Leave My Son Alone, Please?
Why people say and do things around babies that make them appear clinically insane is well beyond my intellect.
I’m neither a germaphobe nor a control freak, but seriously, what mental train derails off its mental track that makes bystanders say “What a cute little girl!” to my son, Finn, when he was nine months old? What “friend” tries to shove their dirty water bottle in his mouth and lets him chew on the paper wrapping? I’ll tell you. PEOPLE.
Snooty? Snotty!We walked into a high-end clothing store in Beverly Hills one day (because we liked being abused and ignored), and a clerk sourly said, word-for-word, “Looks, like someone isn’t taking care of you. Are your parents not loving you enough?” He wasn’t kidding.
Sir, would you like to see a magic trick? Watch your job vanish into thin air!
The next time you people shovel any of that on my child or start ‘russian-rouletting’ a gender there, slick, do this for me: stop, look and reassess the situation.
If you are the gender-swapping/insanity-spewing assailant:
Go gender neutral even if the kid has on a blue baseball hat with red letters spelling out the name “WILLIAM”, his sky blue stroller is adorned with balloons that say “IT’S A BOY” and the father says, “This is my son, WILLIAM.” Keep your crazy to yourself. You don’t know how much sleep that dad has had. It might be a ruse he concocted to start a fight with you.
If you are the assailed:
Stare the punk down and say, “Listen, you. You call my son a girl again (or my daughter a boy again), I might have to forget which sex you are and beat you to death with this Tickle-Me Elmo.”
Now, I’m not advocating violence or the threat of it, but let’s stop the insanity. Anyone else have this problem?
49 Comments
49 Responses to “Leave My Son Alone, Please?”
LOL!!! @ “Beat you to death with this Tickle-Me Elmo.”
My son has hit me in the face enough to know it can be wielded with brutal force.
Yeah, that little voice-box/vibro-mechanism ain’t so “plush” when it hits you full force. Ow!
And don´t forget the hard eyes on that thing!
I had Braelyn dressed in a pretty pink dress with a bow in her hair and someone told me that my little BOY was adorable. I also had someone else hand her 2 paperclips to play with…people amaze me…
Arghhhh.. Can’t take it… Must… Not… Beat people senseless.
I’ve learned the HARD HARD way to approach all other toddlers with gender-neutral, age-neutral, data-gathering statements.
Approach someone with, “Wow – she’s walking great…how old is she, 16 months?” — and you’ll no doubt get back,
“AHEM….__HE__ is almost 3, THANKS.”
It’s skewed by the fact that my little girl has always been big for her age, so I instead start off with something like, “Wow – fast runner! How old?” Then they will usually say, “Oh, yes, he’s 2 – and he loves to run!”
Saves one from the unpleasant shoot-self-in-foot comments.
Tad, this sounds like the definitive guide on etiquette to me.
Metaphorically, you don’t want to be that drunk guy at the party forgetting everyone’s name and spilling your drink everywhere.
A simple question like you posed works on many levels.
Good suggestion.
I had a small, cute boy. LOL
Yes! Vague, ambiguous statements are the way to go!
I always like to assume I’m going to be wrong about the gender even if they are wearing a shirt that says “I’m a girl!”. There are a lot of sarcastic two year olds out there.
I get the question: Are they twins?” Constantly.
Sometimes I even get a “Really?”
Uhm, no. It was BOGO day at the hospital, and their dad walked by the rack – you know how guys are about things at eye level, they just have to have them.
Geez. If they look exactly like one another and are the same size, weight, age, everything, they’re freaking twins! Stop asking.
Maybe I just need a “Yes, they’re real twins” t-shirt.
Actually, that shirt would work whether I have my kids with me or not.
Yeah, I’m gonna go with you on the ‘not wearing a t-shirt that says you have real twins…’. Not sure why. Just gonna.
like
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I know exactly what you mean this is ALWAYS the first question out of any persons mouth to me as well. I have the hardest time not getting really sarcastic at the stupidity of the question.
Mine are fraternal not identical, though I often dress them alike.
My second favorite dumb question (more of an assumption really) is ” Oh and this is the older one” (pointing at the second born twin cause he is bigger).
Guess they figure he really shot up in that 2 minutes.
My 3-year old daughter still gets called a boy. Granted, she has little hair. But she has been called a boy while wearing a pink dress, with pink bows in her hair and pink nail polish. Plain and simple, people are just stupid.
That is megaton stupid right there. Yikes! I’ve noticed that the people who tend to do this are more often people without kids, so at least we don’t have worry about too many of these morons peeing in the gene pool.
I can’t even comment, I wanna smack people, just remembering it…
And now we get to see what happens with our little boy…
Hahahaha! I love it! It’s so true isn’t it? Another one of my favorites is, “excuse me…your baby is crying!” REALLY!!!!! Wow, thanks genius! “aren’t you going to pick her up?” Ummm…actually, NO! I’m not going to pick “him” up, but that’s because I’m obviously a bad parent!
I don’t take the gender swapping thing seriously. But then I’ve got a special gift for making that mistake. With that said, if you dress your little boy in his sisters clothes and expect me to remember that you have a son just because I live around the corner from you when I see you once every 6 months I still say I’m not responsible for remembering.
Yeah I’m not even going to get into the mistaking the gender thing cuz I’ve realized that clearly people r stupid and/or blind. Now I get “are they twins?” every damn day and it’s all I can do not to scream.
I don’t think this mistake is as bas as asking a woman who’s not pregnant, but has a bump, “When are you due?”
Unfortunately, i’ve done that on more than one occasion (idiot!) and been wrong.
Stressed much? I have a little girl who is so girly looking it’s unimaginable that anyone would mistake her for a boy, however, I too have been asked about my “little boy”. I do not take offense because I know people aren’t trying to insult me or my kid. It just happens. I refuse to walk on egg shells for fear of offending someone. It’s true what “they” say.. let the small stuff roll off.
I do believe if you’ve got a little boy and his hair is so long it’s past his ears or he’s already wearing a pony tail, well, you’ve set yourself up for people asking about the little girl. I’m not saying you’re wrong to let his hair grow long, it’s all personal choice, but our choices do have unintended consequences, sometimes.
Agreed. I don’t care, cause mine really *is* a beautiful child, plus, calling him a girl is not an insult… Plus, yes folks he is indigenous, and therefore in tradition to wear long hair. PLus, so long as it doesn’t so much as flitter across your brain, the idea of touching him, we’re cool.
It happened to me the other as i posted a pictures of my daughter on my mothers wall on facebook. Shes dressed in pink and have earrings on the picture. Someone had to say: Oh what a cute little boy….
Come on people…. dont you have eyes?
Cue rage SOUNDS.
Ugh, I’ve done the gender mix up once recently. I really was paying more attention to my son who was just learning how to walk. The baby boy had on a white onsie and dark blue pants. His face was so cherub like that I thought it was a girl. I was so embarrassed. I have to remind myself daily not to use gender unless I’m absolutely sure.
I had three people tell me my son is “such a pretty little girl” – while he was wearing a onesie that read “CHICKS DIG ME”. Ummmm….
Maybe they’re just being openminded…? Hey, we can hope, right? lol
Its impossible to make my 2 four-yr-olds behave constantly while in public, and they have strong opinions about everything. Lady in line behind me at the deli pointed out that my daughter’s pants were falling down. I said, “She wears them with her crack hanging out because she insists everything she wears gets in her hiney. And she refuses to wear underwear because they touch her hiney. I’m painfully aware that her drawers are droopy, thanks.” I mean, if you invite yourself into my world, be prepared to get the full details, right?
When my daughter was 10 months old, I took her to a coffee shop. It was summer, she was wearing a red summery outfit with white butterflies on it. Cute little straps, ruffles, the whole bit. Plus, she was wearing her hearing aid with a PINK head band. (special kind of aid)
Two old men said, “How old is your little fella there?”
Really?
When my son was 6 months old, I had him in the sling, and a woman walked up to me and sniffed his head. Smelled him. It was as weird as it sounds.
Wow, whatta freak. There was a stalker-type girl I worked with when I was in college who had a thing about smelling people, so that story just makes me creeped out on so many levels. Luckily that has never happened with either of my kids – I’d probably have reflex-slapped their head away from my baby! :S
Oh my goodness I can’t even explain my rage when I tell people that anything my 8-month-old daughter has in her hands she puts in her mouth and they still insist on giving her things like paper napkins. What part of “she WILL eat it” don’t you understand? But it’s so cute! Ok, then.. YOU stick your finger in her mouth to get out the chunks of soggy paper before she chokes on it.
Oh my gosh, I know what you mean! How hard is it for some to people to understand….Just reminds me of the time that an elderly (lovely, but still) Japanese lady tried to give my 9 month old a boiled lolly, those things are hard as cement and would shatter even the strongest of teeth, so of course my baby will choke on it!! GRRR
Oh yeah! I’m an adoptive Mom, and my kids are of a different race. I’ve had people ask me how much they cost, tell me that the people in their birth country hated girls and that that is why they were abandoned, ask me why I didn’t adopt “one of our own” – as in – a white, american child. I’ve had a guy at the Honda dealership say to my EIGHT year old that her younger sister isn’t her REAL sister and I wasn’t her REAL mom, completely unprovoked or even part of a conversation, he just said it after staring at them for awhile, what the hell?! You wanta see a mom jump across a counter and pin a grown man to the wall with her eyes? His women co-workers had to step between us. Honestly. I think that if everyone just stopped and asked themselves before speaking; is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? We would all be in a better mental state.
I am still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor on that one. You are a stronger person than I.
Thanks for the warning!
My worst one was when I was at the mall with my son, he was still small enough for a stroller so less than a year and a half (he just refused after that age), and some freakin’ lady I was randomly having a conversation with STUCK HER FINGERS IN HIS MOUTH CHECKING FOR TEETH. I’m not even kidding. I was gobsmacked. It was all I could do to not yank her off of him and/or punch her in the face.
I have had the gender reversal thing happen several times with my first girl, even with pink and bows on, but nothing is as bad as what happened to my friend. She was in a grocery store with her baby in tow. He has bright red hair and apparently that was a novelty to one older couple. The woman came over and started cooing over him and then proceeded to pick him up out of the cart and take him over to her husband to show him! The couple didn’t speak English, so my friend had a hard time communicating to them that it was NOT OK!
Both of my kids were born with tons of hair that they’ve kept – and its quite amazing that my daughter looks almost 100% like her brother at that age…she’s just chubbier and shorter and he was long and skinny.
I completely understood when I overheard a mother tell her daughter when looking at my son “WOW! Look at that hair! I hope that’s a girl cuz you were completely bald as a baby.” I’d feel like I got the short end of the stick if my daughter was a bald baby and saw a boy with a full head of thick hair, too.
I think that’s my only run-in with it…excepting my husband who kept calling her a him when we brought home #2 =p
I love to read about all the crazies in the world. We routinely get stopped to give our candy (really?! yes, THAT is what I want to teach her, candy from strangers is cool)…when she was under a year old we had her in an infant car seat with one of those covers that zip over it to keep her warm & the greeter at Walmart would get her hands down in there and then make snide remarks about how she wasn’t wearing boots. I just try to laugh it off like she’s a senile old busybody….my friend was with me one time when it happened as asked her if she was offering to buy my daughter boots and if not told her that she should keep quiet…it’s always Walmart greeters for me, one of them who I swear is a meth head ALWAYS freakin touches my daughter or tries…we have called and complained to her manager, said something…it doesn’t matter I do not want Cracky McCrackwhore giving my toddler a contact high with whatever it is she is smoking…now if we see her we have a game plan, husband takes the daughter and rushes through no stopping and I physically step between Cracky and my girl. This has worked, because God help her if she actually wants to get confrontational about it her last 2 teeth won’t have to wait to rot out of her head. -_-
I can dress up my 10-month old daughter in a pink dress, frilly headband, frilly underwear and white stockings, and STILL some “blind” ppl keep asking me if she’s a boy. *sigh* Oh and I just dont understand why people think its ok to simply come up to my 4-yr old girl and pinch her cheeks, or hold her face etc etc. It bugs my daughter and annoys the hell outta me. Just because she’s a little chubby and has big eyes doesn’t make her your personal doll! So very NOT cool.
Once i went out with my lil one, and someone actually asked ‘She’s so cute, is it REALLY your kid?’…. no i bought her from the ‘oh-so-cute’ section of the pediatric ward…
Our little guy has been blessed with super curly blonde hair and vibrant blue eyes. We have let his hair grow out a little, but his clothes scream all boy! If we are out shopping or what not, it’s inevitable that someone will probably call him a girl. My wife looks them in the face and says ” tell that to his nuts!”. Gets em every time!
“What a cute little girl!” to my little man dressed in camo……
I love when ppl do the “the look down” and then start their sentence with “it’s your first right?….” You just know instinctively STUPID is gonna come out of their mouths. So nowadays (my son is 5 months) i do the “i don’t know you so i’m gonna lie” and say “He’s my fifth. Boy do they grow up fast!”
Ppl tend to be A LOT LESS judgmental if they think it’s not your first kid.
That’s how I can get away with breastfeeding on demand, no sleep schedules, wearing just a short sleeved onsie when it’s hot outside (him not me) etc etc etc.
@ nickyh I had that, but then my boy’s are bith quite ‘pretty’. My answer is “Who’d have thought the big ogre could have cute kids, right?” and watch them do the embarassed verbal dance.
Still chuckling about tickle-me elmo. Although for a real comedy beatdown, you need something with a squeaker in it.
you wanna get swooped on while innocently trying to grab a few groceries? try carrying a premmie bub in your arms in the only supermarket of a small/isolated town! I’m sure I got to meet most the town that way. It’s a bit late now but in hindsight perhaps I should have stuck a sign on my back that told them his gender, age, birth weight, due date, not my first so don’t need a ton of advice thanks, yes my arm is dying and yes he’s screaming cause he’s hungry and if I could just get out of here a bit quicker I could deal with that. Thank you very much ;oP
oh and the name – they all had to know the name!!
agree with James too – the squeaker is something of a necessity
)
I usually give the gender-thing a pass – afterall 1) it doesn’t matter to toddlers if people think they’re girls or boys and 2) I kept messing up in MY head and thinking of my son as a girl for the first few months of his life… I even had dreams where he was a she. Now he’s 17 months and as BOY as they come, so it’s really easy to remember. I did have someone tell me what a beautiful girl I had with “her” full head of curls… so I gave him a haircut the next day. Too bad, he really WAS a cutie with curls
(As for the picking my son up/giving him things… haven’t encountered that too much. He’s much more the TAKE/try to talk people out of things type. He’s really sweet and persuasive too… I’ve had people start to hand him knives because he’s pointing and talking in his little chipmunk voice. I have to say “No! Be strong! Do not give in to the toddler!!”)