Yup,
And sometimes there's a Lord Kenmore in us, too.
I have very dear friends who are raising a boy. Their son is five now, can read and almost write. A bright kid, cheerful and pleasant to be around. My cat taught him how to climb when he was still very young; unfortunately she also taught him a few other tricks which we won't go into here.
His live in grandmother (mom had a bad accident and needed help for quite some time) is one of those hysterical super-green-bio-energetic-save-the-world-vegan-anti-gender-rolemodel.....
Well, you get the picture. She has a cow every Christmas (actually, December 8) when I go shopping and let David chose a toy of his choice.
So far he has chosen:
A drill (a real one, I took the battery pack out. He can have it when he's older. Maybe 21.)
A soldier with realistic sounds, machine gun and a sling of hand grenades.
A bull-dozer.
She gives him books which are very age appropriate and boring as hell, dolls and the sort of stuff I would have died for as a kid - felt crafts, make your own jewelry, etc. (I gave him the Michel aus Lönneberga and Pippe Langstrumpf stories and then had to read them with him a zillion times, his dad said he learned to read from Astrid Lundgrün).
He has never, not once, even opened the boxes. Just looks at them, looks at his parents and me. Says a very polite "dankeschön, Oma" and I know next week we are donating toys to the orphans down the street.
Again.
The neutral gender clothes (those hideous washed out pink and green colors in scratchy natural fabrics) he reserves for sick days at home - he wears "Männersachen" to school - like all the boys.
When we are out walking (he really likes to go shopping, when we go to the Öko-Markt to buy soy milk and tofu, we pass by a McDonalds. There is a collection of Happy Meal toys on my windowsill - we have an agreement. He doesn't mention the golden arches to grandma and I promise not to play with the toys when not babysitting. So far, so good...). I suppose, as a vegetarian, I shouldn't be caught dead in McDonalds with him, but nothing is more fun than seeing him slosh his French fries through the ketchup and blowing bubbles in his Co'cola. He very solemnly wraps the last bite of his double-heart-attack-with a side of cholesterol BigMac for my cat and gives it to her when she is in town, to me to give to her when she's at my folks'. (Never seen the cat touch it once, which says something about the "meat" in their stuff, but I digress).
Point is: The kid's straight and very macho. No way in hell to change it - no reason to want to in my view. Might as well enjoy it. Already has regular school yard fights and a girl friend...I figure, in my declining years, he can chop wood and fix my cars for me. Grandma can do all she wants, what's in the genes is in the genes.
