Trucks are for Girls
T he curly-haired five-year-old was in trouble again. The year was 1967, and her kindergar- ten teacher had sent her to sit in the corner for the third time that week. The same crime was committed almost every day during recess. The little girl acted a lot like a little boy. During indoor recess, she would not play with the toys on the girl’s side of the classroom and insisted on playing with the toys on the boy’s side. She had no interest in the kitchen set, but she loved the trucks.
During outdoor recess, she had been scolded so many times for climbing to the top of the jungle gym in her dress that the teacher had called in her mother for a chat. The teacher requested that Mom stop the “inap- propriate behavior,” but the mother insisted on a compromise she would have her daughter wear shorts under her dress each day. In 1967, little girls were expected to wear dresses and act like little ladies. But this was a stretch for this little one, who adored her dad and rarely
left his side. By five years of age, he had taught her to dig for worms, bait hooks, and catch and scale fish. And he was already taking her duck hunt- ing. She was as adept at pointing out the fallen ducks as his old pointer dog. That teacher was wrong. But not as wrong as a progressive 2023 teacher who would insist that such a little girl is actually a little boy trapped in a little girl’s body. Today’s teacher might insist this little girl was a mistake to be fixed with a barrage of chemicals and surgeries to make the little girl into
36 • AMAC Magazine
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