In C.J.’s preschool class there are about a dozen boys and one girl. Guess who’s C.J.’s BFF? The one little girl who he affectionately calls Cookie. Cookie plus C.J. sitting in a tree…
“When you had your parent-teacher conference, did Ms. Sunshine talk to you about our kids needing to keep their hands to their selves and them being too touchy feely?” Cookie’s mom asked my husband recently. Ms. Sunshine hadn’t brought the issue to our attention.
“Do you and Cookie touch each other at school?” we asked C.J., trying to seem very casual about the whole thing.
“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly.
“What do you mean?” we asked, meeting him on the corner of casual and nonchalant.
“We hold hands and hug each ‘udder,” said C.J.
“Do you kiss?” My question earned a wide-eyed look from C.J.’s Dad.
“Gross!…Yeah, sometimes, Cookie asks me to kiss her on the cheek cause we’s gonna get married.”
Cookie might be a good match for C.J. Or, she might confuse our gender nonconforming son even more. Cookie is a cutie with short brown curly hair, sleepy eyes and a bright smile. She wears old-school red Chucks, Toy Story shirts and carries a Batman backpack filled with her dinosaur toys. She likes all superheroes, but Spiderman and Iron Man are her absolute favs. Cookie is very territorial, I mean protective, of C.J.
Her and C.J. have little in common, except that they both appear to be gender creative. They are a quirky match made on the preschool playground.
Cookie’s identical twin sister, although in a different class, likes to play with them too. She moves fluidly between girl toys and boy toys and girl clothes and boy clothes.
When an invite to Cookie and her sister’s pirate-themed fourth birthday party made it into C.J.’s backpack you’d have thought he’d been invited to New York Fashion Week. Finally, the day of the party arrived. It was not a girly pirate theme with pink jolly rogers sporting heart-shaped eye patches. No, this was a legit pirate party and dress up was encouraged.
“C.J., we get to dress up for Cookie’s pirate party, isn’t that fun?”
“Woo-hoo! I wanna be a princess.”
“No, Cookie wants you to dress like a pirate.”
“I don’t wanna be a pirate, I wanna be a princess.”
“But, it’s Cookie’s party and she wants all of her friends to be
pirates.”
“When it’s my berfday party can my friends dress up how I want them?”
“Sure.”
Cripes almighty, that was a big promise that I hope he forgets, but he probably won’t, and I’ll have to deal with that when I get there, but I’m pretty sure all of the boys and dads won’t want to dress as princesses or cheerleaders (although that would be fun for me and my girlfriends to watch, I’m not going to lie).
I loaded the pirate into the car.
Burgers. Bounce house. Bubbles. Then, face painting. The birthday girls, naturally, got to be first. Cookie’s Sister wanted to be Captain America. Cookie chose Spiderman. Up next? C.J., who was painted into one fierce Wonder Woman. The three gender creative superheroes got together for a picture.
“That’s so funny, the twins wanted to be boys and the boy wanted to be a girl,” I heard quite a few adult partygoers say.
Time for balloon animals. Cookie and her sister requested swords. C.J. wanted a pretty pink flower. While the girls waved their swords at C.J. He sniffed his aromatic latex daisy.
Gift time! Cookie unwrapped the Super Hero Squad Headquarters that we got for her. Cookie’s Sister unwrapped the My Little Pony with baby pony and stroller. They both hopped up to hug C.J. in gratitude. They lingered and fought over who would release him first. When the embrace was done, C.J. turned to me in silent tears.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“I want that My Little Pony.”
“When it’s your birthday you can get that My Little Pony,” I said, knowing that was a promise I could and would make good on.
Pitou
CUTE <3
fredo777
I love how he wrote CJ’s mispronunciations. He sounds adorable.
Mike
“When an invite to Cookie and her sister’s pirate-themed fourth birthday party made it into C.J.’s backpack you’d have thought he’d been invited to New York Fashion Week.”
See, it’s phrasings like that which make me call bullshit on how “gender-non-conforming” the kid is and how much the mother pushes it.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
I want that My Little Pony.
Brony!
God, I love these posts. This kid is very lucky to have the family he has, and to have been born now, and not 40 years ago.
Steve
@Mike: Are you fucking serious? It’s a simile. The mom is writing this from her point of view, therefore she’s going to compare her son’s interest to hers (and other adult interests) as a means to help readers understand what he’s feeling. Does everyone like New York Fashion Week? No. But people who do enjoy it get to understand how CJ feels about the party based on how they feel about the fashion week.
And even if you believe the mother pushes it, please explain the requests for My Little Pony toys, Wonder Woman face paint, and a pink flower balloon animal. If the kid didn’t want those things, he wouldn’t ask for them, now would he?
ewe
This woman is a bonafide asshole and so his her husband. For her to go on and on endlessly about her so called gender non conforming son at the age he is is insulting and the worst offense of stereotyping on a helpless young soul i can imagine. Notice no full pics of any faces AGAIN!!! She says they are both gender creative. I don’t hear her saying her other son or Cookie are “gender conforming.” What’s up with that? It’s called singling out your effeminate son and flipping out about it on a blog. She wants her son to forget that she promised him that all his invited guests have to dress up as princesses since she is making him dress up as a pirate. That says it all. She says it would be fun to watch everyone dressed up as princesses because she is a mocking cunt with an ego that says she isn’t and if no one agrees with what i said just try putting a critical comment on this so called happy well rounded family of twisted psychos blog and watch it be censored. Cookie is no more LGBT for wanting to be a pirate than her own son is for liking princesses and the color pink. She can promise a little pony without thinking twice. Huh? Must be horse hung and right up her own alley. I can’t stand this ignorant bitch.
fredo777
@ewe: Someone needs to take a chill pill.
I’m looking in your direction when I say that…
Insertnamehere
While I appreciate how supportive she is of her son, I also don’t thinks he should be so quick to stereotype him.
Being gender non-conforming does not make you gay. Yet, she seems to go out of her way to associate her son as gay. She doesn’t have a crystal ball, she doesn’t know how he is going to turn out. And it’s incredibly disrespectful AND stereotypical to assume her son is gay based on him liking “girly” things. So if her son is gay, then what does that make Cookie? Is she going to grow up to be a tomboy? I know plenty of straight women who love superheroes. Why is that acceptable for straight women, but the pink-loving boy MUST be gay?
fredo777
Oh, btw I put “he” in my first comment b/c I thought this was written by CJ’s father.
V
@EWE She doesn’t show any full faces because this is THE INTERNET, maybe you’ve heard of it? I wouldn’t post full face pics of my kids (or my neighbors) because a) I wouldn’t want crazy stalkers and b) I wouldn’t want assholes like you making fun of them. Get over yourself, CJ is the coolest little guy ever. I would love to have a kid like that one day, not because he may or may not be gay but because he’s more comfortable in his own skin then you and I could ever hope to be. If you’ve been following this series you should know that when he wants his princess party, she’ll give him his princess party because she loves him more than anything.
Mike
I’m surprised at how many people, including V, seem to take this lady and the story at face value. Especially since this is “THE INTERNET, maybe you’ve heard of it?”, where nobody knows you’re a dog. 😉
JAW
@ewe:
Thank You!!!
I thought it was just me… this woman is getting creepy. Sounds like she is trying to make the kid a girl… Kinda like the Moms that force their little 4yo’s to be in the pageants.
I think that they may want to have child protective services keep an eye.
This has gone from a little boy that liked dolls pink things etc to a Crazed Mom trying to make money on her child
Shame on Her… and Shame on Queerty to give her a platform
Jeffree
It’s a heartwarming story, isn’t it? Never mind the author uses every known stereotype of how a “possibly gay” & effeminate child will act or the total contrast of the equally gender nonconforming Cookie. It’s amazing how perfect the tale is.
I want to believe it’s true. I also wanted to believe that the world could help a certain Syrian lesbian journalist evade her government, & that a feisty lesbian widow called Paula could rebuild her life on the Outer Banks. I was wrong about them.
I hope I’m not wrong in also wanting to believe in saga of CJ &his oh so fabulous mom & his gruff-but-adaptive dad. And because I really like pirate parties, too.
JAW
As an FYI… This woman has been writing this crap on few since Feb… do a search “raising my rainbow”
I also believe that she has been on the morning shows… where they also thought that she was odd.
I am sure that she is reading the posts… perhaps she will enlighten us
Eysteinn
what’s with the all this hate & abuse posted in the comments? Raising my Rainbow is a great storyteller and looks to me to be a fantastic parent, I just hope she skips reading the comments made against her, and continues contributing here, I for one love reading her point of view and think she is doing great by the kid!
mike
Some of you morons… gender nonconformity as a child is one of the largest indicators of future homosexuality. there have been studies on this. instead of freaking out, she encourages her son to embrace what makes him happy. She isn’t prepping him to be gay, because if HE ISN’T GAY THEN HE ISN’T GAY. she can’t make him gay or make him straight, as i’m sure you whiny fags have all told your friends and family a billion fucking times.
if he turns out to be straight (which he MOST LIKELY WILL NOT) it will not have fucked him up to be allowed to pursue feminine interests as a child.
she also is calling these children “gender creative” rather than “gender nonconforming” because SHE FEELS LIKE WHO FUCKING CARES WHAT CONFORMING IS IF HER CHILDREN ARE HAPPY
CJ’s mom, you are awesome and he’s absolutely lucky to have you. I’m sure since it’s your son (and not these whiny bitches on this site) you’ve done everything in your power to learn the most about what your sons interests mean, and have come to a logical conclusion that he is most likely gonna be one of us fairies. at least youre prepared and open and he will have no problem coming out to his family when the time comes.
i don’t see how all you screaming queens think its somehow fucked up to have the most accepting family in the world, when you were probably at one point bitching about how much your parents don’t understand you.
TL;DR : CJ’s mom is awesome, bitchy judgmental homos suck
JAW
@mike:… I am not concerned with parents that let kids be kids… but if you go back and look at ALL of her posts… something does not ring true.
I only hope that she is not adding to the child’s confusion. I think that mom really wanted a girl, and she is making CJ the girl that she did not have. The child will have to go to school soon… and how he will interact with classmates will tell the tale. Again… I have concerns about mom and not CJ
Insertnamehere
@mike: I call bullshit. Like a said, if liking sports and superheroes doesn’t make a woman a lesbian, why does liking pink and clothes make a guy gay? It’s all self-reinforcing stereotypes. I know straight male cheerleaders, straight guys that like pink, and well-dressed straight guys. I know straight women that love sports, superheroes, and other stereotypically “manly” things.
Except she’s NOT saying “if he isn’t gay, so what”. What she IS saying is that she knows for sure her son is gay, just based on his gender non-conformity. It’s stereotypical and presumptuous and even somewhat homophobic.
How the HELL is it a “logical conclusion” to determine her son is gay and not a “homophobic and stereotypical conclusion”.
She claims that she ISN’T being judgmental, but by presuming her son is gay, then she IS judging him!
Jeffree
I hope we see a spin off series written by the mother of “Cookie” too. It will be all about a woman who admits she had wanted a male child but instead learns that she’s having TWIN girls — and one of those twins loves pirates & swords and “boy’s toys”!
Maybe Cookie’s mom has a fierce lesbian sister called Auntie Aunt, and a traditional husband who learns to rejoice how the twins have SUCH different personalities from each other.
We’ll hear fun stories about how Cookie won’t wear anything but hightops, wants to rebuild carburators & play hockey, & “protects” CJ from mean bullies. Since the other twin is more “fluid” she will make a great contrast to CJ & Cookie !
That’s the kind of series that almost just writes itself!
niki
@ewe: she’s writing in a public blog on the INTERNET on a topic that a lot of people feel strongly against… it would be truly irresponsible of her to put anyone’s face in the photos. it’s called privacy… she’s attempting to write this so if there are others in the same situation, she can give them something to relate to. But on the other hand, she still needs to protect the privacy of her family, because there are angry trolls like you on the internet, waiting to tear down someone’s life & choices.
ewe
@niki: you are full of self adulation.