Gender Identity

It seems we have come to the end of a particular phase of parenting over here at Casa de WI Mommy. It’s too bad, it was a phase I rather liked. It was the phase where I got to choose who we had playdates with based on how I got along with the mom rather than on the gender of the child attending the playdate.

Up until now, Little J has had just as many little girls as friends as little boys. It worked out rather well, considering I really liked all the moms we were hanging out with.

At our last co-ed playdate we all got a rude awakening…those days are over.

Our last get-together included three boys and two girls. In the past, they all played together whether it was house or tag or whatever they were making up at the moment. This time we had immediate issues.

“Mommeeeeee, the girls don’t want to play superhero!” the boys whined.
“Momeeeeee, the boys are shooting pretend guns at us!” the girls complained.

Eventually, the boys and girls self segregated into different areas and began their own separate stories and play. Sniff, sniff. The end of an era.

A few weeks later, I saw a glimmer of hope faintly flicker. We had a moms’ and kids’ day at Little J’s school and a few of the boys and girls sat down at the doll house to play.

“Ahhhh,” I thought. “So they do still play together at school.”

The spell was quickly broken when the boys started using parts of the dollhouse as spears and had the daddy doll jousting with the son doll. The girls watched in horror for a few minutes before fleeing the scene.

Oh well. Like I said, it was a nice phase while it lasted.