Parents who allow their boy toddler's hair to grow like a girl's,

[Baitball Blogger]

do they have the right to get upset when strangers refer to the child as a she?

I mean, how are we suppose to know, especially in this day and age when it's perfectly okay for girls to dress up as boys? I'm sure they get gendered confused too.

The question is, who is in the more right? Does the parent have the right to be offended? Or is it appropriate for the stranger to feel like an oaf?

[seabeyond]

1. my oldest was called a girl. i was not offended. he didnt get it. and i made sure the person did

not feel like an oaf.

[mzteris]

2. my oldest

was mistaken for a girl the whole time we were in Taiwan and China - a few months - and quite frequently in the US - as old as the age of 11-12. Of course he was slightly built, elfin looking, and his blond hair was beautiful and nearly halfway down his back.

He wasn't offended. "It's not an insult, you know." I wasn't offended. We never bothered to correct the Chinese people except the ones we were around a lot. We didn't really bother to correct US strangers, either. And people around him for very long soon figured it out or we told them. No one was made to feel like an oaf. No one was offended.

I'll tell you a little secret. Once, when he was around nine, he had to go the bathroom really really badly. We were in Target or something and the men's room was being cleaned so it was closed. He really was about to "go" in his pants, when I said, hey - everything thinks you're a girl anyway, just use the ladies. So he did. Another funny story, the times he DID go to the men's, a number of men were VERY startled. Some would sternly tell him that it was the men's room. . .

No, those parents really shouldn't be offended. If THEY have a problem with the hair, with the confusion, then cut it. The stranger should never feel badly. Apologize for the confusion, comment on the beautiful hair and the handsome boy, and move on.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. That's a great story.

Yeah, the one time it happened to me the mother got upset and made me feel like I had made an enormous faux paus. However, I don't think everything was on the up and up with her. We later got invited over for play days and she would allow her kids to run around stark naked so there were more than a few out of the ordinary experiences.

Maybe she was trying to cement the point? See? "He's a boy you stupid lady!" We stopped hanging around them when someone took money out of her wallet from her Master bedroom and she tactedly tried to pin it on me, but later admitted she had a relative with sticky fingers. However, the next time I came over I saw the camcorder pointed at the Master bedroom with the red light on. There were just too many crazy things that would happen so we quickly washed our hands of that family. Too weird all around.

[leftyohiolib]

3. there is no right to be not offended.

[Starry Messenger]

5. What's "like a girl's"?

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Hair down to the shoulder blades.

[Starry Messenger]

11. Funny. I had short hair my entire girlhood.

Guess I had "boy hair". Pro-tip: hair has no gender. And not all races grow long hair.

[GObamaGO]

13. THIS!

[Baitball Blogger]

14. It's just the initial impression.

You always want to make a good impression with other parents of young families, and it makes you feel like running off when you step into their hot points on the first meet.

I don't have a problem with men with long hair. They're well represented on bodice ripper books.

[OriginalGeek]

6. There's a kid on my street

he's maybe 9 or 10 and he has this incredible, wild mane of blonde hair. Easily the thickest and close to, if not the, longest hair I've ever seen on man or woman or child. When I first started seeing him on the block I thought he was a girl but soon figured out from his playing in the neighborhood with the other kids and hearing him talk that he was a boy.

But I felt pretty stupid for a minute after figuring it out - I've had hair almost to my behind most of my adult life and it was fairly long when I was a little kid (until my mom discovered fundamentalist religion)

But the bottom line is the parents need to understand that observers will make the mistake without meaning harm so if they're going to correct the observer don't do it angrily.

And observers need to understand that if they made the mistake they should accept the correction graciously and not start in with the "That's no way for a boy to look...!" or other nonsense.

And above all else, everyone needs to make sure the kid doesn't feel like he's done anything wrong. Because he hasn't.



eta: And the reverse is true too - our 12 year old granddaughter just got all her hair cut off to a very very short spiky style but she's to the point where folks probably won't mistake her for a boy but if she had done it a year or two ago it would have been a lot tougher to tell. I may be biased but I think she's cute as a button with the short hair and, naturally, support her however she wants to look.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. Thanks. I think you hit all the main concerns.

I was reminded by my experience because one of the Olympic women was photographed with her son and he looked just like the boy I knew years ago.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. On the flip side, my daughter had very short, thin, baby fine hair until she was

nearly 5 years old. It just didn't grow. I can't tell you how many people referred to her as "he" even when she was wearing a dress. You just correct them and go on. There's no reason for anyone to be offended.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. I could live with that.

[Quantess]

12. I got confused by a 10 year old

with long, thick, wavy hair, wearing a hot-pink t-shirt. I thought "wow, what a striking looking girl, she looks athletic."

10 minutes later I caught the kid's name...and hesitantly concluded the kid must be a boy.

[Heidi]

15. The only things you can hope to control are YOUR actions/reactions.

What difference does a child's gender make to you? Why not just stick with "your little one" wihout assigning a gender to others' kids?

[Quantess]

17. To be fair, I don't think the OP is complaining about that.

The OP is complaining about parents getting defensive about their boy with long hair being called a girl.
I have to agree that it isn't always easy to guess a child's sex, but that it is nothing for a parent to be offended over, if it is an honest mistake.

[frogmarch]

16. No one should be embarrassed or offended

in my opinion.

My younger son wore his hair long until he was in his twentis. His grandparents were always telling him his hair made him look like a girl.

His grandparents went with me to my son’s girlfriend’s high school graduation. My son sat directly in front of us in the bleachers.

Right before the program started, his grandmother reached forward, grabbed hold of a lock of his hair, and said, “I think you should wear a pretty pink bow.”

Knowing she was a staunch Christian, I said to her, “You do know that Jesus is usually shown as having long hair, don’t you?”

My son quickly added “Yeah, and I’ll bet his grandma was always on his case too, saying, ‘Jesus Christ, cut your hair!’”

[mnhtnbb]

18. That story is too funny. Your son is very quick witted!

[greatauntoftriplets]

19. My grandmother did that with my father.

She also dressed him in dresses. Until his father objected and hauled him off to the barber.

Of course, this was all about 100 years ago (I was born to older parents).

[Honeycombe8]

20. Girls have always been able to dress like boys, up to a point. Tom boys. But the reverse...

isn't true, past the age of one. Before then, in the old days, boys did indeed dress and look like girls.

I have an old photo of my grandpa, from 1906, as a toddler. He was dressed in a white frilly outfit and had long curls. He looked llike a girl.

[Honeycombe8]

21. It's no big deal. That is usu. a testament to how "pretty" the boy is, actually, IMO.

There are some young but very masculine or butch looking little boys that no one would mistake for a girl (unless she were a really ugly girl). But if the boy has pretty eyes, long eyelashes, a delicate nose....that would be different.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. My youngest had long hair, and he was a pretty little boy who could be mistaken for a girl. I

never got upset if people mistook him for a girl, but it didn't happen too often anyway.

As to whether people felt like an oaf, that's no big deal either. They should't need to feel that way.

[HopeHoops]

23. Neither should get upset. Just accept the correction and move on.

I even have to do that with my service dog. For some reason, most people assume she's male and I don't even think she looks remotely like a male - she's tiny for one thing.