On Eva's party post somebody was surprised that this might be a girl or boy thing.

[conuly]

And in this day and age, no less! To her, I say, read the comments to the following link. They will be eye opening - and they're not even that bad!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyz-lenz/gender-discrimination_b_1987291.html

To synopsize here, the author was at a playground or park with her young toddler daughter, and said toddler was playing with a pile of slightly older boys. They were being a little rambunctious, but neither daughter nor mother had a problem with this until the parent of one of the boys yelled at her son, making him cry, because "we" don't play wild with girls, apparently. And the author told the other mother directly that her daughter was just fine, but the other mother ignored her and broke up the play to chastise her son anyway.

And this has happened before, which really irks the author. I feel her.

Now, if you can bear to read them, the comments are often the most interesting part of a news story. I certainly didn't try to read all of them, but there were many on the theme of "the author is wrong because you should never interfere with another persons parenting." Yes, heaven forbid we ever do that!

Aside from the simply fact that the author never spoke to the boys directly (so at worst she was butting in, not interfering. It's not like their mom said "no, they can't have the cookies you offered them" but she snuck cookies into their hands anyway), after a few repetitions of that comment the question presented itself to me: who was interfering with whom?

Check my logic here, because I'm not sure it holds up. If you have two parents, let's call them Lyz and Barbie because Lyz is the authors name, and Barbie goes and tells her child, in front of Lyz's girl, that he is not allowed to play with her in his usual way, even though neither the kid nor Lyz has a problem with it, simply because she is a girl... doesn't that interfere with Lyz's ability to raise her child to see that she can be active and "tough"? Isn't breaking up a happy group of kids against the other parents wishes, in a way, interfering with the others parenting? (Isn't iPads onscreen keyboard annoyingly laid out?)

I mean, it's basically telling other people's daughters how they are allowed to play, isn't it?

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Leaving aside the question of who might be interfering with someone else's parenting, it isn't good parenting to grab one's own child and scold him so he cries when he was playing happily. If the kid's playing a little too rough, or it looks like things are heading that way, one can certainly drift over and gently distract or remind, without disrupting their play.

*shrugs* I was a wild kid. My daughter was a wild kid. Kids are supposed to be wild. Not mean, not reckless, not destructive, not rough, but bouncy, rambunctious, physical, adventurous, wild. Girls and boys both. One can learn to be wild and gentle at the same time, but it takes practice.

[liannas-mom.livejournal.com]

I personally feel that author. Yes, it is like telling other people's girls how they can play, and it's irritating! I get all the time in regards to my oldest either what that author experienced of having parents telling their boys they cannot play with my daughter as they were because she's a girl. Or people coming up to me telling me they're worried my daughter will get hurt wrestling with boys.