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Re: [apmultiples] Re: gender stereotypes

Wow, it's exciting to return from a day or two offline to find so much
mail on this topic!

I'm just writing one response to it all, because I actually should be
getting some work done.

We have an 8-yo son, and we always dressed him in pink, blue, purple,
red, flower prints, space prints, animal prints, you name it.  We
shopped in boys' and girls' departments, and felt pretty strongly that
he should be able to express all the sides of his personality, and enjoy
all the colors, themes, etc.  He commented the other day that we had
"pretty much raised him as an "X"" (you know the Story of X, from
Stories for Free Children?).  He is still a gender iconoclast, and happy
with that, and has found a good niche for himself with both boy and girl
friends.  I hope we can pull this off with Eva and Isaac, and let them
find out for themselves who they are. 

I wear dresses myself, (not always), and the full range of colors - but
I don't have to move by crawling, which is MUCH harder in a dress.  I'm
also reluctant to put Eva in dresses because the main comment girls get
when dressed up is how nice they look - I hate to reinforce for her that
her looks are that important.  Plus the contrast with Isaac is so much
more immediate than if she didn't have a twin.  I find that I try to
coordinate their clothes - both wearing pastels, or both wearing "boy"
prints, etc. 

I could go on and on about this, but I'll spare you!  Back to work for
me.  It'd be great to have a list to discuss this stuff, and I'm
grateful to Ken for offering to set one up.

Nancy

"There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day." - Alexander Woollcott, American Author


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