First, a note from Kelly: The other day, my friend Hilary shared a story with me about something her son said that surprised her, so I invited her to share her story with you here. Before I turn it over to Hilary, let’s get on the same page<\/strong> about the word “feminist” because different people have different understandings of what that word means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this post, what we mean when we say “feminist” is this: “possessing the belief that women should have the same opportunities and choices as men have.” That’s a bit of a mouthful, so in the interest of space and readability, we’ll just say “feminist.” If that’s a hot-button word for you, my hope<\/strong> is you can look past the semantics and see through to the heart of this post: that we envision a world for our children to inherit where equality and mutual respect are the standard, not the exception. Now I’ll let Hilary share her story…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday, my 6-year-old son told me that pink and purple are “girl colors.” I asked him why, and the conversation reminded me (again) that mothering boys in a man’s world comes with its own unique challenges and opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The funny<\/strong> part for me is that I’ve spent most of my professional career blaming the man and then lo and behold—I found myself raising a family of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Karma.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And so we talked about how some boys might like pink and purple. That some girls might not like pink and purple at all<\/strong>. I let him know that there were many perceptions placed upon me as a little girl, and I wanted more choices like boys in my class had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But were my words helping?<\/p>\n\n\n
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