Evangeline finally had her birthday party, and we invited the usual people.

[conuly]

A gang of seven kids in elementary school and the sixth grade, plus a three year old. They ran around screaming, climbed trees, hid, blew things up with vinegar and baking soda, sloshed around colored soapy milk, and eventually smashed a pumpkin. What, isn't that what all seven year olds do at their birthday party, smash a pumpkin on the ground? Cleaned it up, but I bet the squirrels were happy later that night!

The next person who asks about this sort of thing being a "boy" thing is getting a smack from me, or, if I'm not around, somebody else in the same state/country. Why don't people pay better attention?

Comments

[erika]

Wait, what? I was reading along thinking "that sounds like a party I'd love to have" and I'm a super-femme cisgendered woman who dresses in skirts 90% of the time and hasn't worn a pair of jeans in at least 2 years.

I'd wear jeans for that party! Or, more likely, pretty clothes that I didn't mind getting ruined. ;)

[conuly]

Every time, in real ife or otherwise, that somebody has an active male child, they ask if it's a boy thing and people are quick to promise it is. It's really very annoying, not to mention factually wrong.

[erika]

I seriously don't get how that works. Like... do most people have these lines of what a girl thing is and what a boy thing is? Did I miss this, somehow?

Or wait, no, I do know this, but it's set up in my mind as "something older generations do." Like... my 70+ year old uncle (my mother is the youngest of 7 by over 9 years) would maybe say that.

I mean, yeah, I'd ask before I painted my boyfriend's nails or something, but that's because it's his body, not because I assume he would hate it because it's "stereotypically girly."

[conuly]

Childhood right now seems to be much more gender segregated than it was when I was a child. When I was a kid, you could get girl clothes that weren't all pink and purple and that had messages on them that weren't about shopping or being cute or a princess. And boy clothes came in colors other than olive drab and khaki as well, and had pictures occasionally other than dinosaurs or monster trucks. Legos were advertised to both genders, and everything was just... more fair?

And now I look, and I can't see how we went so far backwards.

[steorra]

:-(