Does anyone else get irrationally irritated when...

[EcoMama]

I remember an old man calling my son a she, i corrected him and he said oh, its the red coat that threw me.... The man was wearing a red coat too!

 

[minties]

Sophie was called a boy 99% of the time as a baby and young toddler. It used to drive me nuts! It hasn't happened since her hair has finally decided to grow.

 

[rwhite]

We haven't had assumptions as such, but did have an elderly lady ask if Clementine was a boy or a girl the other day when she was wearing a pale pink cardi with butterfly buttons on it Not to say that a boy couldn't be dressed in that, but you wouldn't often see that

 

[SoupDragon]

I had it again yesterday, DD was wearing a coral dress and yellow leggings with crochet on the ankles Maybe it was the blue dummy that did it, lol.

 

[EcoMama]

Haha, i remember a lady asking me, what is it?..... When she saw my newborn dd!

It doesnt bother me

 

[Quartz]

I think we assume because its obvious to us other people might see it. My Dad for example cant recognise colour in the same way and has difficulty distinguishing colour so would have no idea with the coral dress and yellow leggings would have no idea. Eyesight again is one of the first things that goes (and I think the sharpness and brightness of colour) with age so again obvious clothing to us might not be to them.

Also sometimes people just dont take in what they see. OH called a girl in pink a boy and I said but she is wearing pink and he went oh yeah - he just had not processed that information.

DD at 4 wore jeans and a yellow top and a man thought she was a boy she was so cross - he just took in the jeans bit and made an assumption from that (not helped by the fact that being called Samantha or Samy for short is a unisex name).

DS is always dressed in t shirts and shorts at the moment and but because he has longish curly hair is often called a girl!

 

[Rhio92]

I don't mind it... When my son was a baby, he was dressed all in blue, and the health visitor came in and said 'Oh what a beautiful girl' I just laughed it off x

 

[Buttercup84]

I don't really mind, both of my DD's have been called 'he' on numerous occasions mostly by older people! I don't generally dress them in boys clothes but I do dress them in a variety of colours rather than just pink/purple.

 

[SoupDragon]

Absolutely, Quartz, all really good points! I hadn't actually considered differences in vision, probably because this has happened with a range of ages from younger than me to very elderly. I know you don't have to be elderly to have vision problems, of course - I had surgery on one of my eyes as a small child to correct defective vision.

I'm absolutely not getting riled up about it! it's not worth getting annoyed, it just causes me a bit of mild irritation to correct people, as it's embarrassing for them and for me! I could just not bother correcting them, but then they go on to ask 'his' name, and she has a very feminine name so it's then obvious, lol.

it just seems to be happening a LOT lately...twice more yesterday! I used to get it fairly regularly but this last week it's been at least 10 times! Still, I'm not going to wish away her babyhood by wishing she was older and more obviously a girl

That said, we did have some 'oh look at that beautiful baby girl!' comments yesterday, which made me burst with pride

 

[Amalee]

I've never been bothered by it, people mistake my son for a baby girl pretty often.

Babies look like babies, not girls or boys! As long as the speaker doesn't continue to make the same mistake over and over, I'd just chalk it up to people not being able to think of a gender non-specific word to use.