At not quite seven, my son Bryn has already figured out a lot of the 'nurture' attached to gender. By that I mean social rules about colour and toy preference, in relation to being a boy. At four, he already knew that pink clothes were 'for girls'...yet almost always chose the pink cup, the pink balloon, etcetera, as a way to get around that. By five, he was declining pink things and into the red cup, the red balloon etcetera, as a badge of boyhood. Now at almost seven, he is still very fond of a pair of slightly-too-short purple yoga pants, which he will not let me pass on, but he is otherwise very choosy in a slightly boyish gendered way.
A few days ago he found my hot water bottle and started holding it to his chest by my bed and rocking it like a baby. Our ensuing conversation went something like this:
B: Mummy, when I grow up and marry a girl, I'm going to have babies.
Me: Oh? How many?
B: Four.
Me: Right, how many boys and how many girls?
B: Two boys and two girls...like me and Aleisha and Brett and Hannah (his much older half-siblings).
Me: Okay. What will their names be?
Bryn: Well, the two girls will be named Sweetie and Sweetpea, the boys will be called John and Paul. No, wait! The girls will be called George and Ringo, and the boys will be called John and Paul (laughing uproariously at his own joke)!
Clearly his love of The Beatles outweighed his perceptions of gender. I have absolutely no problem with that!
Bryn aged two in his favourite mauve all-in-one suit with the butterfly motif
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