Early Learning

Flash fiction about gender.

“Don’t play with that. It’s for girls.”

My head whipped round. Across the toy shop, a boy sat behind a pink plastic dressing table, exploring the array of small drawers with delight. The dressing table was lurid, bubblegum baroque, the mirror oval, a real fairy tale dream. His mother hovered behind, her face stiff with tension. For a moment, the boy was oblivious to her disapproval.

I clutched my own son’s hand, poised on the exit, my heart caught on a hook made of my own history. I wanted to act. Images of punches thrown at me in the middle of the Early Learning Centre flashed through my mind. I froze instead, all the words I wanted to give to him dying on my tongue.

“I said, it’s for girls, the mother repeated, as she swooped down on her son. “Do you want to be a girl?”

“Yes,” he said, as she took him by the arm and dragged him away from the toy.

First published in The FEM Magazine, 22nd June 2016.