Boys Will Be Boys? Not In These Families: Article Analysis

Emily Herman

Soc 101

Garth

April 24, 2015

Accepting New Views

The world is an ever changing place. With the advancement of technology, politics, schooling, etc. the world has come very far. Even though it is hard for some people to manage, peoples viewpoints are starting to shift as well in order to accept some new aspects in life. As many can know or assume, is that kids are still very impressionable. Kids at a young age like to express themselves for who they are. Now, parents are coming around to accepting their kids for this expression and changing their viewpoints.

In the article, Boys Will Be Boys? Not in These Families, the article goes on to tell the stories of a few parents and their kids. In these families, the kids have a strong

Rather, people tend to exclude these people and ridicule them for this. That is why in the past, when children decided to practice alternative gender behaviors most parents would write it off as being a phase or suppress this behavior (Hoffman). However, in today’s society more parents are trying to support their children and their differences in order to help them in the future. In, Boys Will Be Boys? Not in These Families, the article talks about how parents are trying to find ways in which their children will be more accepted in society like finding communities that accept their children’s differences or groups that have the same situation occurring in their families. In this hypersensitive world today, kids who have different gender behaviors are exposed to being bullied and scorned for how they act and dress at a young age that can ultimately alter their lives. This is the reason parents are trying to find ways to support their kids in order to protect them from the harsh people in societies who refuse to accept these changing norms.

They may even cause some unintended consequences. In the article, a boy named Harry likes to dress up in princess clothes and play with dolls. His parents are supportive of this behavior and bought him a doll as well as let him go to a birthday party in his costume (Hoffman). However, the parents although supporting their child, put their child in a position to be judged by other parents who do not accept this. Another example is Elle a little girl who wanted a Mohawk. Her mother was not quite on board and in order to support her child and still fit in to the social norms, she decided to say her daughter did it for a cause. However, kids just like adults can discriminate people based on their differences as the kids did because of Elle’s haircut and her mom only hopes that it will grow out or that she can move somewhere that it is maybe more accepted.