Jill Smokler, AKA Scary Mommy
@scarymommy
Latest posts by Jill Smokler, AKA Scary Mommy (see all)
- The Disney Reveal - May 14, 2013
- Met My Match At Disney… - May 13, 2013
- Sunday’s Baltimore Sun - May 11, 2013
You know those uncomfortable moments when your kids say innocently inappropriate things, like asking the old woman with the oxygen tank if she’s dying or the broken-out teenager what’s wrong with his skin?
We have a lot of those moments in this family.
Today, it was loudly referring to a little girl they’d just met at the park as “he”.
The girl was dressed in a Superman costume, so it was an understandable mistake. Her long blond hair trailed behind as they chased each other around the monkey bars. At one point, when she was far ahead, I quickly called them over and explained that she was, in fact, a girl. They shouldn’t assume she was a boy just because she was wearing a superhero costume. Girls can and should wear whatever they want, I proudly stated, high fiving Rosie the Riveter in my head as the mother looked on. Really? they asked, incredulously. Yes, I whispered, shooing them off. Go play with her. They nodded their heads and continued chasing happily.
A half hour later, the little girl’s mom called her to go home. Apparently, it was time for dinner.
(Michael’s dinner.)
Whoops.
Those kids can be so embarassing.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
HA!!!! Oops!!
Stephanie recently posted..Hide and Seek: A Guest Post by Karen of Mom in the Muddle
LOL!
*snort* oops. It happens.
Denise recently posted..Proud to be working with The SITS Girls
Dang it, other parents! Help us out a little! Mouth your child’s gender to us over his/her head! Put a pink or blue bandana in their back pocket. Anything!
Can you tell we’ve had the same problem?
Meredith recently posted..I broke myself.
is that Danny Trejo in your profile picture? I like you already, if only for that reason. :)
Tanya Doyle recently posted..Take Two and Call Me in the Morning
Why yes, that is Danny Trejo. Thank you for noticing — I like you too. He is totally my imaginary best friend. I want to play jenga with him.
Meredith recently posted..I broke myself.
Even a bow or a freakin pink shirt isn’t enough for some people. I was at the mall with Little C in the stroller and a woman came up to us:
“Wow, what an adorable little boy!”
In my head I’m thinking:
“Boy? Did you not see the pink, flowered shirt, sparkly soother, and Litty Kitty shoes?!”
Gah!
Chris @ CleverFather recently posted..Being a Dad Isn’t All Smiles
In their defense, your baby is awfully “mannish”.
;)
Awkwarddd. My stepdaughter once asked if she could go “play with that little girl,” regarding a small child with a long blond braid, and the dad was standing there and said “he’s actually a little boy, he just has long hair.” He was very good-natured about it, thank goodness.
Ouch! I’ve done that too. It’s the long hair that gets us… Oops!
Anjie @ Of Pandas and Pirates recently posted..Aw, so close …
We haven’t had that yet, but not long ago at the park, my son came over to tell me in an agitated voice that “That guy won’t stop following me and watching everything I do, even after I told him not to!”
I looked for the guy, ready to be all THIS IS SPARTA. I didn’t see him.
“What guy?”
“That guy!”
The “guy” was a seven-year-old child. To be fair, he WAS kind of creepy.
Kimberly Hosey | Arizona Writer recently posted..Spider Sunday 5-6-12
But seriously, what do parents expect when they let their little boys grow long hair like that? Especially if the kid doesn’t have an obviously male facial structure – and let’s face it, some do, some don’t. I made the same mistake a couple weeks ago in the salon while getting my hair cut. I was nervous about getting bangs for the first time in like 27 years, a young child with long-very long-blonde hair was sitting in the chair next to me and I told the kid’s mom, “I haven’t had bangs since I was her age!” Well, I’ll be damned if it wasn’t boy. The kid had rather androgynous face and long blonde hair. The mom brushed it off and said she gets it all the time. I suppose that’s why she was having the kid’s hair cut. What really get’s me going is when parents put their baby boys with long hair in really “sweet” little gender neutral outfits and then get pissed when someone assumes they’re a girl. This is why my 2 year old boys have always been put in decidedly boy clothes and have always had boy hair cuts.
Oh well, you did the right thing though, how were you to know?
Been there ~ done that! LOL
Me too, but the little boy seriously had a scrunchy holding his very long hair in a ponytail!!
Apparently there are even barettes for boys now – they are called boy-rettes.
oh my…that is so something that would happen to me. What can you do? It happens to all of us
Heidi Bryan recently posted..Thank God you are home…I just opened the vodka
To be fair, I do know a female Michael, just as I know male Ashleys.
LOL….either way, you both could have made an honest mistake!
Missy recently posted..A Dream Weekend
Hey it happens to the best of us :)
Alison@Mama Wants This recently posted..Memories Captured – May Link Up!
As a parent with a ponytailed son, we did it because when we were dealing with his screaming at the barber shop to get his “boy” haircut, and put on his all blue, “Like father, like SON” tshirt, and introduce him as Gregory, our son, people still called him a little girl. So, my hubby and I decided, fuck it – why go through all this trouble presenting him as a boy when obviously none of us want him to look like that, but to have people ignore the metric ton of clues that there is a penis in his Huggies. The ones who now really bother me are those who ignore when we say Greggie is a boy.
And now I’ll be singing “It’s Pat” the rest of the night.
Arnebya recently posted..Mothers and Daughters: A Review of You Have No Idea
LOL. A cpl weeks ago we were at the park & my 19 month old was running after his 4 yr old brother, some college kid playing frisbee golf goes “Hey little girl” as my son happily ran around. It insulted me a little bit but I didn’t think about it again until we got in the car and I realized…… I had him in his “little brother” t-shirt that day. wtf?
Monica recently posted..Pampers Limited Edition 2012 Olympic “Team USA” Diapers & Wipes Giveaway
I get tired of trying to care either way. I tell them who cares. Everyone is different. But when your boy has hair past his collar than you are asking for confusion. Suck it up or cut the damn hair. So annoying.Knew a mom once who didn’t want to cut her boys “sweet little curls off” but then would get huffy when people called him her. Cannot have it both ways people.
Amen. Grow your son’s hair long if you want to, but you’re not allowed to get huffy when someone makes an honest mistake!
Haha! Ooops. Did the mom hear you?? (As an aside, when I was younger, I actually knew a girl named Michael. *shrug*)
Growing up my mom refused to let me grow my hair long, spouting some bullshit about me being a tomboy and I’d end up getting hung from a tree if I let it grow out…. so I spent a lifetime of being called a boy. I can tell you that it really pissed me off. Especially at 13, when I would wear a pink shirt and even put pink combs in my 2 inch long locks. I have had long hair since I was 18 and am currently 45. Just giving the other side here….
Ha! That would totally happen to me.
Elizabeth Newlin recently posted..BlogHer12: Is it possible to die of anxiety?
Giving your daughter a boys name, or your son a girls name, or confusing the gender standards is not being “free spirited”. It’s confusing kids! If your little girl is name michael, expect my son to call her a him if she looks like a boy taboot. If your darling son named ashley has long hair and is in gender neutral cloths, expect my son to call him her. Both of my boys have always had “boy” hair cuts, even through screaming at the barbershop, and have always worn “boy” cloths. Both have distinct boy names. I agree with the above, if you set your kid up to be confused, especially since so many young children have androgynous faces and features, expect other kids and adults to be confused! It’s the equivalent of that rare adult you see in the store that leaves you wondering “was that a guy, or a chick?”
I named my daughter, Erin. You’d think that was a girl name, right? You can’t imagine the shit I get. Pisses me off sometimes.
I had a blonde female friend in college whose name was Michael. Not Michaela. Michael. She was born with girl parts, her parent’s just chose that name.
Have yet to experience that with my kids but I’m sure the day will come.
Mercy recently posted..A Glorious Slow Morning
*hahahahahaha* Love it!
Heather recently posted..National Zoo
Oh the gender guessing game, always so fun! On a similarly embarrassing note, my daughter once asked the obese woman behind the counter at the print store why her legs were so big. I was mortified. My 3 year old was simply curious. :)
Ha! That one made me laugh out loud. My boys (3 and 5) also call other children and babies “he” persistently right now, and I’ve seen it before in young kids. Maybe it’s just that they identify as males themselves, in combination with the egocentric nature of early childhood…whatever the case, it’s good to know that I am not the only one having to respond to my children when, in the lineup at the grocery store, they point to the cashier and say “mum, she’s really fat, huh?” or “Ha ha, that guy is really little,” about the vertically challenged man who passed us in the aisles…
I’ve known one or two female Michaels. And if you remember The Waltons, you may also remember that the credits included “Miss Michael Learned.”
Tragic Sandwich recently posted..Baguette Goes to the Opera
I was expecting something MUCH worse lol. My big one was when I was 12 and Michael Jackson was performing the superbowl halftime show and those big fans came on and he stood over them screaming (you know what i’m talking about! like the air vents in his music video!) At my dad’s (very large) superbowl party that I was attending as that awesome daughter who loved to watch the game, I proudly turned to my daddy and said “Hey daddy Look at that! michael Jackson is getting a blowjob!!”
…. I was sent to my room “until your mother gets home”.
I’m a substitute teacher and I accidentally called a girl a boy. Well, in all fairness, she was wearing boy clothes, her hair was cut very short, her name was something like Taylor, Tyler or Pat and the kids were sitting “boy-girl” and she had 2 girls around her. I felt like a heal, poor girl.
~Allie
OMG!!! I totally did that in Walmart a couple months ago! Little boy with long dreads/braids wearing a purple shirt, and said, “she’s so cute!” The mom was like “HE’S A BOY,” all pissy. Yikes! lol
Kristen Mae recently posted..Fifty Shades of I Don’t Wanna Be a Nympho
For a teacher unisex names can always be a bit of a hazard and I’ve made a few mistakes with boy’s names on girls before, but when I saw Kaycee on my class roster this year I was pretty sure she was a girl. Wrong! Why do parents do this? I can’t even think of a nickname that would make Kaycee sound masculine.
The name MIchael for a girl is actually biblical and was used in the feminine before it was used in the masculine but our culture is far removed from using the name for girls, hence the confusion when someone does use it for their girl. Our 8 year old daughter’s name is Erin and I thought this was a very girly name.We are part Irish and I loved this name. I know the boy spelling is Aaron. She is very much a girly, girl and loves to dress herself in pink and dresses. She looks like a girl and her hair is long. She wears jewlery and headbands etc. No confusing her for a boy by looking at her but when we say her name we get all kinds of crazy. Isn’t that a boy’s name? How do you spell it? I am thinking are you nuts????!!!
OMG!! this was hilarious
Shirley@motivatedmommyoftwo recently posted..{Gardening} My Gardening Tips
This happened with me and Cady, but it was with an adult, at a store, and she was right and I was wrong.
Jennifer recently posted..Be Better
Oh I know this has happened to many of us before!
Holly from 300 Pounds recently posted..What if?