I look at this picture (which has gotten a lot of heat today because it shows a mom putting hot pink nail polish on her son's toes) and I see a mom and son sharing an incredibly sweet and fun moment together. She's not shuttling him off to play a video game. She's not putting him in front of the television.
Some of the best moments you can have with a kid are when you're enjoying a quiet activity together. Painting a child's toenails is an incredibly cool thing to do. I love doing Sydney's toenails, and I do them up in whatever color, or color combination, she wants. And she thoroughly enjoys it.
That people in the blog and "news" world look at this picture, and would malign this mother for putting pink nail polish on her son, and accusing her of confusing him about his gender, or pushing transgender issues, or not treating him as a boy, is ridiculous. I'm sorry, I meant to say, IT'S RIDICULOUS. I've never been a fan of gender-specific anything. And that anyone would accuse such an innocent activity as evil, or of her not taking care of her son, or of her pushing him toward a life of therapy just pisses me off.
Sydney loves, loves, loves her dinosaurs. She doesn't care much for princesses. Does this damage her gender identification? No, not at all. She wears boy t-shirts (because of the dinosaurs). Bad for her self esteem? No. She insists on wearing BLUE toenail polish. Too masculine a color? No, because it's her favorite.
We tend to avoid the pink aisle in the toy store. Does this make her less of a girl? She'd rather play with her dinosaurs and Cars, rather than dress up. We have no baby dolls in our house. Will I be paying for her to go to therapy in her teens?
My god, this gets me pissy. I'm annoyed. I hate that this kind of thing ruffles feathers and gets people all tweaked out. Leave this kid and his mom alone. They're having fun.
p.s. I guess I had the energy to blog about this after all!
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