It's Education Week in schools around here this week, and my 8yo son's school had an open day for parents and grandparents yesterday. Remembering that younger children are reputed to be unusually observant of gender non-conforming things such as a guy with long nails, I was curious to see what sort of reactions I'd get.
My wife and I spent about an hour in my son's classroom, watching him do various normal classroom tasks. I don't think that very many of the people present even took any notice of my being there, and none appeared to notice my nails.
The second part of our visit was a school assembly, where various awards were given out, the choir sang a couple of songs and the principal made a speech. I ended up at the end of a row of seats, where many of the children (ranging in age from about 5 to 12) walked past on their way in and out of the school hall. In the whole time, I saw just one girl (about 9yo) who looked at my nails, looked at my face, looked back at my nails and then turned to whisper to the girl next to her without even breaking stride, I'm pretty sure that she didn't turn around to look back at me.
With the number of children who walked past me, I was genuinely surprised that only one appeared to have even noticed my nails. The paranoid assumption that everybody would notice has been well and truly disproven! :)
At school I get nothing because the kids are concentrating on the thing they're supposed to be doing. Away from school is a very different story! There, especially dressed in walking shorts, I get the "reaction" from all children because I have no hair on my legs! Too funny, Alice!
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