You know, boys wear flip flops, too.

I went to Babies R Us yesterday, totally excited because they had a 2 for $5 sale on flip flops.  I wanted to get Ty a couple of pairs to wear this summer.  Yes, he already has his generic Crocs (aka his "guitar shoes") and his slip on shoes to wear.  But it's hot here!  And, to be honest, the afore mentioned Crocs and slip ons are black and gray, and don't match any of his brown clothing.

So Lily and I walked around BRU, looking for Easter basket gear and flip flops.  And looking.  And looking.  I checked the tiny shoe department at least 3 times.  There were no flip flops.

No, I'm sorry, there were.  For girls.  Rows and rows of cute little pink, gold, silver, blue, purple, glittery sandals and flip flops.  The boys section?  A shelf of tennis shoes and some tiny baby flip flops.  That's it.

I remember shopping for Ty when he was a baby.  I was so disappointed in the selections.  TONS of cute little girl clothes; one rack of cute boy clothes.  And let's not start with the so-called "gender neutral" clothing.  That stuff is crap.

It got me thinking about the whole "girl = pink, boy = blue."  I remember learning about this in women's studies 101 (practically a requirement- as well it should be- at my all women's college).  The color pink actually used to be ascribed for boys, and blue for girls, back in ye olde days of the early 20th century.  It reversed sometime in the 1950s. 

There was a controversy a couple of weeks ago about a J Crew advertisement.  There was a picture of a woman painting her son's toenails hot pink.  It was a beautiful, bonding, playful moment between a mother and her child.  However, people immediately became up in arms, claiming the boy was now going to be gay, confused about his gender, etc, because he had his nails painted.

...So what? 

First off, if he's gay, he was born that way, so it ain't gonna change, whether he has his toenails painted or not.  Secondly, if he does feel more like a girl trapped in a boy's body, how in the hell does that affect you ("you" being the people who are so appalled by this)? 

You don't want a kid's toenails painted?  Don't paint them.  But don't bring the hammer down on those who do.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post, hosted by allthingsfadra.com. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere.