the flying squirrel

I used to volunteer at the Royal Medieval Faire, usually working gates: taking money and welcoming people to the Faire. One year the Faire tried giving people wristbands instead of hand stamps to let them back in. For no discernible reason, the wristbands were pink.

One little boy worked his way up to us in the line with his parents. Dad paid the admission and we got out the wristbands.

“You’re not putting that on my son.”

He was, we thought, unnecessarily forceful. We explained that they were meant to let people back into the park.

“I won’t have him wearing that. It’s a girl’s colour. My son isn’t a girl.”

We actually got a few people like that. None quite as aggro as the one father, but it had us shaking our heads.

Really? Parents were really willing to push their preconceived notions of gender on their kids that hard? I had to feel sorry for the little boy. What if he turned out to be gay? Or just secretly liked flowers? I can’t imagine what it would be like living with a father like that.

I read the [Parents Keep Child’s Gender a Secret](http://www.therecord.com/living/article/535943–parents-keep-child-s-gender-a-secret) story and thought “Huh, I can kinda see their point.” But then I read the comments (more on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/waterlooregionrecord/posts/116849045067945)) and my heart sank. And I thought about that little boy and realized there are a lot of people out there like his dad.

I have the start of four other posts about the current Canadian parliamentary election in my drafts folder. I’ve been having a hard time collating my thoughts into something novel or interesting.

This election scares me and makes me profoundly sad for my country. That’s made it hard for me to get my thoughts together. Fortunately, Canadian constitutional expert Peter Russell does a better job than I could.

I’ve got an Ubuntu release party this weekend, but I’m hoping I get pull together some sort of substantial election post before the actual election.