Gender

My three-year old has been asking a lot about gender lately. She wants to know the sex of every person we pass in the store and all of her relatives. She was very quick to catch on to the easy ones; her brother is a boy, her dad is a boy, her mom is a girl etc. We all carry the stereotype associated with each gender. But the more she asked questions, the more inquisitive she became, the more I’ve had to think harder about my answers.

“Is that a boy?” She asked about a woman with short hair.

“No,” I said. “Not every girl has long hair.”

“Can my potato head be a girl?” She recently questioned. Her potato head is a Star Wars character, Darth Maul, who is quite clearly male.

I wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Your potato head can be a boy or a girl,” I began.

I think it is important to teach my kids from an early age that not all people fit into boxes. Her little mind learns by categorizing at this stage, and it’s a struggle to explain such a complex issue to a child so young. But it is so important.

Picture, if you will, a world where kids are taught from an early age that boys can like sequined dresses and babies. Girls can like trains, or cars, or the color blue. These stereotypes are all things that we impose on them; not something that they naturally conceive. Imagine a world where our outdated, categorical notions of gender no longer exist because we haven’t put constraints on what somebody should wear, who they should love or what hairstyle they should have. I can; and it is beautiful.

If we each took a little more time to think about how we answer the seemingly benign questions posed to us by our children, to speak from acceptance and openness instead of rigid barriers and pre-cut boxes, the next generation could grow up lacking the prejudices of our own. There would no more transgender suicides, riddled with guilt and confusion. No more innocent lives lost, propelled into depression by their inability to be something that they are not.

So the next time your child asks a mundane gender related question, take the time to reflect on the base of what your answer will build on; because your words will set the tone for the rest of your child’s life the notion of what it means to be…human.