Little babies don’t come with labels… yet it seems to be the height of insult for a parent when strangers assume the wrong gender when commenting on them. Does the bright pink top or the blue car t-shirt not give an obvious hint???
During my pregnancy, my husband was taken with the idea of having a black jumpsuit for our baby. So, we hunted and hunted until we found the perfect black jumpsuit. No matter whether we were having a boy or girl…
As it happens, Evie’s complexion looks rather stunning in black (says the unbiased voice of a mother). The black jumpsuit was well worn by the time it was outgrown.
The problem? Gender misidentification! The natural assumption being a baby in black MUST be a boy. Poor Evie!
She was 3 months old when a lovely old lady spied an opportunity to meet a little baby. She looked deep into Evie’s then blue eyes, and commented with great enthusiasm,
“What a beautiful baby!”
“Thank you”, I said.
“He has such a lovely, handsome face”, she observed.
I refrained from correcting her – it seemed an unnecessary embarrassment for a lovely old person.
“Thank you”, I said.
“How old is he?” she asked.
“3 months”, I said, “but born a little early”.
My people pleasing ways served me ill, as she quite naturally then asked:
“And what is his name?”
What to do??? Panic struck me as how to explain myself…
“Mark”, I said.
Poor Evie…
June 27th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Totally understand. Apparently my gorgeous 10 month old little GIRL has very masculine attributes! Even when wearing clearly girly clothes I sometimes – no, QUITE OFTEN!! – get the “what a good little boy” comments. Are people blind???!!! I choose to dress her in clothes other than the pink/floral/flowers/fairies etc. The result: I have suddenly become the proud mother of a little boy!!!
Perhaps the general public, in addition to the multitudes of unsolicted advice they give, could also learn to say “Oh, what a lovely baby! What is your little one’s name?” Not hard!!!
Oh, by the way, we dressed my little girl in a gorgeous black corduroy dress for our wedding in March – not mistaken for a little boy, but the mother-in-law was suitably horrified!!!!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Oh dear – you’re right… leaving out the gender when asking the name could save a lot of embarrassing moments.
The black dress sounds lovely! I’m sure the horrified response only added to the appeal…
September 11th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Oh how often we’ve been in this situation…I’ve even had another mother argue with me about the gender of MY child (um, yeah, I think I know what sex my children are, thankyou) because she was wearing jeans, therefor she WAS a boy (I was wearing jeans too, does that make me a boy?). I often let it go without comment, but sometimes it’s hard to not say something. I dress Pia in a lot of hand made clothes – which I strive to get a balance between individual, feminine, strong, and away from the baby girl look.
We just bought first shoes. Now there’s a whole new topic of ‘girliness’ conversation. Clothes I can make for her. Shoes I can’t.