Meredith and I took Nathan to the aquarium today. Nathan loves it, and it’s probably our last visit there before we love, so our last chance to use our membership.
Towards the end of our day, we went into the acrylic tunnel they have set up with waves going overhead. It’s neat to see (click on this link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium site, then cycle through the pictures and you’ll see it), but it’s very loud and startling when a ton of water suddenly erupts into view and washes overhead, and the last time we were there, Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin and then tried to crawl into mine when it hit. We thought we’d try it again this time because he loves playing with and being around water so much, and he did much better, but clearly this is not an experience for everyone – startled or scared kids are not an incredibly rare sight.
And, sure enough, today there was what looked to be a somewhat distraught four-year-old boy being hustled out of the tunnel by his mother, who was angrily telling him, “OK, come on, little girly girl. Just be a girl about it.”
(a) One hopes this woman has no daughters.
(b) It somehow seems worse that he was getting this from a woman.
Pretty sad.
Why is it that women are sometimes the one pushing the bad stereotypes of women?
Posted by Mike at January 28, 2006 09:30 PM