And it’s even more heartbreaking when you see the transition and how performative it is.
I was a camp counselor at a science/nature camp when I was 16, for a bunch of 10 and 11 yr old girls. And one day while we were waiting around for the naturalist to come get us to go on the day’s hike, the boys cabin we were grouped with was exploring the area and overturned a log and found a salamander. One of the boys picked it up and they brought it over.
My girls all went “ewww, gross, keep it away!”
…right up until I said “whoa, cool, can I see it?”
This boy handed me the salamander and all of a sudden my girls were clustering around. They wanted to hold it. They were asking questions about it. They had stories of other times they’d seen a lizard or caught a frog or something. A couple of them went with some of the boys to look under another log and see if they could find another one.
All they had needed was permission to be curious, to show interest instead of disgust. And as soon as someone they were looking to for cues on “how to be a girl” showed interest, as soon as they didn’t feel like they had to perform socially-acceptable girliness and pretend to be grossed out in order to gain adult approval, all that natural curiosity and the fascination most kids have for the natural world just came bubbling right up.
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