J.Crew President paints toddler son’s toenails pink in Ad Campaign, Does it make him GAY???

In  my online travels today I fell over an upset from the VIEW about an ad campaign that seems to have every homophobe up in arms, and frankly, astounded me.

You cannot MAKE a child GAY. Let’s start there. The ad is of the president of a retail giant, J. Crew, affectionately and joyfully painting her 3 year old son’s toe’s pink in the new product line.   The ad is endearing, and clever and breaks barriers on gender specificity and ideals, suggesting that simple things in life are joyful.  It is not indicative that she is promoting homosexuality in her child.

This however is the consensus of the masses and the homophobes feild day! Fodder for chatter and negativity.

The truth is, every single 3 year old wants to do what he or she see’s their caregiver’s doing. Its grown up, its magical and its wonderful in the mind of a toddler and has nothing to do with sexuality. My ex-husband once accused me of “making” my son gay because I allowed him to play dress up with his sister and wear her clothes and play as a toddler. When they played together at 6 and 3 it was always “house” or “school” and involved the trappings of our lives including role play as “mommy” and “daddy” and “sister”.

What I find incredibly sad, is that as a nation we are consumed with proper role models, and family time and ties. We relentlessly rally for the children and working parents to get involved with one another and rather than focus on the positive of the advertising campaign, which is the working mother, president of a powerful retail corporation, bonding and spending one on one quality time with the child, the masses are up in arms about the “Gayness” of it? REALLY???? As though the ultimate sexual orientation of the child is truly anyone’s business or there might be a slight if not far fetched possibility that these bonding experiences will make him GAY? And if it were possible, what exactly IS THE PROBLEM??????

Our fundamental job as a parent is to nurture our children. Shewired.com posted the following to their site about the ad:” View cohost Sherri Shepherd says she understands why people are up in arms about a J. Crew newsletter featuring the brand’s creative director painting her son’s toenails pink, saying she would never paint her son’s nails.

“He’s a boy, he’s 3, he don’t need his toenails and fingernails painted,” Shepherd says.

She says her son Jeffrey has asked before if he could try on his mother’s makeup, but she says it’s because he is constantly surrounded by women. She says she tells her son the makeup is for mommy, not him.

Shepherd says she’s not concerned painting her son’s toenails might make him gay, she just doesn’t think it’s appropriate for boys to wear nail polish.”

Shepard might have a point. She is entitled to raise her child as she deems fit, and if pink nail polish does not fit into that plan, I respect that. I further respect that she went so far as to state it has nothing to do with fear of homosexuality.  On the other hand, the critics and uproar over this is astounding and frankly saddens this mom.

What does it matter who paints what? We tattoo. We pierce. The 80’s shook it all up when men started to seriously pierce their ears. Left was “right” and Right was “wrong” as in GAY=wrong.  Today, most men pierce both, because the distinction is 30 years old and no longer applies.  I have sat next to plenty of men at the Salon who came to get manicures and pedicures, from age 10 to 90, because it was “good grooming”.   Men have been buffing and polishing their nails for hundreds of years!  In the Chou Dynasty of 600 BC, Chinese royalty used gold and silver to enhance their nails. A 15th century Ming manuscript cites red and black as the colors chosen by royalty for centuries previous. The Incas decorated their fingernails with pictures of eagles. It is unclear how the practice of coloring nails progressed following these beginnings. Portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries include shiny nails. Men AND women! And as if that isn’t enough, Black has been a popular color of nail polish with goths, Emo and punks of all genders since the 1970s  for both men and women. Gene Simmons of the group KISS made this popular back in the 70’s, and Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) wore the same throughout his career.      

So, What is the BIG DEAL?

You cannot MAKE a child gay. Yes, the neon pink concept and the ad promotes a pan-gender concept to reflect that nail polish regardless of color does not signify anything other than someone’s sense of style and further, the kids TOES are painted, thus generally hidden by shoes under normal circumstances.  How MANY men and boys paint their toe’s that we never read or hear about, who are straight?  Mel Gibson painted his toes in the movie “What Women Want”, he was an ad-man. He also tried on a bra, pantyhose, shaved and waxed and took mascara for a test drive. His character was painfully straight, and was in no way GAY.

Get over it people, and move on with your lives. If you don’t like the ad, its okay, but for cryin out loud, let’s get busy worrying and focusing on something that REALLY matters like Obama’s budget findings and the present horrific and pathetic state of our country’s economy, instead of whether or not someone painting their child’s toes pink makes him Gay.  Honestly, WHO CARES?????

            

LGBT KIDS, MEAN GIRLS AND TOO GAY????? WTH?

As I navigate this road I am astounded by the perspectives of those who are gay, those who are not, the kids and teens who identify and how they identify and find myself scratching my head with greater frequency.

I have been addressing an issue with my son and his “fit” in the local High School. Having recently transferred from California to Texas, and obviously a LGBT youth, I expected some issues but not the ones I find myself confronting and championing. While it is assumed that Texas, the Good Ole” Boys state would be the least likely place to encounter LGBT acceptance, the reality is, he is not being bullied or encountering issues with straight kids but instead with the other LGBT teens, of which this High School has many.

It seems that my son is deemed “too Gay”, ” too effeminate”, and simply put, discovering that socializing among his own community is proving difficult.  This was astounding to me and frankly preposterous.

“What the F%#@????!”   was my immediate response when I learned of the social hardships and unkindness.  I feel trapped in a scene from “Mean Girls” and ill-equipped to understand or make right a situation that is very, very wrong.  While I stood there listening to this young man (not mine) elaborate on the dis-likeable traits of my son, such as too girly, too feminine, too OUT and the justification that my son is living Gay as a lifestyle as opposed to this kid’s “character and personality trait” I found that for the first time I was speechless and dangerous all at the same time. A mother’s first instinct is to attack the aggressor ( frankly I wanted to haul this young man in front of a mirror and ask him if he preferred to be the POT or the Kettle today?) There he stood, with that Justin Bieber/Donald Trump comb-over no one ever imagined would be fashionable, in matching red t-shirt and red ked’s and freshly pressed skinny jeans and wondered if this kid really knew what he was saying?  I am discovering in this amazing OUT world through my child, that kids, regardless of sexual orientation, are just plain cruel.

So I ask the question, is there a difference between Gay and “Too Gay”?  What does that mean exactly?  Why would these kids not bond and form community choosing to be at odds instead, in this world of equality and defusing hate crimes and bullying?  Is that other child really convinced that he is “different” and in some way superior to my son? What is the sense behind “Character trait” vs “lifestyle”?

I see so much coming at me as a parent, and like all parents, worry, fret and stress over the happiness and childhood experiences of my children. Childhood should last as long as possible and be joyful and memorable and fun…..so when you think you have done right by your child, and you are helping him or her build their community and discover that even today in this world of equality and change that instead of bonding and becoming a force to be reckoned with, they are at odds and still unkind to one another for petty reasons such as the shirt they wear, the speech patterns or characteristics it makes a parent want to SCREAM!

I am at a loss on this one. I rally for the child, in the meantime, let him know that in the world there are the real and the superficial and the unkind everywhere, but there is also kind, real and genuine and finding those people are the gift of the everyday wonders of life……WHY was I not issued a manual when that stork dropped by???????