Defining Gender and the End of an Era

Today the Husband and I had an interesting chat that was sparked by an ABC Good Morning America article that questioned how really against pink the new generations of boys are. I plan on raising my kids not to think that colors are gendered and neither are toys or dress up clothes for the most part. The only thing we really differed on was whether, if we had a boy, our kid wanted to wear a dress to school or play dress up. G said he would basically insist that the boy wear pants because skirts and dresses are not okay for boys. I can understand this mentality because he doesn't want out kids to be teased if it can be avoided. I feel like if the child is young enough and they very desperately want to wear it they can, and if they get teased I could explain to them why it is probably better to wear pants to school and out. As far as colors or toys like kitchen sets and dolls or trucks and comic book toys, I will not try to influence their interests and allow them to play and pick colors as they wish. I do not want to have our children picked on and I will try to do everything I can as a parent to try to prevent it, but as someone who was picked on for no good reason other than I didn't speak up and stand up to the bullies, I at least want my kids to be happy and play and dress as they please.

In other completely unrelated news, Borders Books & Music, where my husband and I met, is closing its doors.... all its doors. This is sad. It is at Borders where I met G, an adorable cafe seller who loved comic references and lean proteins and vegetables. I was an annoying college students whose crush could not have been more obvious. It was here that our friendship bloomed, later (much later... like 5 years later) we began our romance. I am sad to see it go. I don't go there as often as I would like, but I also met my best friend Lynne there. I forced her to be my friend by talking incessantly and making her drive around with me while eating flipz and drinking slurpees and listening to music. Man, we wasted a lot of gas, but there wasn't too much else to do on LI at 1am.