Women and Men

I suppose it would be an egregious understatement to point out that women and men are different. Quite different. So different, it seems, that our nigh-two-year old, Raelyn, can easily distinguish between the two genders. Or is it sexes? One can’t be two careful/sure these days.

The unique aspect of her recognition process, recently pointed out to me by Jenn, is that men are all “daddies” and women are all “mommies”. She’ll say, “that’s not my daddy!” or “where is that mommy going?” All quite curious because she addresses men as “man.” “Hi, man!”; “Goodbye, man!” – that sort of thing. It happened to us while we were out shopping last night. At close range, people can be either men or women. In the car, people outside are mommies and daddies.

It doesn’t make much sense to me, but then I’m not a toddler. What does matter is that she clearly has a template/archetype in her brain for male and female. She’s quite good with the names of her classmates, knows the boys from the girls and can even identify the gender/sex of our animals. Heck, I’m sometimes even referred to as a “good boy”, usually after I’ve called her a “good girl”.

Raelyn is growing up. Too fast for my tastes.

Women and Men. How fast will she get there?

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