I often dress my daughter to mimic me, but on some days she requests it for herself (hats and loose jeans and layers and shirts with cars on them). Letting her figure out her personal style at 3 is exciting and adorable.
At the park today, when she took off her jacket and hoodie, she was running around in a Cars t-shirt and the hat and a lady approached me and said “Wow he sure does have long hair for a boy!” to which I corrected her and explained that she’s in fact a girl, to which she said “Well why do you have her dressed like that then?”
…sigh…
Look, my wife and I aren’t the type to be offended by the accidental misgender, it happens with kids all the time. But what does bother me is that it’s clear she started the convo only to critique the clothing choices that my daughter, a literal 3 year old, made. It got me thinking like…how sad do you have to be to go out of your way to release the inner dialogue you have in your mind, knowing that you’re only doing it to start issues? Really would have taken no energy to not say anything at all!
I politely dismissed myself from the convo and we moved on to the swings, but I do think everyone should consider just keeping quiet more often. There’s no need to say certain things. I wasn’t bothered by it, but I can imagine that someone else could have been and that would have been its own fun conflict to resolve.
I guess the elementary school proverb still holds true today: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!
