I have always believed in the concept of gender neutrality. I never bought into any of the “baby dolls for girls and monster truck toys for boys,” let alone the whole pink vs. blue debate. That part especially has always seemed rather silly to me, since up until about the 1930s it was blue for girls and pink for boys (because red and all of its derivatives were considered to be too “manly” for girls and women).
Of course, even if I had had these notions, they would have been dashed soon after my first child, Clementine, was born. From an early age she loathed pink (and all of the girly-girl dresses that came with it), and as for the baby dolls—well, remember the mutilated baby doll from Toy Story? That one looked downright cuddly when compared to what Clementine did to her baby doll. Around the neighborhood it was known as “Frankenbaby,” and it probably did more to destroy Clementine’s future career in baby-sitting than a Marilyn Manson tattoo and needle marks would have.
When my son Clyde was born I thought it was going to be the same deal, and for a while it seemed like I was right. After all, he didn’t have a problem with wearing pink, or dressing like Dora the Explorer for Halloween. And as for dolls—well, since everything he touched seemed to take on a little personality of its own, it was kind of like everything was a doll to him. What I failed to take into account, though, was that all of his “dolls” were little psychopaths.
While you may have always suspected that a “behind the scenes” look into the world of My Little Pony would be more America’s Next Top Model than Brady Bunch, it was confirmed the moment Clyde first got his hands on a set of them. “No, no, don’t hurt me!” screamed Sparkleface Moonbeam, as Gingerpants Lollipop pummelled her over and over again with her overnight bag. “Hurt you? I’m going to kill you!” replied G.L., as Clyde had the one tackle the other in a move more suited to a cage match than the soft fluffy place the ponies normally inhabit.
Of course, at first glance, it just seems as if his play is rather exuberant. Which is what, I am sure, the student teacher thought the other day when she handed out a basket full of scarves to a roomful of children that contained not only Clyde, but several other boys remarkably like Clyde. True, most of the kids—the girls—were fine with the scarves: when the teacher told them to pretend that they were autumn leaves drifting down from the trees, fully 90% of the kids in the room did just that. The other 10%, however, didn’t.
“Help me! Help me! I’m going down!” Clyde’s leaf/scarf cried (which, for all we know, could be the genuine attitude of an autumn leaf), before it abruptly transformed into a fighter leaf, and strafed the other leaves all around it. “Tak-a-tak-a-tak-a!” it shot out, before it collided cataclysmically with the nearest leaf, which, showing a surprising amount of spunk for a piece of decaying plant matter, turned around and fought back. And then it was on. What had started as a gentle exercise to the soothing strains of “Fűr Elise” was now an episode of When Scarves Attack.
“Oh, no, not like that,” the teacher cooed softly as she gently tried to dissuade Clyde and another boy from knotting their scarves into ropes and strangling each other with them.
It was almost enough to make me question my belief in gender neutrality—or, at least it would have been, except for the child whose ninja warrior scarf was finally able to put Clyde’s Shaolin death scarf out of commission.
Her name was Maggie.