Paddy in a Dress

A friend of mine recently posted a link on her Facebook page regarding a little boy wearing pink polish on his toenails.  Apparently, J. Crew was attacked by social conservatives for blurring the line between the sexes.  One person even went so far as to suggest that the child will need intense psychotherapy.  J. Crew's pink toenailed boy

As a Catholic Republican, I'm pretty damn conservative, but even I think this is ludicrous.  Little boys and little girls barely recognize the difference between little boys and little girls.  They only know boys are boys and girls are girls because we tell them.  Paddy's three and a half and still refers to females as "he" and "him" sometimes.  And at 21 months, Mick has no idea that there is a distinction.  Why?  Because it's really just not important to small children.  As long as you're feeding them and keeping them in clean diapers and undies, kids are good with whatever you are...well, mine prefer to run around naked, but you still have to provide food. 

My friend's daughter is a girly girl, to put all other girly girls to shame, and her son is all boy.  He even had his birthday party at the dump (which was actually pretty cool, and all the kids, boys and girls, loved it).  She painted her daughter's nails last summer and her son, who could name every construction vehicle before he was 4, wanted his done.  His behavior was good, so he earned some snazzy yellow toenails.  Paddy had a play date with my college roommate's little girls.  They had a wardrobe full of dress up princess dresses and crowns and veils and wands.  Before they played cars they picked out their favorite dress and accessories and got all dolled up.  It looked like fun, so Paddy asked to put on a dress too.  Kids don't care about "dolls are for girls" and "trucks are for boys".  Whether it's bouncing balls off their brother's giant head, or putting clips in their hair, boys, like girls, just want to do what everyone else is doing if it looks like a good time.  Really, there are worse things in the world than a little boy wearing nail polish.  And if you really want to blame someone for blurring the lines between the sexes, talk to the bra burning hippies!