Way to go, dad!
By Taylor Haynes — Written on Nov 09, 2022
Dads will do anything to protect their kids from bullies at school but sometimes the best thing you can do is let your kid handle it for themselves.
A father proved that to be true when he posted a TikTok that detailed a story about some of his son’s classmates, who mocked him for wearing nail polish.
The dad spoke out on TikTok after his son was criticized for having his nails painted.
Doug Weaver begins his video by explaining that his son had come to him and expressed that he wanted to paint his nails.
“So we painted them,” he expressed in a casual tone.
On that Monday, when the son came home from school, he was disappointed with a few comments that he received from his classmates.
They told him that “painting your nails is for girls.”
In response to his classmates, Weaver's son said that “nothing is just for boys or just for girls."
It may be tempting for a parent to just brush this off as something common among children, but Weaver decided to tackle toxic masculinity and, in this TikTok, showed that it is always important to challenge those notions.
He asked his son “Well, what did they think of that?”
Instead of going along with toxic notions of masculinity — which would have been to tell the son not to care about his feelings — Weaver decided to pose questions to his son, which allowed him to garner his own lesson from the situation.
His son told Weaver that two of his classmates did not believe him, but one did.
"He was telling other students that he also thinks it’s okay for boys to paint their nails," Weaver recalls his son telling him.
He congratulated that kid who believed his son and told viewers that he knew the child’s mom and would let her know.
“But then I asked him how many kids are in [his] class,” said Weaver.
His son had told him 11, then he asked what the others thought of it. He was told that the other students didn’t even notice that his nails were painted.
“So we talked about how there’s always someone who wants you to change something about yourself to be more like them or be more like what they think you should be,” Weaver said.
Then he continued by saying “but for every one of those people there are two, three, or four other people that like you just the way you are."
He was making the point that there are always going to be people who don’t like you, but you just have to focus on the people who do like you.
Many in the comments were proud of the lesson that was taught in the video.
One user said, “You’re an incredible father. Your son is so lucky to have an emotionally intelligent and loving parent like you!”
“We don’t differentiate in our house what’s for boys or girls. Everything is for everyone” said another.
Taylor Haynes is a writer based in Chicago. She writes for Entertainment & News at YourTango. You can find her on Instagram here.