entrenched ideas

[Chef]

I must admit though that one of my happiest kilt moments was when I heard a child in Trenton, NJ, not more than eight mind you, say, "Mom, Mom, look there is a man in a kilt". I thought there is hope.

[Andrewson]

I must admit though that one of my happiest kilt moments was when I heard a child in Trenton, NJ, not more than eight mind you, say, "Mom, Mom, look there is a man in a kilt". I thought there is hope.

... and one of my recent happy moments was when a four-year-old boy saw me coming towards him in the street and said to his Mum "That man's wearing a kilt like Archie on Balamory" For those outside the UK, Balamory is a childrens' TV show set in Tobermory in Scotland and one of the characters, Archie the Inventor, always wears a kilt. Judging by the happy smiles on both the boy's and his mother's faces, that boy clearly now takes the whole idea of a man wearing a kilt as a perfectly normal thing. That may be due to the fact that in the show nobody makes Archie's form of dress an issue at all. It just isn't talked about. That is just as it should be. But, as Martin's experience shows, it is not like that often enough (yet?) and the brain washing continues.

[Blu (Ontario)]

.... But her brain had been so well washed, that she remained quite unconvinced. Children speak aloud what adults think quietly.

There's a simple explanation for this. I know about it because I've watched it happen with my own daughters.

Most females grow up role playing the whole concept. From a very early age, they play with little girl dolls.... dressing them in cute little skirts and dresses etc. By the time they become young mothers, they can't wait to do the same to their daughters for real. In the process pass on those very concepts for the next generation of little girls to act out. The cycle starts again. This is so deeply engrained in the female psyche, it's next to genetic in its power.

No amount of "education" will alter that which they have always taken as a fundmental truth.

.

[nixphotography]

This is so deeply engrained in the female psyche, it's next to genetic in its power.

No amount of "education" will alter that which they have always taken as a fundmental truth.

.

I agree, it is extremely hard to untrain the human brain to do or think something. the amount of time it takes to make something a habit is minor compared to the time it takes to undo the habit. We need to teach tolerance from the begining.

Brett Nix

[turpin]

I agree, it is extremely hard to untrain the human brain to do or think something. the amount of time it takes to make something a habit is minor compared to the time it takes to undo the habit. We need to teach tolerance from the begining.

Brett Nix

I don't think the issue is intolerance so much as ignorance. Face it, we don't live in a kilted society, so to be confronted by a man in a kilt can be very confusing when the encounter is out of context. Kids see bagpipers in a parade and think nothing of it, but seeing a kilt-wearing man just "oot and aboot" challenges their understanding of the rules and regulations of fashion as set down by their mommies and daddies. Men Wear Pants. Women Wear Whatever They Want To. Men Don't Wear Dresses or Skirts.

Then again, you never know what they are thinking. I was at a function at my daughter's school wearing my kilt. A little girl, about 6 or 7, was staring at me with a very confused look on her face. I smiled encouragingly at her, hoping to draw her out. I was all prepared for any number of educational answers as to why my clothing was proper man's attire. Finally she blurted "Why are you a leprechaun!?". I've never been much for hitting a curve ball. I didn't know what to say.

Then today I was coming out of an Army-Navy store and passed a woman and her son. I walked over to my car and as I turned I saw her talking earnestly to the lad. She looked over with a smile and flashed a big THUMBS UP. So apparently there is hope.

[wesd]

GOOD DAY, Last year at a local Irish fest a small boy (about 4 or 5) lookup to me and said "are you a boy are a girl"? Well I simply said that I was a boy. But you have a skirt on, boys wear pants, I have pants I'm a boy. Well both mom and dad are standing very close by and can hear everything. Now mom looks like any youg mother from the burbs, simple top and jeans. Now dad has a cable knit sweater AND A KILT. I point this out to the lad that his mom has pants on but his dad is wearing a kilt like me. H is little brain goes to work on this problem, his response, he's a boy, boys wear pants so mom must be a boy and both dad and myself wear girls. Someday maybe very soon he would find out that he was wrong but I could not get around the kid logic.

[David Dalglish]

My Grandson, on the rare ocassion I go over to see him with shorts or trousers on, says to me, Grandad, why are you not wearing your kilt. Its the norm for him to see me kilted, & he has never once called it a skirt--Funny is'nt it