Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Gender Differentiation

I knew that this conversation would come. And knowing Iman’s accelerated intelligence, I should have known it would come any time now.

While fine tuning her speaking skills, I have often pointed out differences between gender. For example…

Iman would say: Salem is a good girl (Salem is a boy at daycare)
And I would point out that he’s not a girl, he’s a boy.

Iman’s little mind goes tick tick tick…

Then she would say: My dolly is sad. He’s not happy
And I would say, dolly is a girl, so you say SHE’s not happy.

Iman’s little mind goes tick tick tick…

So I should have known that it was coming, when she asked me…

Why are boys boys and why are girls girls?

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

I wasn’t really ready to answer that in a language of a 2 year old. So I needed time to think about how to explain gender differences. While I was trying to simplify it in my mind, Iman conveniently offered an answer to her own question…

Because girls wear earrings and boys don’t, right?

6 Comments:

At 1:31 PM, Blogger bakpakchik said...

LOL. i love that girl ... she is so CUTE mashaAllah :)

 
At 2:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

haha, saved this time.
:)

 
At 10:10 PM, Blogger Blogger said...

Yes, it's a cute story but I also think it's indicative of an important learning experience for Iman. I once read somewhere that one of the best ways to answer little kids' questions is to allow them to provide their own answers, which is exactly what Iman did in this case. I guess at the moment, she finds earrings a sufficient distinction between boys and girls.

 
At 12:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thats my girl!

PS D, What happened to your website?

O

 
At 10:45 AM, Blogger Blogger said...

Ummm... what do you mean, O? It's still there... Hina accessed it just the other day.

 
At 8:36 PM, Blogger Lorraine said...

What D said, sometime parents end up getting into trouble with their big, long explanations when that usually isn't what the kid is looking for. (I think of the joke about the boy who asked, "Where did I come from?" The dad launches into a complete explanation of the facts of life, complete with diagrams and afterwards he asks the little boy if he has any more questions. "Yes," says the boy, "where did I come from? Tommy said he came from Cleveland..."

 

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