I recently got gender-schooled by a 5 year old girl.

My offense? My two year old son was wearing pale blue Dora the Explorer gloves.

When I picked them up, I thought, these are probably intended for girls, but hell, they’re pale blue and he loves Dora, maybe he’ll actually keep these on.

So this little girl very determinedly told me that Dora gloves were for girls (she didn’t even notice that they were several sizes too big!) and since The Little Guy was a boy he shouldn’t be wearing them. I quickly replied that Dora gloves were for anyone who loves Dora, and since TLG loves him some Dora, he could wear them. She stood back for a second and gave me a funny look but then she nodded and went off. I couldn’t tell if she had decided I was right or if she had given me up as hopeless (‘Yep, The Boy’s mom has gone right off the deep end, I should probably get going’).

To be clear, I’m not one of those people who would send their kid out in the world in the opposite gender’s clothes just to make a point. I encourage them to wear comfortable clothes that they like and that are appropriate for the activity at hand. If those clothes happen to be designed for the opposite gender, that’s fine (and I do give them the choice of all colours and designs when clothes shopping) but I don’t press them to buy purple flowered dresses just to challenge the status quo.

Before The Boy started Kindergarten, I had a twinge of concern about whether his teacher would be one of those ‘boys will be boys’ people and I would have to spend the whole year unraveling the gender nonsense she or he would put in The Boy’s head. It hadn’t occurred to me to worry about his classmates and their gender nonsense. I didn’t realize the gender police recruited people so young.

Because our whole family prefers to be home rather than anywhere else, and the parents that we socialize with either hold similar views on gender or know better than to take it up with me, I hadn’t yet encountered this gender rigidity in small kids. Sure I’d heard the occasional ‘that’s for boys’ or ‘that’s a girl thing’ but nothing matching the self-assured pronouncement of this little girl. She was telling it like it is, not offering an opinion.

It was funny, yet at the same time it really bothered me. I know that five year olds are not the most open-minded creatures on earth, shades of grey are not something they enjoy. But the fact that this little girl was so definite made me think that her parents must be teaching her and her brother some fairly strict gender rules and she is taking those rules to school. And I know she is not the only one.

I’m not so naive that I thought this would never happen, I just hadn’t expected it from the other kids in kindergarten. And I have noticed a sharp increase in bold statements about boys and girls coming from The Boy lately, but I have resolved to challenge every one. The poor kid is saddled with a mother who asks him endless questions and makes him think about what he just said. I hope my questions make him think twice about joining the gender police – even if it’s just because it is not worth the hassle from me.