Don’t tell Sandy Roffey’s son how to “be a man”.
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Yesterday a very drunk relative (at a wedding) proceeded to tell me that my son (who is 12 and loves many pink and sparkly things) should spend a week with him so he could “learn how to be a man. None of that pink crap.” My husband wasn’t with me, and though I explained all the reasons why he was wrong, nothing deterred this uncle from continuing. Today my husband updated his status, and while I generally dislike posting business on FB, I felt his response was simply perfect:
“There’s always some ignorant person who thinks they need to spend time with my son to teach him how to “be a man”. Unless you’ve had the ability to say ‘yes’ when he asks for the Fairy Barbie doll or the Tinkerbell Diary, you aren’t man enough to teach him anything. If you haven’t let him dress like his favorite Disney princess because that’s the movie he just watched, and then played Barbie dolls with him on Super Bowl Sunday, you have nothing to offer. If you can’t teach him that liking “girl” things is fine because there’s no shame in liking what you like whether it’s trucks or tutus, then he doesn’t need your kind of “help”. He’s a boy who knows what he likes and he sees nothing shameful or weak about girls. If you ask me, YOU need to spend some time with HIM to learn how to be a man.”
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This post is republished on Medium.
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