He Said She Said

Often on Fridays the girls and I stop for lunch on our way home from soccer. While we have our favorite spots we like to try out new places in the neighborhood. Many of the places we frequent have what you might call Androgynous Servers. About six months ago I realized this could be problematic, having highly verbal children who have no problem talking to anyone about anything. Recently our lunch was served by someone I thought was a young boy, no a woman, no a young boy...I had no idea. Neither did the girls. They flipped back and forth between "she" and "he" effortlessly. "I like her t-shirt", "he has tall hair", "I need to ask her for more milk", and on and on. They are very observant, not ones to mince words, and blissfully, not terribly influenced by popular opinion. I find that to be one of the most charming things about childhood, they have no preconceived notion of what a man or woman should look like. This person was bringing them milk and food and that is what mattered to my children. Not once did they ask me if this was a girl or boy, or a mommy or daddy. Of course I spent most of our lunch looking for clues, and hoping that they didn't say anything offensive. I knew that when the server brought the check I could resolve this great mystery, the name being on the receipt, names often being a great gender secret breaker. I flipped open the black book, "thanks, Pat". Pat. What I deserved, lesson learned. Today's lunch was delivered by someone I was certain used to be a man. Mary and Kate plowed through grilled cheese and tomato soup without a second thought, other than thank you, great lunch. Lovely.