Now this is something I never gave a thought about until this morning. The notion of a girl being a Tom Boy is so sexist and offensive and just ridiculous how can we even be taking about it in 2016! My kids were watching some kids show on TV this morning and there was this skit about 2 Tom Boys and which one was more of a Tom Boy. Just watching it I could feel myself getting more and more irritated. The whole notion that a girl has to act and behave a certain way and if she is into rough sports, does not wear dresses or play with dolls then she is a Tom Boy is something that should have disappeared 30 years ago. But, here it was this morning and it made me realize we still have a long way to go to get stereotypes out of the minds of so many and to stop having these type of programs that perpetuate them for kids. Of course I will also be writing a very stern letter to the station that aired it!
Okay, I will get off my soapbox but it made me realize that we go through life with so much happening around us that probably should have disappeared centuries ago. The truth is many of these prejudices do exist and we probably think about it and then just let it go. I am all for not taking on more then you can but I urge all you Supermoms out there to please challenge the social stigmas our kids may still be facing. It is these prejudices that leads to so much bullying and cyberbullying and we know how that has impacted children of all ages.
Does it matter what a child chooses to wear (obviously I am taking into consideration weather and not walking around half-dressed), what they play with or what games they are interested in? My daughter was 2 and had a Spiderman birthday party because that was her obsession at the time. My son at 5 always wanted his sister to paint his toenails with nail polish. This is our future leaders expressing themselves and we need to embrace it, encourage them and most importantly not label them. I know you Supermoms are already doing all of this with your own littles ones so please take a minute and think about is there anything else you can be doing in the outside world so we can move away from hearing the absurdity of girls proving whether or not they are Tom Boys in 2016 and our kids can be whoever they choose to be!
