My son was mistaken for a girl

[elliejjtiny]

Admittedly he does have beautiful shoulder length curls. But he is also 17 years old with a deep voice and a moustache! It's not like he's a toddler. No question about gender either, i was just asked what "her" name was by a random stranger. Ds was not impressed at all.

I thought you were going to say 17months old not 17years. I’m sure he can cope .

Why would a random stranger be asking you what your nearly adult child is called? This is all too bizarre to get my head around.

Nice to hear that Derek Thompson is getting out and about in his retirement.

I swear a lot of people need specsavers desperately. Surely most self respecting girls don't go round with a full tache.
I get mistaken for a colleague who looks absolutely nothing like me all the time.

Just here for why a random stranger asks the parent of a nearly adult child what their name is rather than asking the 17 year old directly (or at all!)

I would laugh a lot and call my ds the feminine version of his name for a good week afterwards

some things are funny and should not be taken seriously

The Great British Public apparently always assume that anyone with long hair needs she/her pronouns.

(My son is a tween with long hair and doesn't even bother correcting people anymore, unless he feels they are also being particularly condescending. He is counting the days until he can be tall/wide shouldered/bearded so they might do it less though!).

That’s not the reason

Ages ago, a guy I knew used to get wolf whistled from behind. Pert butt, long blond curled hair, petite..... he'd turn round and acknowledge the whistle with his old manly face, roll up in his gob wearing builders clothes 🤣

Surely this must have happened to him before if he has long hair?

People pay much less attention to us than we think. They glance up briefly see long hair and make an assumption.

More than 30 years ago my very male looking friend Jack had gorgeous long curls and regularly got called “miss” in queues. He used to laugh it off.

Wasn't he amused rather than annoyed?

A chap in a van stopped to let my son and I cross the road the other day and said "go on, girls" - ERM well I am 48 and my 24 year old son just happens to have long hair 😂 so neither of us are "girls" 😉 we both just found it funny.

They were either being rude and trying to make a point, or they just glanced briefly and saw longish hair and made assumptions.
I doubt someone looking properly at him would have misjudged.
It’s no issue.

😆

Isn't it funny how, when it comes to boys who have longish hair, mothers always say they have long beautiful curls? Never just 'they have longish hair,' always long beautiful curls!

I bet the OP's son won't have these 'long beautiful curls' for much longer if he was mistaken for a girl at 17. Though, if he has a moustache, I can't fathom why ANYone would have mistaken him for a girl. (Unless, as a pp said, they saw him from the back.)

What past are you talking about? The 1960s? 🤣

Well i have mixed up he/she before and I’ve witnessed it in other non-native speakers, maybe it’s this? Plus my best friend kept calling her newborn son ‘she’ during the first 2 weeks PP out of sleep deprivation.

Thats what you get for having long hair😅

So, what happened...

Person says to you (on a train, at the bus stop, at soft play...), what is your adult daughter's name? Your adult not daughter turns to them with his moustache, the person then says, oops, sorry-I got that wrong!?

It all sounds very odd!

I would imagine if it bothered your son that much to be occasionally mistaken for a girl, he'd cut his hair. Otherwise I'm sure he muddles through life just fine.

I have a teen son with long hair. He has always had longer hair but now has the deep voice and some facial hair but still gets mistaken for a girl. People definitely see the long hair at a glance and think female. We just laugh:

Why would anyone be asking you about your 17-year-old’s name? He’s old enough to speak for himself — it’s not like he’s a toddler. Honestly, why does an adult need to ask another adult what someone else’s name is? That’s not just weird, it’s a little creepy.

Years ago I was getting something out of my car that had rolled behind the seat. I was scrabbling around in the car when I heard a child say ‘daddy, what’s that man doing?’ The dad then said to the child ‘that’s a lady, what’s is ‘she’ doing? Just because daddy has long hair it doesn’t mean everyone with long hair is a man.’

Anyway, your son, or more to the point you, needs to get a grip.

i get the feeling this is a one post plop and run

They were probably thinking about other things, saw the long hair (which, let's be honest, is far more common on women than men) and thought 'woman'. Best to laugh it off.

My Dbro had a similar comment aged 15. To my father's delight, Dbro demanded a hair cut the next day. It was sad but also indicative of Dbros thin skin.
I've had many BFs with long hair, often longer than mine. They all made a joke in similar circumstances.

All of us go through life making small judgements based on inherent biases which are not a big deal to us, but on which we base our social interactions with others. Sometimes we get them wrong, often because it's not worth it to us personally to put the mental effort in to make the right judgement. We just rely on our initial impressions formed by inherent biases.

Person wanted to make a social comment and based it on their subjective impression of your child, formed by inherent biases due to societal norms and expectations. Maybe they should have taken more care in actively forming an impression of your child, but the truth is - it didn't matter to them. They probably couldn't care less whether you have a boy or a girl. They were probably being polite and went into autopilot polite mode without paying much attention to your actual child.

Yes, of course some random Stranger stopped you and asked what your almost adult teen child was called.

🙄🙄🙄