Christine B. sent along this Mother’s Day card:
It captures the normative idea that boys are naturally naughty (“I was just doing my job”). It also normalizes the notion that moms will be driven crazy by their sons, but accept their misbehavior as inevitable, even lovable.
(By the way, I know I can’t see the child’s face; it could be a girl. Reading the cues — short hair, blue and green colors — and the cultural context, I figure it’s supposed to be a boy.)
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 8
C.L. Ward — May 8, 2011
At the same time, contrast the submissions at Sh*t My Kid Ruined (http://www.shitmykidsruined.com/). I did a quick count, and came up with:
Boy: 127
Girl: 76
Can't Determine: 185
There's probably a lot more interesting analysis that could be done from the SMKR site.
syd — May 8, 2011
It could also be read as "small children will inevitably drive their parents crazy." I know I've given my mom a similar card in the past, and it was definitely coded to be from a young girl.
Muscat — May 8, 2011
Seeing the child's face would not necessarily tell you if the child was a boy or girl.
xfox — May 9, 2011
By the way, if you saw the face of this or any other child, it would not necessarily help you to determine whether they are a boy or a girl. Thinking that you see this from someone's face, especially when they have not reached puberty and don't have, for example, a beard, is forgetting that actually when we think that we see someone's sex judging by their face, what we actually look for are the cultural marks of femininity or masculinity. The same face can well pass as both female and male.
Amanda — May 9, 2011
Interesting -- I think I may have given this exact card to my mom a few years back, and I'm a woman.
L — May 12, 2011
I like how "Mom" and "Crazy are written with the same font, so at first glance you just read "MOM CRAZY".