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William, our 4 year old, faced his first sex-related challenge with the birth of Isabella. For his entire life, William had been living in a male-dominated world - his best friend was Daddy, his buddies were Nick, Maxx and Brent… and of course, the center of the world, in his opinion, was a boy named William…

So he used “he” and “his” for everyone around him in his life, including me. “No big deal”, I thought, “He will learn about girls sooner or later”.

With another  girl born into the household, I thought it was the right time to teach him about gender.

It turned out to be a real challenge. Eventually my husband and I decided to adopt techniques used by the dolphin trainers - associating learning with food. Every time William asked for a cookie or a drink, we would ask him to answer a couple gender related questions. Here is a typical scenario:

“Mommy Daddy I need some juice…”

“OK, is Nick a boy or girl?”

“Boy!”

“Is Maxx a he or she?”, joined my husband.

“hmm… she! No! hmm… HE!”

“Good boy! Here is the juice…”

One day, while William was watching his sister drinking from a bottle, I decided it was time for another such training.

“Look William - Isabella is a girl. She is drinking her milk.”

“Girl drinks her milk,” I stressed, “Now say it with me…”

“OK, OK, I know Mommy - Isabella is a girl. She drinks her milk.”

“I am a boy,” he proudly continued, “now I wanna drink some his milk!!”

William’s daycare center had recently created a new “award” - a “helper of the week” sticker - to encourage the children to help each other. I noticed he had never received the honor.

At first, I was not alarmed - it might just take time for a 3 year old to learn a new habit.

As the sticker cycled through all his peers, I became concerned. I decided to talk to his teacher.

“Oh,” she chuckled, “William is good boy - but he doesn’t like to help… He just cleans his own stuff and stops right there.”

“But don’t worry,” she added, “I can tell he was thinking about it - it was just that for some reaon he decided not to do it… Give him some time. It will be OK.”

The teacher was very nice, and she might even be right; but I decided it was time to talk to the little boy.

After school, while he was playing with his toy choper, I cautiously started the conversation.

“William, tell Mommy about the helper stickers.”

He paused, and said nothing.

“I saw Maxx got a helper sticker today…” I said.

“Maxx always gets a helper sticker! I never get a helper sticker! Nobody ever gave me a helper sticker!” His voice was filled with frustration.

“But that’s because Maxx always helps. If you help, you will get a helper sticker too.”

“I did! But the teacher never gave me a helper sticker!” He was almost crying.

Oh, God! That doesn’t sound right - maybe the teacher wasn’t as nice as she appeared, after all; maybe there were things I didn’t know…

“William - tell Mommy what happened. Why the teacher didn’t give you a helper sticker? Did you help?”

“Yes! I did!” he answered, looking directly into my eyes. He was sincere and purplexed.

“Who did you help? The teacher?”

“No.”

“Your friends?”

“No.”

“Other kids?”

“No.”

“But - you just told Mommy you helped…’

“Yeah, Mommy” he said,  matter of factedly, “I always helped myself!!”