So yesterday Bella and I stopped by a bookstore. There’s a nice, if small, area for children, complete with a train table and lots of toys for sale. When we arrived, a little boy of about Bella’s age (late 2, early 3) was also playing. Bella went straight for the train table, then a bit later got bored and headed over to grab a ride-on horsey. She pranced around on her horsey, and of course this got the little boy interested, so he too ran over to grab a horsey.
Unfortunately for him, he grabbed a PINK horsey. 
I was honestly bewildered to see his young, hip-looking, pierced mom, sneer at him “You don’t want a horse like THAT,” before she grabbed it away from him. Before I knew it she had whisked the little boy away. One aisle over, where she could angrily put him in time-out for being “bad.” The little boy was, of course, crying, his mom AND dad were now yelling at him, and Bella looked at me all concerned saying “Mommy, that boy is sad!”.
So. What kind of horse do you think the boy will choose next time? And then his mom will tell all her friends, “He is SUCH a boy, he just has NO INTEREST in pink things at all.” Some mystery there, huh? Genetics? Or Mommy goes HULK SMASH if you touch something pink?
I can’t help but wonder what the mom was so concerned about anyways. Did she think the little pink horsey would …. give her son Teh Gay?!?!?!
I suppose I looked pissed-off to hipster mom. In fact, I was fairly pissed off. She communicated in that moment utter disgust for a boy choosing something pink, not only to her son, but to me, and to my child.
So much for the idea that sexism is dead, huh?
Edited: September 17th, 2009
