DS keeps calling our female neighbor a man
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Anonymous
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How do I handle this? We have a lesbian neighbor that we are friendly with. She will often visit and stop by sometimes with her partner, other times by herself. My DS recently called her a boy. He knows her name but argued that "mary" is a boy - not a girl. This came up because he asked a question about her. "Mommy, why did that boy drop off the box today?" I was confused and said, "Mary dropped off the box, she's a girl, not a boy" and he was adament - kept insisting that Mary was a boy. I asked him why he thought Mary was a boy and he wouldn't tell me, just kept saying "No, Mary's a boy." I finally just dropped it.
He is almost 5 years old and has speech delays (which is why he couldn't articulate why he thought Mary was a boy). he's never said that to "mary" directly and it's the first time it's come up - he's known Mary since he was little. Do I do anything? Just drop it and let mary deal with it if he ever says it to her? How do I explain, without any boobs vs. penises comparisons, that she's a woman? |
Anonymous
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I think you are doing a good job. Just keep at it.
My DS recently saw a woman (from behind) with a large mane of frizzy white hair, pointed at her and said "Look! It's a sheep!" He's 2, so he didn't mean to be mean, but it was a little AWK-ward. |
Anonymous
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You may need to do the vagina/penis thing.
Honestly, I have no idea how some kids become convinced about certain people's sex. One of my kids insisted that his bus driver was male. I had nothin'. |
Anonymous
| My son does this too with women who look more typically masculine. I just tell him it's a woman. If he says no, she has short hair (or whatever), I say that people come in all different shapes and sizes, but she's a woman regardless of how she looks or dresses. But if I get more pushback than that, I do explain it comes down to anatomy. |
Anonymous
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Does he only refer to HER as a man or is this done to others, too?
My son, who is speech delayed at 4, still refers to everyone as he. We are working on it, but clearly he generalizes. If that's the case, then I wouldn't worry. If not, just gently correct him by using the proper pronouns. And use other examples he may see in books or on TV. Is Mary not exactly into dresses and what not? Is that what's confusing him?
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Anonymous
| He's 5. He may think that because she's married to a woman, that she has to be a boy. In addition to what you're doing (you're doing well), you might want to mention to him that while most girls marry boys, some girls marry girls and that doesn't make Mary a boy. Mary's still a girl. Just keep reiterating that while Mary may do things that he associates with being a boy, she's still a girl. Another way to handle it in terms he may understand is instead of asking why he thinks Mary is a boy, try asking what boy things he thinks Mary does. For that age, I find that actions and things are easier to identify than concepts. |
Anonymous
| My DS is 4 1/2 and still working on his pronouns. He often refers to everyone as he or she. Maybe he just needs a bit of help understanding the whole boy/girl difference? If that requires a trip to penis/vagina town, so be it. |
Anonymous
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OP here. Thanks. To the pp who asked some questions - my DS has only done this to Mary. He usually gets the boy/girl thing correctly. Mary is the more masculine partner. She has very short hair, never wears jewelery, always wears pants. Her partner has longer hair, wears jewelery and skirts/dresses. I figured that was the confusion - that he sees them together as a couple and just assumes boy-girl. And actually, when I was correcting him that Mary, is a girl and SHE dropped off the box, he was clear to correct me by saying, NO, not Sarah (Mary's partner), Sarah didn't drop the box off, the boy, Mary, did. But he doesn't know they are married (doesn't even know me and DH are - or at least doesn't ask or talk about it).
PP - I like the idea of asking him what boy things he thinks Mary does. That might break it down for him. |
Anonymous
I just laughed so hard. How did you keep it together when your DS said this! |
Anonymous
| LOL, no matter what kid tell he truth, gay marriage doesn't make sense |
Anonymous
| Only other thing I would add is to somehow communicate to your son that while he thinks she's a man, she's really a woman and he needs to call her a woman. It might be offensive to Mary to call her a man. |
ThatSmileyFaceGuy
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| If she is that butch and her partner is certainly more feminine then is his eyes she must be a boy. |
Anonymous
OP here. Like I mentioned, my son doesn't even think in terms of marriage, dating, partners or friends. So "gay marriage" isn't the issue. The issue is how I handle it with him and with her. To the pp who said this:
Thanks. I think I will also tell him this (if/when it comes up again) that no matter what he thinks inside, it's polite to address people correctly. |
Anonymous
Obviously I can't speak for your neighbor, but as a somewhat butch straight woman who occasionally gets called "sir," I don't take it personally. And I especially would not get upset at hearing it from a 5-year-old. But it does sound like this pp's approach would be especially useful in helping him sort out his understanding of gender and help you figure out what is going on with him.
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Anonymous
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