What do you say?
a) What a cute baby! How old?
b) Oh, you are a sweet little girl!
c) You are a cute little boy! You're going to be a big, strong man someday!
No, I'm not kidding. I actually got that third comment on Friday. I took a picture when we got home so I could examine her appearance at my leisure and try to determine which item in her wardrobe is particularly confusing to people.* Is it the pink hoodie? The pink pants? The shoes with the giant pink flowers on them? What am I doing wrong?
*Okay, I'll be honest: it seems to be mostly retired men. Why? Do they actually not realize that women exist, and further, that they are born as baby girls?
There is this one gentleman who lives between our house and the health unit, and by default I often see him when I am out walking with Gwen. No matter what she is wearing, he thinks she is a boy (and he's just senile enough not to realize that we've had this conversation half a dozen times before). One time when I corrected him, he accused me of not dressing her girly enough, and told me I should put her in a dress. This was in late October. The last time I met him, he didn't say anything specific about the sex, but asked the baby's name. When I replied "Gwen" you could just see him stewing, wanting to say, "Hey, isn't that a girl's name?"
For bonus points, after you have answered the above poll, please make your best guess as to why this annoys the hell out of me. Because I really don't know.
3 comments:
That always happens to me. When my eldest daughter was about 9 months old I was at the airport, and she was wearing a pink baseball cap and was called a boy by a man waiting in line next to me. When I (gently) corrected him, he said "Well, all babies are boys until they are older." WTF? What does that even mean?
I suppose we should be happy that we live in a society where colors do not indicate gender to people, but for some reason, it isn't much consolation.
I once was out with my Gwen who was dressed head. to. toe. in. pink.
And got asked how old my little boy was.
Sigh.
For the record, the correct answer is a) or b). a if you're not sure of the sex. b if you are ;)
Happens pretty much every day when you dress your daughter in neutral colours and she doesn't wear a bow in her hair. Then again, Megan has a pink and brown stroller - who on earth would buy that for a boy? And pink boots! And her jeans have little flowers on them!
So clearly (c) is the answer for most people. Especially old men in hats.
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