"A bit young?"

[ailbhe]

I was in Lush buying secret gifts for my seven-year-old, and chatting to the staff who were helping me choose and pay for the things I got. I said she'd circled every single thing in the catalogue, which they found amusing, and then I said "It's difficult being my daughter, I don't do things like this [indicate mounds of Smelly Pampering Things], but she's experimenting with expressions of femininity."

The woman at the till said "A bit young, isn't she?"

I was amazed. I said something about children playing princesses and Barbie and things, but I was very taken aback. I move in such a bubble that I forget people are unaware of how gender-expression is played out and trained in, I think.

Comments

[ailbhe]

Heh, it's nothing to do with her real-life peer-group, certainly! Well, it might be, in that she might be reacting against them. But what she *says* is that she wants to practise girly things and tomboy things now so that she can decide what kind of teenager she wants to be.

[songster.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty unusual level of self-awareness, yes. Good for her!

[ailbhe]

It was weirder at three. Number two daughter isn't quite as alarming.