Wednesday, March 11, 2009

"She's a Girl"

I know this is mostly my fault, and it usually doesn't bother me much, but why can't people figure out that Mara is a girl? I can understand if you just see her out somewhere, and she's wearing green or blue or something...you might think boy. It's hard to say at this age. And usually I won't correct people if they just say something in passing. I'm sure I've mistakenly thought a baby was the opposite sex too (although I would never say something one way or the other if I wasn't sure!).

But say you're at an appointment...and they call her name to be seen. MARALYN. And then proceed to refer to her as "he" and "him" for several minutes until being corrected. Hmmm. This happened to us the other day. Did they really think we named our boy Maralyn? Or did they just forget her name that quickly, and go by the color of the outfit and assume?

I'm not the type of person to dress my daughter in pink or feminine outfits every day. At the same time, I wouldn't put her in something that said "boy" on it. She has plenty of pink girly things, but she has a lot of neutral type outfits too. I like bright colors, and I'm not a big fan of pink, so it happens. She doesn't usually wear bows or headbands, and she doesn't have enough hair for pigtails or barettes.

I don't need people to see her and automatically associate a gender to her. She's a baby. (But that's a whole separate tangent that I won't go off on right now...) And like I said, it doesn't usually bother me. But when someone knows her name, I expect them to at least make the connection. It would be one thing if she had a gender neutral name, but Maralyn is pretty clearly a feminine name! And I'd much rather someone ask than to just assume...

6 comments:

Celestia said...

I have come to realize...people, in general, are dumb.

Alicia said...

We get this ALL the time! I don't dress Hannah in pink all the time, either. Most of the outfits she wears out and about are neutral colors, but still feminine. Plus her hair is finally growing enough to put rubber bands in it. Even STILL people say "he's" so cute! I totally understand if she's in just a diaper, but my husband has a picture of Hannah on his desk at work. She's wearing a hair bow, and someone said what a cute son we had?! Then the other day someone came by the house and commented about how cute my little boy was. This time she was actually in a pink onesie. Geez! I agree with your previous commenter - people are just dumb sometimes!

Anonymous said...

You should tell people that you named your 'son' after Marilyn Manson and their ears will perk up I'm sure!

Elisa

Isabella said...

LOL. I think this is true for a lot of parents with babies. I get this all the time, and like you - she's not outfitted like a boy, but not head-to-toe pink.

You have to be a special brand of dumb to keep calling her "him" after announcing her name. Unless they call everyone "he/him"...than that's just weird.

Someone, after saying Peanut was a "him" and me correcting her, said, "well, she looks like a boy." That was a pleasant exchange. :)

Anonymous said...

Mara is so cute. I don't know how anyone could mix up his gender! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Lisa beat me to the punch. I was going to say something about Marilyn Manson...but she took all the fun out of it!
Blah...

Stephanie