Reply to Four-year-old son likes makeup and nail polish

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Maybe that's the difference - I don't see that it has any greater meaning. 
Give me a break. [/quote]

Sorry that it makes you feel annoyed, but I really don't.  If a little kid wants to try painting his nails, I don't think it "says" anything at all.  It's just playing around and trying out a color.  I don't think the average adult or little kid would read more into it than that.  [/quote]
I honestly don't know how to make it clearer.  Of course a 4 year old doesn't know what it may mean, that it's a feminine thing to do, etc  But like it or not, there are societal norms and you can choose to help your kids fit into them or not - that's your priority and I'm really not judging it - I just wouldn't let my little boy wear makeup or a dress.  My teenage son who might do it by choice and understand why he's doing it, sure.  But not a little boy.  No more than I'd let him wear a swastika etc.  He might think it looks cool but it's my job as a parent to teach him the ways of the world.[/quote]

You're comparing apples to hamburgers--a swastika is a hurtful, subversive image, in no way appropriate for a child who doesn't understand what it means.  A boy in a dress/makeup/nail polish is not.  Sure, some people clearly do not LIKE it, but that is nowhere close to the same category as hurtful as a swastika.

These "societal norms" you talk about are STEREOTYPES, and I don't understand why you are so determined to enforce them.  That's not to say that some stereotypes (like this one) don't have some basis in truth, but what a boring and even oppressive society we'd be if we enforced these "norms" so rigidly that everyone was the same and anyone who tried to be different was ostracized.[/quote]

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