ll boys to baseballgames and hockey games. There was never another girl there except for herself. And Iguess she felt comfortable hanging around with boys and her parents didn’t mind as longas she was happy, because that was really what mattered. On the other hand there was myneighbors son. This boy was the total opposite of the girl. He never played with boys buthe was always around girls. He was always teased by the other boys including me, but wewere all young back then. But looking back at this, it’s weird to notice that we alwaysmade fun of the boy who acted like a girl but never did I hear anyone make fun of the girl. I think that the boys parents were more upset about the little boys playmates than anyoneelse. The boys father, my neighbor used to push the boy into doing boy stuff like playinglittle league baseball and pop warner football. Whenever the father saw us boys playingfootball or basketball on the street, he would literally drag the boy out of the house tomake him play with us. The little boy would be in tears crying but you could still hear hisfather encouraging him to play. We all knew that the boy was scared straight by his fatherand dared not to disobey his father, but he didn’t want to play. Even the boys mother waslike his father. If other girls came to play with the boy, she would not let him out. Sothen a couple of boys used to go and get him out of his house, which his mom agreed toso he could secretly play with the other girls. Looking back at this makes me think thatthose actions by both the girl and the boy didn’t really mean anything because we wereonly nine or ten years old. There are a lot of reasons to why there is a double standard for girls acting likeboys and boys acting like girls. The boys get the hard rough end of the stick. Everyone isokay with girls acting like tomboys but as soon as a boy acts like a girl, he is consideredto be gay, or it is considered u...
