Saturday, July 24, 2010

Hello Strangers. Our toddler is a BOY.

Those who already know Tristan may be as shocked as I am to discover that most strangers think Tristan looks like a girl. This is of course all because he has longer hair than most toddler boys. In fact, even when we dressed him in blue from tip to toe, people still referred to him as a "she." It has gotten to the point where we don't even bother correcting people when they mistaken him for a girl. We figure it would just embarrass them. It's not such a big deal but it is getting pretty annoying.

Men with long hair are generally accepted in society. I can see how guys may be poked fun of if they have long hair while they are teenagers but at least they are not mistaken for girls. When it comes to babies, it is common to get the gender confused. As infants, sometimes it is almost impossible to tell whether the baby is a girl or a boy. In these cases, the polite thing would be to ask the parents what gender the baby is. Sometimes, I feel like there is too much stereotyping out there. We often dress boys in blue and girls in pink. As the babies age, boys get haircuts to look more like boys and girls get their ears pierced. Something like that anyway.

Tristan with his girly-hair:

Tristan hasn't had a haircut yet. I agree his hair is getting a bit long but I kind of like it :) It's different and I just love that it is so soft. Initially, I wanted to grow it out a bit to see if he would have curly hair since Jean-Louis had curls when he was a baby. It's beginning to look like he just has straight hair. Now, I just want to see how it grows and what he looks like. It took as 20 months to grow it this far! I think shoulder length shaggy hair is adorable on little boys. It would be nice if society would let us do that without assuming that he is a girl :(

Jean-Louis doesn't agree with me completely. Then again, he has the same shaved haircut for the past 9 years or so. He was in his twenties when he settled on his permanent haircut. Boring! Anyway, I keep showing him pictures of other celebrity boys around Tristan's age who have somewhat long hair and they are all so cute! He is still skeptical but hey, it's basically my decision since I will be the one giving Tristan a haircut when it is time :)

Mathew McConaughey's boy, Levi: (photos taken from People.com)

Naomi Watts' boys, Samuel Kai and Sasha: (photos taken from People.com)

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