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Long Hair/ Short Hair/ Red Hair/ Blue Hair
Months ago the kiddo went through this very short lived phase of wanting her hair cut short. “I want my hair like Sarah’s,” she would say. Well, she wanted a lot of things “like Sarah’s,” but that wasn’t happening. (Deep in me I was a little freaked out that my 3 year old was losing her identity. What’s all this “I want to be like somebody else bit?” But I soon realized that the kiddo wasn’t having an identity crisis; she was just being 3.) For whatever reason, the kiddo just moved on from wanting to chop her hair. And I was glad. I love her hair. It’s the hair I never had and never will. But I had never, ever mentioned anything about “boy hair” and “girl hair.”
Nope. She picked up on those stereotypes all on her own. First, it started with “princess hair.” Princess hair is long hair, at least according to Disney, and that’s what my little girl knows. And you know what? I didn’t fight it. I didn’t fight the whole princess thing. I watched my niece do that with her daughter and it backfired exponentially. And I’m not anti-princess; I only want my daughter to know that there is a world beyond Disney princesses.
She is always telling me, “I want my hair down like a princess,” or “I have long hair like a princess.” Okay. That’s nice.
But the stereotyping went to a whole new level the other night when we were watching American Idol. (Yes, I let her watch it sometimes. She loves to sing, and she loves watching the singers.) For those of you who don’t watch the show, each show ends with a short recap of the night’s performances. Here’s what the kiddo had to say on each performer:
I like him. (on David Archuleta)
I like her. (on Brooke White)
I like her. (on Carly Smithson)
I like herm. (on Jason Castro, a young man who sports beautiful, long dredlocks)
Yep. Herm. That’s a combo of her and him. At first she wasn’t sure whether he was a boy or girl. Then the kiddo insisted he was a girl because he had long hair. And I admit the kiddo’s creative contraction is pretty darn funny. But I am a little concerned about the long hair/girls & short hair/boys stereotyping.
We watched our wedding video the other week – part of our 15th wedding anniversary celebration (hooray for us!). The kiddo did not like seeing Daddy with long hair. Hmm. She said he looked like a girl, and she made it very clear that she never, ever wants Daddy to have long hair.
I’m thinking this will pass soon.
Any thoughts?
2 comments from 2 users
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posted by
Jason
on Apr 16, 2008 at 12:40 PM
First, congrats on the anniversary! :) Now, the whole hair/gender identity/gender stereotypes thing... It must be a three-year-old thing, b/c The Pumpkin's doing that stuff too. Just yesterday, we were playing with some flat wooden dolls you lace wooden clothes onto, and it was just cracking her up to put the "boy" clothes on the "girl" dolls and vice versa, she thought the idea was just hilarious. I think that at this age, they're just categorizing everything--what we have to watch out for is when those categorizations get freighted with values and meanings from media and elsewhere that we don't want them to imbibe, is all. But seriously though--your husband had long hair?! That, I can't imagine. Heh. You know, we keep trying to get The Pumpkin to consent to her first ever haircut, just a bang trim so it's not in her eyes all the time, and we use your kiddo as an example, and she still won't buy it! posted by
Sheeky
on Apr 16, 2008 at 04:13 PM
It seems I need a moniker for my child. Hmmm, since pumpkin and kiddo are already taken. We have a number of nick-names, but I'm gonna go with Z-Rock (aka The Z-Rock)
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