What Could Have Been

One thing I try to balance with my kids is gender and societal norms with not putting them in boxes. This comes into play with Joshua more than the girls because, though there is certainly a lot of gender discrimination out there against women in this world, it is way less overt than it used to be. So the verbal message girls get while they're young anyway is that you can do anything and wear anything and it's all fine and great. With boys, this is not at all true and they are never supposed to do anything remotely feminine even from a young age. Which is actually one of the ways you know there is still a long way for society to go in this area.

Joshua has asked for earrings. Earrings are not necessarily a huge deal for a male at this point, but they also are not typical so I feel he is not old enough to truly make that choice. He also wants makeup and nail polish and pony tails because he sees me have those things and the girls, and wants to fit in. I do let him have all those things because they are not permanent and, when he is old enough to care about peers, he will probably stop asking for them. But the earrings are a no go because that is at least semi-permanent, if not permanent body modification and so I think he should be at least approaching double digits before I feel he understands the social context of that enough that I am willing to consider it.

So today he found a way to have his own earrings and was pretty excited about them. I think they made him look like Frankenstein, which is super cute. I was hoping he would be Frankenstein for Halloween this year, but we were choosing costumes and he didn't seem very excited about it so I don't think that will be the winner. He isn't old enough to really have a strong preference in what he wants to be (which I am actually fine with because I want a theme I can have all three kids be a part of and I wouldn't be surprised if that trend ends once they have strong opinions on what they want to be), but I did suggest a few options to see if he had a preference and he did. And I think I should respect his preference if it's consistent over a matter of days or weeks. So far it is, but I have only asked him twice. So Frankenstein isn't totally out of the question, but it doesn't seem to be trending that way, so this may be the closest I get.