Stop Using Labels 2k16

We have all had our own experiences with labels. A few labels that have personally affected me have been the words “heavy,” “Jewish,” “short,” and “nerdy.” However, I never truly took the time to think about the way we label "girl" and "boy".

Orenstein writes on page 59 that both boys and girls “go gaga over the same toys: until they’re about a year old, they are equally attracted to dolls; and until they’re around three, they show the same interest in actual babies. In other words, regardless of how we dress them or decorate their rooms, when they are tiny, children do not know from pink and blue.”

I think this is pretty cool. If you think about it this way, it truly does not matter if your infant is a boy or a girl. Since all babies are interested in largely the same things, your experience with a child of either gender should be relatively the same.

It saddens me to think that the concept of labeling ruins this simplicity. According to Orenstein, “sometime between the ages of two and three” children “realize that there is this thing called ‘boy’ and this thing called ‘girl’ and something important differentiates them.”

I am a firm believer that people should do whatever makes them happy. If a boy likes Barbie’s, he should play with them. If a girl is into monster trucks, she should go for it. It seems cruel and unfair that society stops young kids from exploring what brings them joy.  In doing this, society stops imagination. These days, we need imagination more than ever. Perhaps if people stopped thinking in such small boxes, we would already have the cure for cancer, or be able to achieve world peace.

Labeling things so early can certainly create problems down the line. On page 64, Orenstein cites Lise Eliot as raising the point that babies are “born ready to absorb the sounds and grammar and intonation of any language, but then the brain wires itself up to only perceive and produce a specific language. After puberty, its’ possible to learn another language, but it’s far more difficult.” Do gender differences grow more powerful because we place labels on them so early in life? I think yes.

By labeling things so early, we force boys and girls into only one way of thinking. Yet, people who can think in more than one way tend to be more intelligent. If we want our children to grow up to become independent, brilliant, insightful members of society, we need to move away from labels and toward compassion, collaboration, and creativity.