situation 1

The nine year old girl picks up a bracelet from the sidewalk. It is a silver charm bracelet with hearts, horseshoes, and other bangles hanging from it.

Girl: Whose is this?
Debby: David's.
Girl (with a note of incredulity): David's??!
Debby: Yes, David's. Rose gave it to him.

situation 2

David and I are in the children's section of the clothing store playing with the toys. A ten year old girl notices his nail polish.

Girl: Look at that!
Debby: David, show her your fancy nails.
Girl (with a note of incredulity) Why are his nails painted?
Debby: Because I painted them.
Girl: Why did you paint them?
Debby: Because he asked me to.
Girl: That's a girl's bike helmet.
Debby: It's blue.
Girl: But it has flowers on it.
Debby: Boys like flowers too.
Girl looks suspect and disgusted.

From the most generous point of view, I can think of these girls as struggling to form a world view and not being at a stage where they can handle complexity. They want to understand what it means to be a boy or a girl. They think they've got it down with signs and symbols—like no nail polish for boys even if it's blue (which it was) and definitely no delicate bracelets.

But then David and I come along and challenge their world order, so they've got to discount us, kick us out, before we confuse the heck out of everything. I don't know if I've made it clear, but none of their reactions were neutral like plain surprise or curiosity. Both girls were attacking. I certainly felt it. It made me angry and so sad for David.

The poor kid. Here I am trying to raise little baby gender neutral. He's having a great time with it. He loves his pink tutu, and he loves his transformer truck that turns into a gun. He gets to be gentle and snuggly; he gets to be loud and jump off large rocks. It's all going great, and then these girls sneer at him. Goffman, the psychologist who specializes in relationships, says contempt is the most destructive of all the emotions. It destroys people.

These girls were mean. They treated David meanly. And their issues with gender do not give them the right to be mean. I handled it by cheerfully defending David, but I could have done more.

The other day a seven year old boy said to David (in a sneering way): You still wear pull-ups?

To which I immediately replied: Did you just try to make David feel bad about himself?

Next time someone mocks his hair ribbons, I'm going to say that.