The old man lurked nearby, watching intently. I knew he wanted to talk, as a lot of old people did. There is something about babies that propels strangers into conversation. The old man drew closer, his faded blue eyes settling on Angus.
‘Is your baby a boy or girl?’
‘His name is Angus,’ I said.
The old man looked at me. ‘Don’t you think he’s too pretty to be a boy?’
Matt aged about seven months
Angus with the same frown
It wasn’t the first time Angus had been questioned about his gender. Occasionally people would ask boy or girl, then smile like they knew all along.
Their questions make us giggle. Kristine and I remain confused that anyone needs to ask. We don’t think Angus looks like a girl. He isn’t dressed in pink and doesn’t wear ribbons in his hair. He doesn’t sound like a girl.
‘He looks like a little boy,’ Kristine said. ‘I don’t know how people get it wrong.’ I joked about getting him a t-shirt, my name is Angus and I’m a boy.
I don’t think I’ve ever mistaken a baby’s gender. It’s usually simple because boys look like boys and girls look like girls. Parents play along with the theme, which is why Angus doesn’t wear pink or ribbons.
It’s the same with animals. Male dogs, balls aside, look like male dogs. Females, lack of balls aside, look like females. Cats, rats, birds and anything that isn’t a reptile looks like their gender.
Humans should be wise enough to decipher a baby’s gender.
A few weeks ago Angus and I waited in the Bridgestone lounge as the front tires on the green limousine (my 16-year old Commodore) were rotated and balanced. He walked around the coffee table, pulling magazines to the floor and tearing the pages. I put them back up and straightened them out.
Angus crawled the floor, touching tires and rims.
A man read a paper, looking at Angus every now and then. ‘There’s a good looking bird,’ he said.
Though it needs no explanation, bird is aged slang for a woman. It’s hardly a flattering term and seems to have vanished from Australian culture. I recognised it for what it meant, because the man was about the same age as my father. When I was about fifteen, Bill told me a hilarious joke.
What do you do if a bird shits on your windscreen?
I don’t know.
Don’t take her out again.
The man looked at my boy, who was pulling magazines off the table quicker than I could put them back on. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘His name is Angus,’ I said.
The man nodded. ‘With those blue eyes you’ll be driving the birds crazy,’ he said to Angus.
There was no point telling the man he’d made a mistake, but I wondered about it. Angus was dressed in blue shorts and a blue and white t-shirt. The hat he chewed was emblazoned by a train called Thomas who had delusions of being a tank.
If Angus was wearing pink and had a ribbon in his hair I would’ve understood the man’s error.
But Angus is a boy. He might have Kristine’s big blue eyes but that doesn’t make him look like a girl. A few people have said he looks like me, and I don’t think I look like a girl.
Unfortunately and embarrassingly, the questions reminded me of an incident of mistaken identity when I was twelve. I was walking with Bill outside St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne. A woman he worked with saw us on the footpath. She later told Bill his daughter was gorgeous.
For a moment Bill was confused. ‘I was with my son,’ he said.
Then the woman was confused. Later that night the family giggled during dinner as Bill told the story.
When I was twelve I had blonde hair. It might’ve been a little long but I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, not a skirt and ribbons. I was a little short back then too but I couldn’t believe that woman figured me for a girl.
My mum Patsy reassured me, you look like your father, and I agreed.
The proof has always been there. Stand Bill and I next to each other and the similarities are unmistakable. It is the same with Angus and me.
Take a look at the two photos attached to this story. My photo was taken in 1971. Patsy is holding me. My grandfather Charles is in the backgroud, smoking. Judging by the size of my head and the lack of teeth I reckon I’m about six or seven months old. The photo of Angus was taken in 2013, when he was ten months old.
I didn’t look like a girl when that picture was taken, and Patsy did the right thing by dressing me in blue. Angus is wearing only a nappy in his photo, but he doesn’t look like a girl either.
Most mums have been asked the boy or girl question. Mistaken identity is common. Recently I met a woman with two young sons. Her boys had blonde hair and big blue eyes. I asked if people had mistaken their gender.
‘It happened a lot when they were younger,’ she said. ‘Because of their big blue eyes.’
It’s obvious that big blue eyes are the problem. If you look at the pictures closely, Angus doesn’t have my eyes.
And that means the mistaken identity is Kristine’s fault…
