by Bill Gouveia for the Sun Chronicle
If you’ve never had the opportunity to watch as your 5-year-old grandson
goes viral and takes over the internet, let me tell you – it’s quite an
experience.
As Jim Hand’s front page story reported here (Sun Chronicle, October 24),
my grandson Sam Gouveia recently ran into a problem involving fingernail
polish, gender expectations, and what my son Aaron (Sam’s dad) refers to as
“toxic masculinity”. I won’t go over the
whole thing in my limited space here.
Suffice to say he wore nail polish to school, and was devastated to be
teased by kids and told “that’s for girls”.
He could not understand why even some of his friends were being mean
just because he likes “pretty nails”. He
was inconsolable, and initially wanted to take off the polish to stop the
teasing.
In many households the story would have ended with Sam removing the
polish, conforming to societal gender norms, and blending in. But my son Aaron and his wife MJ believe in
two things above pretty much everything else:
Loving their kids, and teaching them to always respectfully stand up and
be themselves.
They talked to him, asking if he liked wearing the polish. He said he did. They told him polish was not “just for
girls”, and that many men wore it too. Sammy
was skeptical.
At that point Aaron turned to the internet, where he is a “Dad Blogger”
of some considerable repute. He posted
and tweeted pictures of Sam and laid out the situation, saying it was
outrageous that in this day and age this type of mentality was still being
passed along to future generations. “He
cited “toxic masculinity” and bemoaned the loss of his son’s ability to simply
be himself. That’s the short version.
The response from people across the world – not just the country – was
swift, overwhelming, and totally unexpected though tremendously appreciated.
Sammy’s story was posted on sites and in newspapers across the
globe. Aside from the Sun Chronicle, he
was in the Boston Globe, Good Morning America, ABC News, Yahoo, People.com, BuzzFeed,
Huffington Post, and newspapers and sites in the United Kingdom and even in
China. Aaron’s original Twitter feed has
been re-tweeted over 30,000 times and counting.
Sammy has appeared on television stations across America, and has been
among the top stories on major national news sites.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, although
there have been negative comments and reaction as well. Sam went back to school in newly-applied
polish, supported by teachers, administrators and citizens of his
community. In fact, some across the
Twitter universe wore nail polish on Friday of last week in support of Sammy.
It came to a head Saturday, when Patriot All-Pro Rob Gronkowski tweeted a
video message of support to Sammy on the Patriots Twitter account. Sammy was ecstatic – though I think Dad,
Uncle Nate and Grandpa were even more excited
On Friday I attended the annual conference of the Massachusetts
Moderator’s Association. I don’t know if
my fellow Moderators noticed, but I did so proudly rocking painted fingernails. All in support of my grandson and his parents.
It’s been a great week to be a Grandpa and a Dad.
Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and longtime
local official. He can be emailed at billsinsidelook@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at
@Billinsidelook.
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