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motherism]
When I was growing up (Ireland, 1970s and 1980s), everyone identified adults to children as "man" or "lady". (I still remember the slightly heady feeling the first time a mother said "mind the lady" to her child when referring to me; I would have been in my mid-teens.) I feel a bit squirmy about the imbalance of that, so I'm trying not to do it. Oisín mainly hears "man", "woman" and (most often) "person" from me. Sometimes, when I'm speaking in the hearing of someone who looks as if she'd be uncomfortable with "woman", I can get flustered, forget all about "person" and find myself mumbling "lady". It's not that I'm trying to prevent him from learning the word - there's an absurd goal, if ever there was one! - but it's not part of my normal speech, and I suppose I don't want to normalise it in contexts where I wouldn't use "gentleman".
Oisín frequently raises eyebrows when he says "woman". This afternoon at the park, for instance, I was sitting on the bench beside the mother of a small child whose father was helping her on the slide, and Oisín came over, pointed at me and said "Mama", then pointed at this woman and said "woman?" - plainly asking to be introduced. I caught her eye, and she looked really surprised. Not shocked or cross, but as if she'd never heard a toddler say "woman" before. I think it's possible that she hadn't.
A more striking example was at the till in a DIY chain a few weeks ago, when I asked Oisín to give the money to "the person behind the counter", and he scrutinised her and proudly announced "woman!" (he's only recently begun consistently reading gender clues correctly). I said something like "yes, to the woman", and she laughed, took the money from him (kindly), and then laughed and muttered "I am not!" as she put it in the till. From context, I'm pretty sure she meant to dissociate herself from the label "woman", most likely in favour of "girl", with a side order of "what weirdo freak doesn't teach her son to say LADY?". Meanwhile, on the other side of the counter, I'm thinking, "what weirdo freak explicitly refutes a neutral gender label as applied by a one-year old?".
I don't have a particularly pointy point to make here. But I'm curious: what gender labels do you use with young children?
radegund and motherism]When I was growing up (Ireland, 1970s and 1980s), everyone identified adults to children as "man" or "lady". (I still remember the slightly heady feeling the first time a mother said "mind the lady" to her child when referring to me; I would have been in my mid-teens.) I feel a bit squirmy about the imbalance of that, so I'm trying not to do it. Oisín mainly hears "man", "woman" and (most often) "person" from me. Sometimes, when I'm speaking in the hearing of someone who looks as if she'd be uncomfortable with "woman", I can get flustered, forget all about "person" and find myself mumbling "lady". It's not that I'm trying to prevent him from learning the word - there's an absurd goal, if ever there was one! - but it's not part of my normal speech, and I suppose I don't want to normalise it in contexts where I wouldn't use "gentleman".
Oisín frequently raises eyebrows when he says "woman". This afternoon at the park, for instance, I was sitting on the bench beside the mother of a small child whose father was helping her on the slide, and Oisín came over, pointed at me and said "Mama", then pointed at this woman and said "woman?" - plainly asking to be introduced. I caught her eye, and she looked really surprised. Not shocked or cross, but as if she'd never heard a toddler say "woman" before. I think it's possible that she hadn't.
A more striking example was at the till in a DIY chain a few weeks ago, when I asked Oisín to give the money to "the person behind the counter", and he scrutinised her and proudly announced "woman!" (he's only recently begun consistently reading gender clues correctly). I said something like "yes, to the woman", and she laughed, took the money from him (kindly), and then laughed and muttered "I am not!" as she put it in the till. From context, I'm pretty sure she meant to dissociate herself from the label "woman", most likely in favour of "girl", with a side order of "what weirdo freak doesn't teach her son to say LADY?". Meanwhile, on the other side of the counter, I'm thinking, "what weirdo freak explicitly refutes a neutral gender label as applied by a one-year old?".
I don't have a particularly pointy point to make here. But I'm curious: what gender labels do you use with young children?
