK spent some time trying to find a sex-neutral baby card, and failed.
Dressing your son in blue or daughter in pink gives people who don’t know you the ability to make a gender appropriate comment on the gloriousness of your offspring, but does it really matter if they guess wrong?
For now my bub is beautiful, plain and simple.
“Oh what a cute.... girl?”
“Boy”
“Oh, but he’s too pretty to be boy” Short pause, maybe reflecting on the fact this comment may upset some people “My son was the same, far too pretty to be a boy. Sorry I can’t tell when baby’s are wearing lemon” – it was lime.
Lime, lemon, girl, boy it’s a baby, a young one, 8 weeks and a day. I was not offended, doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t bother him. He is rather beautiful, if I do say so myself, and it was a bit of a relief that someone else said that he is too pretty, I’ve caught myself in the early days saying ‘good girl’, I attributed this to my dog being female, and phrase had been used so often it just rolled off my tongue. At this point in his life it really doesn’t matter. Assigning gender roles to creatures that cannot hold their head up for longer than 5 seconds doesn’t hold much weight for me. Even when he can hold his head up I really would prefer that his sex isn’t a major contributing factor in the way people interact with him. Trucks and fire engines for boys, fairies and princesses for girls – it seems so limiting and somehow old fashioned. We so quickly shove our babies into gender roles -my friend in the UK spent some time trying to find a sex-neutral baby card, and failed.
Dressing your son in blue or daughter in pink gives people who don’t know you the ability to make a gender appropriate comment on the gloriousness of your offspring, but does it really matter if they guess wrong?
For now my bub is beautiful, plain and simple.
The God-Mummy loves him no matter what he is wearing. And I say he is pretty. Pretty Damn cute!!
ReplyDeleteYou Bub will always be beautiful, no matter what he's wearing!!
ReplyDeleteI'm buying him a Fire Engine.
ReplyDelete