little boys with long hair and a rant

[sailorscout]

my ds has long hair, its a little past his shoulders. he is 4 and he loves it, he tells me its his body and his hair and he likes it wrong so i wouldn't dream of making him cut it.  however its a little annoying that people call him "her" all the time! even though he is dressed like a boy and has boyish features?  also my mother in law will comment on all of my facebook photos with "he needs a haircut" like you can't message me? you have to publicly state it, how tacky.

i don't know, i love his long hair i think he would look weird without it and i don't even feel like its a rare sight these days! he looks like a little surfer almost!  here is a picture of it from the side

200354_10150127289948598_574203597_6704856_5761041_n.jpg

 

does anyone else have a son with long hair, how do you deal with annoying comments? he's happy, and i'm proud and think he looks so handsome.  but its still annoying sometimes!

i hope i'm in the right section, i still get confused!

 

[eclipse]

My youngest has short hair now, but until last summer (at almost 5), he had gorgeous, butt long hair (I might have cried a leetle when he got it cut ). Anyhow, I never got annoyed when people assumed he was a girl - there's nothing wrong with being a girl, and girls are more likely to have long hair in our culture, so I think it was a reasonable assumption. It doesn't help that his name is Aidan, which is increasingly being used as a female name. My son never cared, and I never once heard him correct anyone. I didn't usually either, unless it was someone who we were likely to have contact with again - I just used the male pronoun when I spoke about him - people either picked up on it (and fell all over themselves apologizing for it, which I found weird and awkward to respond to) or they didn't - no big deal either way. For the "he needs a haircut crowd," I had a number of responses. We just ignored it from dh's 80 yo grandma. Most of the time I would say something like "No he doesn't" or "Why would he need a hair cut?" I had to flat out tell MIL that I wasn't interested in her opinion on his hair, but if she felt the need to comment negatively, she dang well better not do it when he's around.

Here was my guy. I think he was 3 in these pictures

[Contrariety]

I've always just corrected them and said "nope, just a boy with hair!"

I don't ever get too hung up on it. 

[sailorscout]

your boy is so handsome!!!

you're right there isn't anything wrong with being a girl, or boys playing with girl toys and vice versa might i add but thats another topic heh.  i usually just use the him and his as well in response casually, but our parents comments are getting old sheesh!

 

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by naturallymommy 

my ds has long hair, its a little past his shoulders. he is 4 and he loves it, he tells me its his body and his hair and he likes it wrong so i wouldn't dream of making him cut it.  however its a little annoying that people call him "her" all the time! even though he is dressed like a boy and has boyish features? 

 

And what if you had a girl who liked boyish type clothes and longish hair? Would you be offended if people called her a him? Really, you can't tell from features at this age. Clothing can be variable too. It's a little awkward to call a child 'it', so people have to make their best guess. They're gonna be wrong if you're running counter to cultural tradition. If it's an honest mistake, be kind. For your MIL, I have no help.

[sailorscout]

Originally Posted by LynnS6 

And what if you had a girl who liked boyish type clothes and longish hair? Would you be offended if people called her a him? Really, you can't tell from features at this age. Clothing can be variable too. It's a little awkward to call a child 'it', so people have to make their best guess. They're gonna be wrong if you're running counter to cultural tradition. If it's an honest mistake, be kind. For your MIL, I have no help.

its not that i'm offended more so just hate correcting, and yes i'd feel the same if it were a girl dressing like a boy.  i'm completely fine with the kids being themselves, personally.  i am kind, i was just ranting after a long day on here is all. sorry if anyone misunderstood what i meant.

 

[SoulJourney]

My 5yo DS not only has shoulder length blonde curls but he also has very delicate facial features, which means he is ALWAYS referred to as a girl. He has been dressed in all blue and black, riding a blue mountain bike, with a blue skull/crossbone skull cap on (hair tucked into it!) and had at least a dozen people at one event refer to him as a she!! Sometimes we correct people, sometimes we don't. He loves his hair and doesn't want anyone to touch it. Since my husband has hair half way down his back we totally support his choice and I think he looks freaking adorable with all his blonde curls! His bio dad tries to get him to cut it on occasion but we don't get bothered much about it otherwise. What we DO get bothered about is the fact that 5 out of 7 days a week he is wearing something, if not everything, bright pink. ;) I'll have to post pics tomorrow.

[SoulJourney]

My little man...His hair is a little longer than the bottom picture and when it's wet it comes down his back.

[sailorscout]

Originally Posted by SoulJourney 

My little man...His hair is a little longer than the bottom picture and when it's wet it comes down his back.

oh wow he is so beautiful!! i guess i need to realize its very common to get sexes mixed up when it comes to children.  i love his eyes! :)

 

 

[elevena true]

     i know this didn't start out as a gender issue necessarily, but i would like to add some thoughts.

     i have two daughters that have had long hair and dressed quite adrogynously. i am truly not a fan of pink, but also do not negate it to being a "girl" color. our culture does that. the girls have quite an array of things to wear, and though they mostly pick out all of their own things at this point, when they were younger (and still true in the case of my youngest), the majority of things they wore were gender-neutral.

     about 70 percent of the time, someone would guess that they were boys because they were not wearing pink. i learned a lot about gender in our culture from the way that random person on the bus would talk to my little ones in one situation, thinking they were boys, and on another day, thinking they were girls. sometimes there would even be the girl/boy mistake. it is really eye opening. i mean, really, if dd happened to be wearing a dress, stranger's comment would be :

'aren't you a pretty little girl, blah blah,"  whereas if she was wearing blue and green and had her ball with her, the comment would be, "i bet you're a great ball player, huh little tiger? you helping out your mommy today, going to carry some of those groceries?"

      i appreciated the diversity in the way they were treated. really, the gender types make me ill, and in my experience the quality of comments for a little boy were a littler smarter, not at all focused on looks or princess talk, and actually had some gravity to them. a little girl or little boy could be implored to help their mother with the groceries, or complemented on talents, or something in that arena. in my experience, those comments were given to my "little boys" 90 % of the time, while my "little girls"  got comments about their appearance 90 % of the time. i realize that gender types hurt everyone, boys and girls alike.

      i always felt thankful when someone mistook our gender.....and not because i wished i had little boys. i am pretty darn thankful for the creatures that came to me. :)

[eclipse]

Originally Posted by elevena true 

     i know this didn't start out as a gender issue necessarily, but i would like to add some thoughts.

     i have two daughters that have had long hair and dressed quite adrogynously. i am truly not a fan of pink, but also do not negate it to being a "girl" color. our culture does that. the girls have quite an array of things to wear, and though they mostly pick out all of their own things at this point, when they were younger (and still true in the case of my youngest), the majority of things they wore were gender-neutral.

     about 70 percent of the time, someone would guess that they were boys because they were not wearing pink. i learned a lot about gender in our culture from the way that random person on the bus would talk to my little ones in one situation, thinking they were boys, and on another day, thinking they were girls. sometimes there would even be the girl/boy mistake. it is really eye opening. i mean, really, if dd happened to be wearing a dress, stranger's comment would be :

'aren't you a pretty little girl, blah blah,"  whereas if she was wearing blue and green and had her ball with her, the comment would be, "i bet you're a great ball player, huh little tiger? you helping out your mommy today, going to carry some of those groceries?"

      i appreciated the diversity in the way they were treated. really, the gender types make me ill, and in my experience the quality of comments for a little boy were a littler smarter, not at all focused on looks or princess talk, and actually had some gravity to them. a little girl or little boy could be implored to help their mother with the groceries, or complemented on talents, or something in that arena. in my experience, those comments were given to my "little boys" 90 % of the time, while my "little girls"  got comments about their appearance 90 % of the time. i realize that gender types hurt everyone, boys and girls alike.

      i always felt thankful when someone mistook our gender.....and not because i wished i had little boys. i am pretty darn thankful for the creatures that came to me. :)

This is absolutely true, 100%, and I noticed it with my son, too. When people assumed he was a girl, at the park for example, they'd be more likely to run over if they saw him fall down or offer him help when he was struggling to climb something or try to "rescue" him from the equipment. If they thought he was a boy and saw him fall, they might say something like "That looks like it hurt! Well, get up and try it again!" If he was struggling to climb something, they'd be more likely to offer words of encouragement. If they thought he was a girl, they'd comment on how "pretty" he was. If thy thought he was a boy, they'd comment about something he was actually doing. It was very. . .frustrating. Having had both a boy and a girl before him who basically conformed to our society's gender norms, I had noticed the difference between how people treat them. But seeing it in the same child was sort of mind blowing, really. Often you would see it in the same people within minutes. They'd start out thinking he was a girl treating him one way, then realize he was a boy and completely change it up.
Edited by eclipse - 4/23/11 at 12:48pm

[Super~Single~Mama]

The gender stuff is pretty interesting.  My DS is beautiful, and as a younger baby he looked very much like a girl b/c he was just SO pretty.  We were in Target once and a little boy said to his mom, "That baby boy is really cute!" and his mom replied, "No sweetie, that is a very cute baby girl!".  He wasn't wearing pink, but it was summer so he was just in a plain onsie and nothing else.  It was really funny.

Now, if he had long hair he would still look like a girl cause he's still just so pretty, but his dad likes keeping his hair short and gets it cut occasionally, so he looks more like a boy.  He's also very active so he generally has bruises either on his head, knees, shins, or all of the above all at once.  It's pretty amusing.

[lovelylisa]

I refuse to cut my son's hair :) I want it to grow long and glorious (much like all of your son's hair, they are so adorable!). In fact, I imagine one day he's going to be doing head and shoulders commercials like the Steelers player, Troy Polamalu. I have such hopes and dreams for his hair, as it is the hair I have always dreamed of having, lol

He does get mistaken for a girl all the time, especially because he has my husbands super long eyelashes and my "girlish" features.  and like a PP said, it's sometimes by the same person. It's quite an interesting thing to watch.  I usually just laugh off the comments because he doesn't wear a sign that says "I'm a BOY."  And it makes me giggle when people says how "pretty she is" because that's the first thing I said when I saw him. (well I said, "aren't you the prettiest little thing ever" I knew he was a boy, haha)

But, it does drive me up a wall when my mother proceeds to tell me to cut his hair.  So, OP I know what you mean! I don't have any advice for you but to tell them to knock it off.

[lookatreestar]

LOL, that hair commercial!! 

my ds has long hair and gets called a girl all the time (he is still baby faced, and beautiful imo- just under 2 years). its even worse when i put it back in a pony tail. luckily i don't have to correct people. dd does that for me "ummmmmm he's my brother!!" or "no he's a boy!!"

it really doesn't bother me, even the hair cut comments i just ignore. people like to have something to say. period. even if its something stupid or doesn't matter one lick to them.

[ians_mommy]

My son has hair way past his shoulders and my daughter is bald (and often dressed in brother's hand-me-downs). People frequently get them mixed up. I usuallu just say, "No, the big one is my son and this peanut here is my little girl".

[NannyMcPhee]

My boy has had long hair on and off his whole life. We cut it the first time when he said he wanted it cut. Right now he has a overgrown mohawk and people call him a girl all the time. He usually corrects people himself himself these days. We also have conversations about how its not bad to look like a ''girl'' - with him and family members or friends that say something.

[SoulJourney]

Naturallymommy, thanks! I should find a better pic of his eyes...I will admit they are amazing! ;o) The rest of you have some pretty amazing little kiddos too! Beautiful!

[Mama Mko]

My almost-6 year old has really long hair and my almost-4 year old's curly hair is about shoulder length. I do get lots of people calling them girls. My oldest corrects them and says "I'm actually a boy; I just have long hair." and we leave it at that. :D

[Alyantavid]

Both of my boys currently have short hair, but in the past they've had long hair.  My youngest requested a haircut when he was 3 1/2 and now 18 months later, people still come up to me and say "I thought you had a boy and a girl, not two boys?"  Even my oldest was constantly called a girl when he was a baby (before he had any hair) because he was "too pretty to be a boy", no matter what he was wearing.

I taught my boys that long hair doesn't mean anything other than long hair.  They weren't shy at all about correcting people who called them girls.  The constant "when are you ever going to cut that hair?" annoyed me though. 

[zoebugsmom]

My boys have short hair now- the 5 yo prefers it that way & the 2 yo would fight washing/brushing- but had long hair for ages.  I just got good at ignoring comments and didn't bother correcting strangers who told me how cute my girls were.  Once DS1 was old enough he'd correct them himself- "I'm NOT a girl!- and that was fine.  I did come close to punching my sister the day she told my daughter she'd give her $20 if she cut her brother's hair but she a UAV any way.  Just practice saying "it's his hair, we'll cut it when he wants to cut it."