Be who you want

This week's discussions and topics really intrigued me. We spoke a lot about differences in gender and the qualities that come with those differences. We also discussed and took a look at the statistics and some situations that homosexuals have been through.

Something we spoke about were the roles of parents in a family. mothers are more aligned with what is going on with all of the children around them, not only their own but the kids at school as well. They are able to determine how the things that happen at school affect their relationships at home and with others. Father's on the other hand are not as good at focusing on everything that is going on, but it allows them to put much more effort and focus on the task at hand a little better. They are able to switch modes in some cases. For example a father at work will be able to focus on being who he needs to be at work and then can switch the way he is with his family at home. Not to say that this is always the case, but it is harder for women to turn off the emotions and way they act at home when they are at work.

I just want to take a moment to talk about some of the things I found most interesting. We talked about the difference between a little girl playing with boys toys, and a little boy playing with girls toys. When a little girls plays with boys toys she is typically called a tom boy, this doesn't necessarily have a negative meaning. It just means that she likes to play rough or is interested more in the things boys are. However if we switch it now and we see a little boy that maybe likes playing with some girly things, or gets along better with girls because he likes what they are doing...what do we call him? Sissy? Queer? Gay? There isn't a term to address boys like these that is some thing neutral or that isn't seen in a little more of a negative light. There is nothing wrong nowadays with identifying as how you want to be identified! But that doesn't mean that we should stick whatever labels we think of on others. A little boy that plays with girly things is not necessarily gay. He may be different from the norm but being gay or homosexual is saying that, that little boy is sexually attracted to other little boys. There was an example given of a father who said his six year old son was gay. When he went in to speak with a therapist he was asked the question "what makes you think your son is gay?". The father responded "He always wants to play with my daughters barbies, he wont play ball or anything when I try to get him to". He was also asked what he did when his son played with the barbies and he said that he would rip their heads off, or throw them away and burn them...Obviously this isn't the way to go about helping. What he was instructed to do was play barbies with the son, but let him be Ken and the dad would be barbie. I just think that its unfair to label kids who are too young to even know what they want, something they may not be. Sometimes I think we may look a little too far into things. We say that everyone should be how they want to be, yet many times we are still forcing different opinions and biases on kids and young people everyday.