Monday, October 08, 2007

Short Hair = Boy???

Usually, I politely ignore the innocent mistake of people referring to Ella as a boy. While it never seems to make sense to me how they come to this conclusion, it never bothers me. However, yesterday three people in one store, on one day seemed to think she was a boy. I don't see many little boys wearing entirely pink outfits with pink blankets, but whatever.

That's not really the part that is bothering me about this. It's the fact that everyone who mistakes her for a boy and then finds out otherwise (usually being corrected by her rather forward brother), always seem to make a comment about her hair being short and that's why she looks like a boy. What??

Is is just me, or do most six month olds have short hair? I've rarely seen a baby with long, flowing tendrils of hair - besides that, even if that is the case, most of the time those are little boys with mothers that just haven't had the heart to cut their hair yet. So, needless to say, I can't figure out this mentality of short hair = boy, long hair = girl.
I think some people just aren't very clued-in with that sort of thing - that babies just look like babies, which is why we dress them in all pink or all blue to give them some sort of distinguishing characteristic.

It reminds me of an old country man in Home Depot that came up to Elijah and me when he was just a few months old. Elijah was sitting in his all-blue carseat carrier, wearing a blue onesie and blue socks and not really resembling me at all and this man looks us over and says, "She looks just like her mama!" That still makes me laugh.

4 comments:

Vanessa said...

I'm no baby expert, but they all pretty much look the same to me. Love the story about the Home Depot man.

Tiffany said...

I'm like Vanessa, not a baby expert here either. But I will definately have to look a little more before I comment from now on! Your kids sure are cute! Wish I could see them in person!

Jana said...

I totally know where you are coming from on the whole baby+blue=boy and baby+pink=girl. I guess some baby girls wear blue but I don't know of any boys who wear pink. You know some people just don't pay any attention and feel like they just have to say something. People are people, no matter where you go.

Anonymous said...

My son is growing his hair now and it is quite long but you can still see that he´s a boy! But, in school he has a friend who is really girly but doesn´t seem to care. According to my son he was teased in the beginning but he seemed not to care. That´s amazingly strong because we all know about group preasure.
The other day, I saw this boy in school when picking up my son and I could hardly believe my eyes! I haven´t seen him for a long time now and he was not recognizable! The most beautiful long and curly hair you can emagine! Not only that it was extremely long (all the way passing his bum!), it was so girly! A fantastic cascade of blond wavy hair embedded him and on top of that, he wore a girl´s coat! Yes, he was very sweet and he seemed all happy about it! The girls around him cued to comb his hair - I guess they envied him!
But, as I said, very, very brave of him to withstand all the looks from others just to be himself!