Heteronormativity ahoy

[nmg]

Scene: I was taking the garklet for a haircut, and we happened to pass a church that was ringing for matins. He asked why the bell was ringing, and misheard 'matins' as the name of one of his friends who moved to Cambridge last year (who I shall refer to as M). The important thing to note is that M is the child of a lesbian couple.

garklet:

Where M?

nmg:

M's in Cambridge.

garklet:

Why M in Cambridge?

nmg:

Because his mummies got jobs in Cambridge.

garklet:

What about him daddy?

nmg:

I don't know - M lives with his two mummies.

garklet:

No, M not got two mummies. M got a mummy and a daddy.

nmg:

No, M has two mummies. Remember, you saw them both at G's house earlier in the year. And you saw them when you went to M's birthday party. And you saw them almost every day when they picked M up from nursery.

garklet:

*upset* No, M got a mummy and a daddy. M not got two mummies. You pooey!

nmg:

I'm not pooey! Not all little boys and girls have a mummy and a daddy; some have two mummies, like M, and some have two daddies.

garklet:

*very upset* NO! YOU WRONG! YOU POOEY! M GOT A MUMMY AND A DADDY! pthpthpthpt!

nmg:

On that we'll have to disagree.

I mean, what else can you do in this situation?

Comments

*Developmental psychology hat on*

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I think he's at that age where they're figuring out sex and gender and gender roles and so on. A lot of children at around that age, for example, are not entirely clear on the idea of gender as being (usually) fixed; so boys will talk about when they grow up to be mummies, or children will ask daddy if he was a little girl or a little boy once. While they're figuring it out, they can often have very fixed (and often erroneous) ideas about it all; they'll decide that wearing a dress or a skirt makes you female while wearing trousers makes you male (even though they know mummy often wears trousers), or, as with garklet, they'll decide that some jobs are absolutely gendered. What they sometimes believe but don't know how to express is that if a man works as a nurse, that means he's female, and if a woman wors as a doctor, that makes her male; or that if two people have a child, one has to be the mummy and one has to be the daddy, regardless of gender.

It's confusing and frustrating, for them and you, but also kind of fascinating! One approach might be to ask him lots of questions which encourage him to line up his own experience with his beliefs; so ask him about who M's mummy is (and then encourage him to name both mummies as mummies), and who M's daddy is (guiding him gently to the idea that M doesn't have a daddy in the picture). He may still not accept the idea straight away, but eventually his understanding of what gender is and what gender roles are will become more detailed and thus less fixed.

He sounds like an awesome kid!

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's pretty much what we've been trying to do so far, but our efforts get hampered a bit because he gets very upset and frustrated when we (gently) contradict him. On the other hand, when he's calmed down and thought about it, he usually comes around.

In the past, we've had similar conversations about whether all four-legged furry animals are cats (age: 2ish) and whether all cars with high visibility stripes are police cars (and not, say, paramedics - age: 2.5ish). With my artificial intelligence scientist hat on, I'd say that he was overfitting, except that most machine learning algorithms don't throw tantrums when you provide counterexamples.

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Yes, my friend's very bright nearly-3-year-old absolutely knows that all vehicles with sirens are police cars, not ambulances or fire engines (although he loves fire engines!).

I'm now wondering what the equivalent of alt-control-delete is for a small child!

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'm now wondering what the equivalent of alt-control-delete is for a small child!

It's called a condom, but you can only use it the first time you boot the system. Once the system's pas the power-up phase there's no undo function.

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[kludge.livejournal.com]

My father told me that one of the most important things he learned when he was at university was that you can't change someone's mind during an argument, because an argument when it's happening is a kind of fight, and people are defensive and entrenched then - the only people who learn to relax during arguments and philosophers and lawyers, because it's part of their job.

The best you can hope for is to make your point and know when no more information is being exchanged. Then you get out, and let your point of view stew in the other person's head. They often come round, but only later, when the pressure is off.

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[clarehooper.livejournal.com]

I like this point.

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

This is certainly how I work, I can very rarely see the other side during an argument but I try at least to consider someone elses point after and potentially change my view point on that basis but during, quite difficult to do that

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[ias.livejournal.com]

As indeed Alex did a couple of days later (as we drove past the same church).

Re: *Developmental psychology hat on*

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

the only people who learn to relax during arguments and philosophers and lawyers, because it's part of their job.

That's hilarious. Also total uber geeks. It does explain a lot tho. I will post the photo I just took in Whitby shprtly :-) (you will understand this is not a non sequitur whenyou see it..)

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

Overfitting

All bugs are bees to Katie. This can lead to a moment of fear when I hear a cheery, "Hi, bee! C'mon, bee!" inside the house, but it usually means that the cats have captured an errant cricket.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Mind you, the idea that all insects are "bugs" seems odd to us.

[kludge.livejournal.com]

But shouldn't, since we do the same thing for nuts and fruit.

Mixing technical and commonplace language always leads to things like that. For instance, when you are little (or ignorant), dolphins are fish. Then you learn better, and dolphins aren't fish (because they're mammals). Then you learn better still, and dolphins are fish again (because "fish" isn't really a proper group, it's the niche "non-sessile underwater predator"). I have learnt, for this reason, to be unsurprised by such usages.

...although it doesn't excuse this conversation:
Jilly: A platypus is a marsupial.
Paul: No it isn't, it's a mammal.
Jilly: No, it's not a mammal, it's a marsupial.
Me: You're both idiots.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

P is the less wrong by a nose, since he's right that a platypus is a mammal, and right that it isn't a marsupial (it's a monotreme), and only wrong that it's a mammal and *therefore* not a marsupial.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Duh. They're monotremes, as ane fule kno.

That was fascinating and makes lot of sense

[evildrem.livejournal.com]

The only experience I have had with this was when one of a son of a cousin of mine was around 4 and was saying good bye to everyone at a family party. He had clearly got it in his mind that the correct behaviour was to shake hands with the men and give the women a kiss. When he got to me and my partner, J (who at the time had long hair in dreadlocks) he gave me a kiss, paused looked at J and then whispered to me, "Is he a girl or a boy?" Once reassured he was a boy he went and shook hands with him. Later I guessed that that coming from a very naval family this was probably the first time he had come across a man with long hair hence the confusion. Clearly long hair = female, short hair = man was something he had fixed on in regard to his gender recognition

Re: That was fascinating and makes lot of sense

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you still have any photos of J with dreads - I'm having some difficulty imagining it!

Re: That was fascinating and makes lot of sense

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Local fan Sabine F. WINOLJ addressed her daughter K. exclusively in German when she was growing up, and since her sister was frequently around the house and also keeping up the language, K. naturally drew the obvious statistical conclusion from her mummy, daddy, and auntie, that men spoke English and women spoke German.

Re: That was fascinating and makes lot of sense

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

When I was a small child, I drew the perfectly obvious conclusion that one spoke Afrikaans when playing and English when not, because my grandmother spoke Afrikaans to me and my parents spoke English. Caused no end of bother when I went to school and spoke English to the teachers and (tried to speak) Afrikaans to the other other children...