Dear Care and Feeding,
How do I approach a 7.5-year-old boy who makes sexist jabs at me? Some context: I am his 23-year-old cis-female cousin, and I’ve been watching him full time since August. I adore him, but I am loath to tolerate another “Yeah but you can’t use a drill because you’re a girl” comment. My current approach has been cool puzzlement, “Hmm … why would you think that?” followed up with, “I can see why you would think that but there aren’t such things as ‘boy and girl things,’ and it hurts my feelings when you tell me I can’t do something because I’m a girl.” And then maybe some follow-up discussion about how making that kind of boy/girl distinction can hurt our friends. It is not getting through.