You're taunting us by posting a video we don't have permission to watch?
Fair enough.
Good thing he didn't make that mistake with an Orang Utan, really. Especially one particular Orang Utan.
And pooping. We can never forget pooping.
Oh man, I literally died. Anyway, you know you can't make him white just by feeding him that stuff, right?
I married a white woman; my work here (in your country) is done.
We hit one year of parenthood yesterday. Φ seemed happy about it. (pic is actually about 6 weeks old. but indicates general mood.)
So cute. Let's have an avalanche of cute baby stuff. Yes. I see them in my flickr feed, people.
Sally's Halloween costume (somewhere in the Flickr pool), indicates the inevitable future. Cuteness ends, and looming menace follows on its heels.
(Cuteness usually returns again fairly quickly, usually after looming menace has tripped or something, or been distracted by food. Or something shiny.)
The photo in 11 is adorable, as is the video. I'm looking forward to that verbal stage, because we sort of missed it with Mara's delays and so Selah will be the first. I put up two pictures from last weekend.
I married a white woman; my work here (in your country) is done.
The aspirations of immigrants are truly what make America great.
Mine are no longer babies (sniff), but I'll add a recent pic of one of my littles with an autograph from one of the greatest violinists of our time, and hopefully I'll soon have some of them kicking boys' asses on the baseball field.
I like how pleased he is with himself throughout.
I agree with 17. He is very pleased about it all. Somehow I think his father might have suggested that surreptitiously pooping in the pool is a good thing.
Posted my two big guys at their swimming lesson just now.
Since this is the whimsical thread, Samsung opines on an unexpected topic.
Cute Pokey [pulling up pants after going to the bathroom]: Guys, one at a time. Underwear, you gotta go first. Pants - Mama, are these pants or shorts?
Me: Either.
Pokey: Pants, okay, you go next.
Also, Hokey Pokey hates the penis pocket, and so puts his underpants on backwards, and is so pleased with his solution, and his self-satisfied explanation is the cutest thing in the world.
The OP video is wonderful
Achievement unlocked:
http://youtu.be/rkZhVsfhMM8
He still doesn't do it much, but he can. Sorry it's a bit dark.
Despite what a hard year it's been, Nia's report card shows that she's now reading at grade level, which was our biggest goal for the year. I am thrilled and proud of her hard work! Not as photogenic, but awesome.
Not as photogenic, but awesome.
That's great! (as is ttaM's video).
Hokey Pokey hates the penis pocket
I've heard a lot of euphemisms for gay but that one was new to me.
24: so fantastic, congratulations Nia!
everyone's little ones are adorable.
26: You're not the first person to float that theory.
28: Ha, people have seriously done that already? Seems a tad early.
Incidentally the kid on the right of the photo referenced in 19 is currently obsessed with sloths.
29: Speculating about whether toddler/preschool boys are insufficiently butch is totally a thing. I always found it a bit mystifying, but people definitely do it.
It's why you've got to buy them cargo shorts and t-shirts that say things like T-REX EXTREME PRO-TEAM SPORTS STRIKE FORCE.
It's why you've got to buy them cargo shorts and t-shirts that say things like T-REX EXTREME PRO-TEAM SPORTS STRIKE FORCE.
31: He's a real little boy. (Not like those fake little boys).
Also, Ttam's video makes me wish once again that I had a Scottish accent, and 24 is great.
So many cute children! I love the grin toward the end of the video in 22. So proud of himself.
And that is awesome news about Nia's reading. And "go-li-la" in the OP slayed me.
I've a memory of being encouraged to stop bathing the dolls along with some girls, by two concerned women teachers.
Nursery School--what pre-school was called then--Deep River Ontario, a very socially advanced place, about 1954.
A certain North Bay community, about 10 tears ago, the women who ran the preschool reported to us in amazement that our child was the only kid they'd ever seen who played with both the boys and the girls. !!!
I'm told my pediatrician was upset that toddler me liked dolls. Or a few years later on my continued affection for my teddy bear, which I still have - it's staring at me right now from its seat on my desk. My parents were much more worried about how to handle my desire for toy weapons. I wonder, do/did parents of girls get the same thing if their toddlers like guns or other male coded toys?
IME, with one of each,there's less of a reaction, or different reaction, in that direction. A boy doing something that looks feminine (which happened on occasion with Newt: he liked dragging around a piece of pink velvet, and had a tendency as a toddler to treat toy tools as hairstyling implements), adults will forcibly stop him if they're really uptight, and comment jokingly about what it means about his future sexual orientation if they're less uptight but still bothered. A girl doing something that looks masculine, uptight adults will tend to treat her as invisible until she stops. I had a very funny afternoon when Sally was about eighteen months, listening to an acquaintance talk about how different boys and girls are, and how lucky I was to have a sweet compliant girl rather than the bundle of energy and aggression that was a toddler boy. During the conversation, I was occupied by retrieving the toys that Sally had forcibly taken from her son, and discouraging her from hitting him with them. The other mother somehow managed to remain oblivious.
But I don't know how well my experience generalizes.
22: You called him "good boy" for an achievement? You monster!
Also that was cute. And I can't even reliably walk while looking over my shoulder, so Xela has mastered some advanced techniques.
Our kid's very mildly bucking gender norms proclivities seem to make a few close friends & family members uncomfortable but we've mastered the exuding of fierce "don't even think of going there" vibes so it's all fine. Broadening horizons and all that!
I had a very funny afternoon when Sally was about eighteen months, listening to an acquaintance talk about how different boys and girls are, and how lucky I was to have a sweet compliant girl rather than the bundle of energy and aggression that was a toddler boy. During the conversation, I was occupied by retrieving the toys that Sally had forcibly taken from her son, and discouraging her from hitting him with them. The other mother somehow managed to remain oblivious.
I have had many, many variations on this encounter.
Today we had a nice conversation where Jane was asking about ultrasounds (pre-emptive: I'm not pregnant!) and became irritated when she learned that they couldn't show color. We talked some about why, but ultimately she said something like, "Ugh! Well, they SHOULD show color."
Snark: "Well, maybe someday you can become a scientist and develop a good way to do that."
Jane, affronted: "No! I'm going to be an ARTIST, remember?"
Snark: "You could be both."
Jane, mollified: "Yes, that could be my second job. If it catches on fire."
Snark: "What?"
Me: "If your studio catches on fire?"
Jane: "Yes, or my pants, or something like that."
I posted a video of 18 month old doing very monkey-like behavior, making faces at herself in mirror (or iPhone in this case.)
Ultrasounds can do false color, e.g. to indicate direction of motion (towards = blue, away = red.) Maybe that will satisfy her and you can launch into a discussion of visual representation of data and Tufte.
If your girl pushes another girl, people will get on those gender stereotypes right quick.
very mildly bucking gender norms
Yeah, from as much as I tell stories like 41, both of my kids are and were pretty generally gender-conforming. Neither of them looked to me when they were little as if they were behaving remarkably differently from their same gendered peers, it's just that there's a lot of very ordinary little-boy behavior that sets off adults' insufficiently-butch radar, and likewise in the other direction for girls.
My oldest kid would only wear pink from about 2.5 to 3.5. He's pretty much conformist now though. He thought about getting a pink soccer jersey since a couple of pro teams wear those but decided against it.
Best disciplinary drama from kid's elementary school days involved two girls, queue jumping at the water fountain and a poke in the snoot. Result: bit of blood, time off for good / bad behavior as applicable for the protagonists AND for the rest of the kids an extended philosophical discussion of authority, community norms, discipline and solidarity. Lesson plan tossed overboard in favor of theorizing it all, in pure high octane French fashion.
41: OK, I am updating downwards the amount of credulity I am willing to extend to parents who claim their children spontaneously conformed to gender roles.
52: Well, you know my prejudices, so I'm also reporting observations that are exactly what I'd expect to see.
I mean, I do think adults generally are smoking crack when they talk about how gender roles are just how little kids spontaneously behave, but I would think that, wouldn't I?
Similarly, I've had people more or less say "Are you sure it's okay if Hokey Pokey goes in the front yard? Or over there? Or..." as if all little boys are the sort to automatically bolt, which Pokey has never done (and as though girls are never that sort.)
53: I didn't say I was updating a lot.
54: They're just trying to divert your attention while they steal Hawaiian Punch.
I completely agree with LB not only because of the pervasive and largely unconscious (trying to be charitable) cuing I see adults engaging in to enforce gender norms here in SF of all places, but also because I am quite aware of the *alternate* norms our kid is exposed to from us, at school, at the dance studio. Some gendered (hello weird ballet world) some not. We're all doing it.
here in SF of all places
Yeah, what always used to get me about it is that I live in Pauline Kael-land -- my neighbors aren't hippies, but we're definitely urban-liberal-latte-sipping stereotypes -- and there was still a shitload of gender-role enforcement going on in how adults treated little kids. I used to kind of wonder if that sort of enforcement was surprisingly unaffected by people's general politics, or if it was wildly more intense out in redstate-land.
55: Can I tell a related story? I realize I may be a similarly biased source, but ...
A couple months ago I was in Colorado hanging out with my college roommate, her husband, and her three-year-old boy. At one point my college roommate said to me, "I used to think this was all socially constructed, but I tried to give [my kid] dolls and he was never interested." Then she reflected a little and said, "I guess [his dad] emphasizes all the trucks and planes." So here is the thing. I also hung out with the dad and kid alone one day, and it was seriously all rockets all day. The message that kid gets from his same-gender parent that cars, rockets, and doctor things are what's cool is relentless; I watched it happen. His mother doesn't even have it in her to be as aggressive in the foisting of interests; it's not her temperament. Yet someone who thinks of herself as biased in favor of the social construction explanation for gender roles still for a minute reflexively defaulted to "boys innately like boy things" in spite of massive evidence for at least the possibility of another causal explanation right in front of her eyes. Admittedly, when she said it out loud, she reconsidered, but it was still striking to me that she had inhabited that belief at all. (And maybe hadn't considered his father's influence as a source for his interests until that moment?! I don't know.)
Our girl has three older brothers and therefore almost all neutral to boy gendered toys. However she is being very girl-stereotype despite no guidance to do so- she likes to dress up, will go to the pile of hats and mittens or steal her brothers' shoes or coats (or underwear) and wear them in ridiculous combinations, including underwear as a hat. At school she will spend hours carrying the baby dolls around, wrapping them in blankets, unwrapping them, and she even pulls up her shirt and hold them up to her chest, I assumed she learned that from watching one of the breastfeeding mothers at daycare. She's ok with trucks and buses since there's a lot of that at home but she came up with the dressing and baby things either on her own or from school. And it's not a school likely to be pushing gender norms, big-U affiliated progressive etc.
I actually doubt that your kid's gender stereotypicalness at age 3 has much of anything to do with your kid's gender stereotypicalness at age 13-20, which is what most people actually care about with these things, one way or another. I dunno, I suppose people have studied this, but I'd bet that making your boy wear rocket PJs to bed every night and letting your girl buy Disney princess stuff probably doesn't have that much to do with how they'll present at age 14.
I think that at the younger ages all of this stuff -- really, all of it -- is more about the parents than the kids.
Which cuts the other way, too, taking pride in your non-gender-conforming kid now means that you still might get FratBro McJCrew at age 18.
Underwear as a hat is girl-stereotypical?
64: I thought that was hilarious. Umm self awareness fail much?
However she is being very girl-stereotype despite no guidance to do so- she likes to dress up, will go to the pile of hats and mittens or steal her brothers' shoes or coats (or underwear) and wear them in ridiculous combinations, including underwear as a hat.
And it's not a school likely to be pushing gender norms, big-U affiliated progressive etc.
Two reactions here (and again, obviously, you know my prejudices). First, the behavior you describe, dressing up in odd combinations of outerwear, mostly boys' outerwear, doesn't actually sound very girl-stereotype to me -- if you just described the behavior without calling it girl-stereotype, it wouldn't sound gendered at all. And that's another thing I noticed adults doing with little kids -- looking at the same behavior, and identifying it as obviously feminine on a girl, and masculine on a boy. You're saying girly because dressup, but you could just as well say boyish because crazy and unrestrained -- look at him being all masculine wearing underwear on his head like Captain Underpants.
And the second is that you think she's unlikely to be getting gender-role enforcement/cuing in school because it's university affiliated? See dairy queen and me talking about NYC and SF liberals. This stuff is pervasive.
64, 65: So I was pwned, but I was more verbose.
61: I don't totally disagree with this, but it's complicated.
And the second is that you think she's unlikely to be getting gender-role enforcement/cuing in school because it's university affiliated? See dairy queen and me talking about NYC and SF liberals. This stuff is pervasive.
Not to mention the part where it sounds like at daycare she's seen lots of women and few if any men engaged in lots of extended infant care. "My little girl seems to notice and imitate women more than my little boys did" might be a better way of thinking about that bit.
Her favorite teacher there is the bald 50-something guy who rotates through all the classrooms, although overall the teachers are heavily women. It's about 50/50 dads or moms who drop off.
I threw the underwear detail in because it was funny, but it's definitely not role play dress up, it's more look at me wearing all these different things- go to the pile, put some on, walk to us for approval, take them off, put on different ones. Whether it's "girly" or not, there is a definite difference in things she likes to do vs what any of the boys did, even though if anything we push her to do the same things as them because we don't want to buy new clothes or toys. Even the boy who dressed in pink wasn't in to any of the things she does (she doesn't care about color, just variety.) The only obsession she has in common with one of her brothers is animals.
I was certain the link in 20 would go to a certain Young-Haw Chang video about Samsung.
22: Cute!
24: Congrats to both Nia and her moms. What a smart kid.
I'm probably being irritating here, but I figure your boys were also different from each other, somewhat? Kids are individuals. It's easy to look at Bill and Ted having differing personalities, and attribute that to their individual natures, but to see the differences between Jack and Jill as due to their gender.
Your kids, you're the one who sees them first hand, so you know the most about them. But generally, I think it's hard to overestimate how much cuing is going on from other adults, and it's very easy to overestimate how gendered the actual behavior of a kid is, even when you're watching them in person.
I almost wrote that same response before anyone else could- kids are just different! But she is more different from any of them than they are from each other, including several things that present as gender stereotypes.
She is also smaller than they were which may be a gender thing- I forget how different growth curves are at this age- or could be residual from when she was sick last year, but probably not, her weight percentile rebounded from that within a month or two. But her closest in age brother is something of a beast, almost a year ahead of his brothers on the growth chart, so there's a visual difference too.
And the reason we had four kids was so I could win child psychology arguments on the internet.
Oh, and the two middle ones went to a study last week and had the almost literal marshmallow test performed on them (it was skittles, not marshmallows, waiting 15 minutes for a double sized pile.) They still run that test? Then they had their brains scanned and each found $100.
$100 will buy enough Skittles to power a kid through 4th grade.
When our kids were young and most of our friends were parents of other kids their age--they're still our friends, but that's how they got that way--the effort to depart from gender norms, in our circle, was prodigious. And that sets up parents, especially mothers, for disappointment when their girls want princess and their boys, despite a "no guns" rule in the house, pick up any object remotely analogous and go "pow."
My mother-in-law, a very self-aware and progressive mother in the 50s, told me she gave in when her sons were obviously using everything in sight: brooms, kitchen utensils, anything as guns.
One thing they do all have in common which is supposed to be more common in boys is that they all are/were head bangers. She just picked it up in the last month or so.
75: You need two more girls to be able to to run statistics.
There's computers now. It's been years since you needed a room a women doing the calculations.
Reminds me of an SF series where in a post technological future (war satellites instantly zap any active circuitry) people seeking to recreate technology create human computers using masses of people locked in underground rooms with each person being a binary operator. A fun series in spite of the silly premises, which also include genocidal human hating whales.
"You need two more girls to be able to run statistics"
said the actress to the bishop
82: Couldn't you run mechanical punch card machines?
79: How do you deal with that? Selah's doing it deliberately now after seeming more desperate about it in the past. I think we should go from "Don't hit your head!" to not giving her any attention when she does it and see if that stops her. It's going to be really hard to teach the big girls to respond that way, though potentially important, and even harder to teach Lee. She did start saying "yes" today after several months of appropriately nodding yes/no, so maybe soon we can just get to screamed NOOOOO and avoid the head-banging that way.
Mara went through an extreme un-girly phase in terms of what she was willing to wear and I think it was in response to gender roles in her previous foster home, maybe. She's since gone to the girly-princess stage and now has found more of an equilibrium. Nia is super girly in presentation, but admires the style of the studs at church and asked for some boys' clothes with a tie, which she wears as a semi-deliberate drag. Selah's only self-selected piece of clothing is a boys hoodie where the hood has a dinosaur face and teeth on it, which she loves because she can put it on and go around growling and grunting.
On the other hand, in the last week Mara and Selah have both been given toy puppies. Mara named hers "Darky" and Selah named hers "Buppie," which was admittedly the best she could do at "puppy" but still super racist, right? Darky's name changes daily, though, and that one didn't stick, perhaps because it's a white toy dog.
Yeah, ignore it works- they won't hurt themselves seriously doing it. Second boy did get bruises on his forehead sometimes. Girl bangs until she's hurt enough to run over and ask to be comforted, I think it's a way to forget about what they were angry about and convert it to physical pain for which they're used to being comforted.
87: It's just hard because we have to document injuries since she's still in care. I guess now that she's technically pre-adoptive it's not so big a deal, and she's conveniently done it in front of the caseworkers and her pediatrician and the in-home therapist, so everyone sees what's going on. I hate that I even have to worry about that stuff. But she's likely to be somewhat sensory-seeking in general and will have to figure out better ways to make herself feel better. She usually does one big smash and then she's done, but she's gotten good at making the smashes not be too hard most of the time. Occasionally she misjudges, which is also probably a good learning experience.
I don't think I was a head banger as a toddler but as an older kid and indeed even to this day (not today but you know) sometimes when I am super frustrated I need to excuse myself and go somewhere private and whack myself in the forehead pretty hard. Then I feel much better! Good lord, human beings are bizarre.
82: Souls in the Great Machine, a favorite of mine, by Sean McMullen.
84: I think one person had enough hints from the ruins of our civilization to know it was possible, and so set out to invent the computer before the calculator.
Apparently, I associate the phrase "And then..." with Run Lola Run.
When you ask Φ "who's Φ?" she hits herself in the head.
91: Ha. I associate it with Dude Where's My Car? This probably reveals a lot about both of us.
Selah's only self-selected piece of clothing is a boys hoodie where the hood has a dinosaur face and teeth on it, which she loves because she can put it on and go around growling and grunting.
Adorable.
Her favorite teacher there is the bald 50-something guy who rotates through all the classrooms, although overall the teachers are heavily women. It's about 50/50 dads or moms who drop off.
"Look, kids, here comes the spinning teacher! Look! Look, there he goes now!"
I think he'd have been my favourite too.
95.last: Has come up here before in the context of Heebie U's level of technology. The first "seismic computers" were likewise made of meat.
