Men Don't Wear Earrings

Funny what they focus on. I've had a few incidents similar. We recently moved back to an artist/creative-type community with our kids. Our house going into foreclosure really made me inspect our lives and wonder why we moved the kids so far away from a community that embraces, or shows by example, our values and roots.

Now I feel like I don't have to tell them, but more show them and share with them diversity, creativity, art, writers, incredible neighbors, backyard farmers, coffee-house poetry nights, bike rides as a family and so on.

I'm with you on these small things -- they matter in a big way. It took a few big things to make me realize that. Loved your article. Thank you (and your response to your daughter) for sharing :).

I think it's good that you let her know proper ettiquette for sparing other people's feelings when she doesn't like a certain look they are wearing, etc. But what bothers me is that after she learned that she might be hurting his feelings with her opinion, she changed her opinion to one that would please him. She basically let go of her own voice in favor of someone else. It's ok for anyone to decide they like certain looks or don't like other looks. And in the safety of her own car with only her family in earshot, it should be ok to express those thoughts. I think a better conversation would have been to ask her why she doesn't like the look, and what kind of look she prefers.

Great post, and what wonderful responses you gave her. I think that preschoolers are trying so hard to figure out what it means to be male (or female) that they have a lot of trouble coping with any ambiguity--they want some black-and-white rules about what you do, or don't do, and no overlap. I'm a preschool teacher, and I've heard children assert that girls can't be doctors (when their mom is a doctor) or that boys have short hair, when Daddy wears a ponytail.

It's wonderful that you articulated this to her--studies show that children don't learn tolerance as well as we'd hope or think just by observation, but that a parent's overt clear teaching makes a huge difference.

Great post, great job!

Great article and one that reminded me of another Mamapedia post and Newsweek article that talked about how in an attempt to be color blind (by not talking about different races, ethnicities, etc.) we are actually creating more confusion for our children. basically that children automatically need to compartmentalize and our lack of communication is indeed a very loud statement - that's if it's not talked about, it must be bad. The suggestions in that post were awesome - explaining how just like flowers were different colors so are people, and that just because they are different colors, they are still flowers/humans. There were more, but it was a very thought-provoking post and article. This blog reminds me of it and I applaud the authors response.

I like your article a lot. And, it resonated with me for a different reason: in high school I was a blond cheerleader. I am just a natural blonde, and I did cheerleading because I like it. But I wasn't ditzy or stupid. However, people looked at me and assumed I was, just because of how I looked. They also assumed I was stuck up which I most definitely wasn't. Same thing happened in college when I joined a sorority. Just because I am in a sorority doesn't mean I'm not nice, or that I'm superficial or that I'm only concerned about partying. I was very focused on my grades and I enjoyed having close on-campus housing. However, no one ever saw me that way. It's funny because, it's not just the pierced/tattooed/pink haired people that have trouble with people seeing their inner beauty. Sometimes the cheerleader/prom queen/student council president has trouble with people seeing their inner beauty as well.

My MIL pulled the same crap over my tattoo, piercings, and etc.. It was wrong and I had to prove to my daughter that there are many types of people who making the world. In my case, I took her to my piercing artist when I had to pick up a retainer before having surgery not long after. I couldn't remove the jewelry without something in it's place because the piercing was less than year old at the time. I wasn't about to risk having it close up.

My piercer has lots of piercings and my daughter asked him about each one. As it turns out, she wants to have a series of earrings to run down the length of her ear or one of the pierced ear cuffs. I prefer the latter. It's less upkeep

My daughter's earlobes from having her ears pieced usign the gun, against my better judgment but out of fear she wouldn't have the other year pierced. My piercing artist took her to his booth with me waiting in the chair next to her as he let the seat back to make it easier for him to reach her ears. He autoclaved her earrings then cleaned up the few crusties but not many. He added some pray to numb the earlobe then ran the needle through her ear to ensure the piercing tun pierced it large, which it did and a Yep. After the autoclave finished and the earrings were polished, clean and sterile. She even had a chance to play with the owner's kids, the tattoo artist's kids and the piercer's kids. she felt like she belonged to some elite special group now.