17 January 2008

10 reasons my 3-year-old son may NOT be homosexual

Keeping in mind that of course all of these items are based on blind stereotyping, for your reading pleasure, here are 10 reasons my 3-year-old son is probably not homosexual [to counter my post of 10 reasons he might be]:

1. He can also be kind of a self-absorbed jerk sometimes. Makes me proud.

2. He has been making engine-revving sounds and other somewhat aggressive noises since long before he could talk.

3. He's not THAT good a dancer. He dances about exactly as well as I do now, and in rethinking this one, I don't see any reason why he'll get much better without further instruction. (Again, the Dance Class Fiasco will be a later post.)

4. This summer, he got to operate a heavy-duty truck-mounted crane with the assistance of the required union co-operator (shouldn't all kids aspire to become co-operators?), and it has been the highlight of his life up to this point.

5. His love of purses is understandable, given that they are just so handy. Cheers to him for having the guts to pull it off. That being said, I've tried to teach him to call each one a "European men's leather carryall" no matter what material that day's purse is made of.

6. As a baby, he pooped on me in the bath on two separate occasions, as well as once in the shower. This seems a distinctly hilarious prank to a typical straight male. Not knowing many gay men, though (at least not well enough to ask about this), I can't verify whether they would also find this funny. Also, my daughter has now done this to me at least seven times.

7. His personal hygiene can be appropriately suspect for his age, and with his mother around for an alternative role model, his neatness is unlikely to reach frightening levels.

8. He seems to treat the care of the dolls he plays with to be somewhat of a chore, while rocking them to sleep, changing their diapers, etc., and when he's done, those babies suffer some horrible injuries, neglect, and death. Ahhhh, boyhood.

9. In addition to some girly movie and book choices, he overwhelmingly prefers the movie "Cars", books about vehicles or machinery, and anything involving Spider-Man. And in case you think that's just because I push them, I can tell you that I was bored by "Cars" the first time I saw it, and on movie days, I offer to watch any of the other Pixar movies before that one. Also, most of the books about machines are a bit light on plot, so unless we're in a hurry at bedtime or Daddy wants to read a story without really paying attention, I'd sooner suggest some kind of storybook. Spider-Man's all my fault, however.

10. He seems to consider girls another species of human. Seems counterintuitive in this list, but we all know how kids are. Then again, since we all know how women are, the kid may not really be wrong. An example to illustrate his mindset: once when we were at a store, he saw an aisle of dolls and such in pink boxes (a.k.a The Wall of Pink) and asked "Why them have girl toys?" While I was trying to think of some wise, PC response about equality of opportunity (hey, I let the kid play with dolls, don't I?), he saw the rest of the toys and said, very satisfied, "Oh, them have kid toys, too." I've tried to explain that "kids" covers both girls and boys, but he has made this mistake several times before and since, so I don't think he has really been listening.

Anyway, after much consideration, I now feel pretty safe that my "birds and bees" talk will be as straightforward as most other people's, though given that he seems to have inherited my inquisitiveness and persistence, it may be quite drawn out and excruciating yet.

6 comments:

SherE1 said...

My son loves to play with his sisters dolls but hy husband pointed out that he actually likes to bang the doll on the ground/furniture and drag them around by their hair. Um... maybe I should be redirecting that agression.

LiteralDan said...

Yeah I think he's acting out his caveman instincts with the hair dragging... lol

He could always do what my son does-- run blindly around the house grunting like a charging bull, then slip and whack his head on something. Seems to be the aggression channel of choice, despite all the yellings-at to the contrary.

Amy@UWM said...

What is it with men and their kids' sexuality? My husband too was unusually preoccupied with trying to figure out whether our daughters were lesbians when they were very young. He was convinced for a long time that our youngest was gay insisting that she had a "manish" appearance. I think his jury is still out despite the fact that she's now obsessed with princesses, the color pink, ballerinas and dolls AND she has a "boyfriend" at school (she's all of 5).

LiteralDan said...

It's kind of a fun sport, I guess, like trying to figure out the end to a mystery novel while you're reading it.

For those who really care too much about it, though, I'm sure it's no fun at all. Too bad for them!

small town city girl said...

Boys are funny. My 4yo loves pink! He even wanted pink crocs last summer but we opted for lavendar so daddy wouldn't have a stroke. He would proudly tell everyone he could that "I really wanted pink crocs but daddy wouldn't go for it". He also frequently uses the word fabulous and darling perfectly in context. But aside from all of these things, he is completely fascinated with boobs. I don't think we have anything to worry about and neither do you. :)

LiteralDan said...

I think it's funny that lavender was your answer to the girlishness of pink. It's also noteworthy that my son would always pull down women's shirts whenever he got the chance, until he was about 3 and the ladies stopped laughing it off and cooing at him when he did it.

He does all these things just to keep you guys guessing, and I bet it's working. No matter what happens, though, there's no point worrying, and no matter how he turns out, you've got something to embarrass him with, right? And that's the most important thing.