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But even so I've internalized this idea of "boys are just so wild you can't control them crazy energy nothing like girls" idea. Which brings me to my youngest niece, who is four. This child is gender conforming. She wears pink dresses with leggings every day.
Today I was left home with her for a few hours, and we played with her two pink unicorn stuffies. Her brand new birthday present "babies" that she loves. The game we played? Why, it was "Let's FIGHT! Let's punch the babies! Punch! Punch! Punch!" We punched them good.
A normal kid being active, doing kid stuff, exploring the world. Sometimes we pet the unicorns softly, sometimes we talk about how younger sister unicorn is jealous of older sister unicorn & jealous is a hard emotion to feel, sometimes we punch the babies as hard as we can.
In the framework I was taught this is "boy" behavior that girls NEVER do. You have a boy, he's always punching unicorns. You have a girl, she's giving unicorns a bottle and tucking them into bed.
But it's all a crock. Adults see what they expect to see, and meanwhile kids' behavior is profoundly altered by how shocked or not shocked the adults in their lives are.
I still wish I'd had more trucks and cars to play with. I also LOVED my fricken dolls. I was also AFRAID to express anything but tenderness towards dollies for fear of mom not loving me if I showed aggression. A fear I would never have had if she'd known me to be a boy.
I'm using anecdotes, but there's good research that backs this up, btw. For instance, very young children have the same physical abilities regardless of sex, but moms rush in to help daughters in situations where they can correctly assess that sons are fine on their own.
Niece (I said 4 but she'll be 5 as of tomorrow) just came in and very solemnly asked me to tuck the unicorns into bed and make sure they weren't cold- she's a relatively active, loud, rough and tumble kiddo but very sweet and loving as well.
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