The father did so because he wanted his 3-year-old to have a childhood free of any “strict gender norms.”
Christian Shearhod, who also works as a teacher in Los Angeles, California, recently shared that a teacher told his son at daycare that “painting your nails is only for girls.”
“So, my son came home from school upset because his teacher told him that painting his nails is only for girls, so today I’m taking him to the nail shop!” he said in a now-viral video on his TikTok.
“So, today I’m taking him to the nails shop,” Shearhod added.
The video then showed Christian’s son, Ashton, sitting in the backseat of the car as they drove to the nail salon.
“Your teacher said what,” he asked his son.
“Um, not to paint my nails,” the kid answered.
The family reached the nail salon called ‘Natures Nails’, where Ashton chose a pink nail color for himself.
The little child became really excited and told the lady at the salon that he wanted to paint the nails of both his hands and feet.
Ashton then got his nails filed and painted with the beautiful pink color he chose for himself.
“Let little boys like what they like…. Trucks, spider-man, paw petrol and maybe painting his nails,” Shearhod wrote in his video.
The video has received 4 million likes on TikTok and thousands of comments from people, all supporting Christian’s way of dealing with the situation.
“This is amazing but I’d be having a talk with his teacher too. There was NO need in the teacher saying this to that sweet boy,” one commented.
“I’d be calling that teacher and having a heated discussion,” a second user commented.
“It brings me so much joy looking how good you and Eden are with him you parenting role model for me,” a third added.
“I’m a girl, and work on cars. My brother in law loves the color pink. My son loves his nails polished. The earth still turns the right way,” someone wrote.
“Teachers shouldn’t be all up in children’s HOME life. If he wants his nails painted by gahly paint their nails! Why on earth would it bother a teacher?!” another wrote.
“While my 4th grade class is running a “nail salon” in my classroom using markers. Oh and the boys are running it! Love that you did this,” added another.
Speaking to NBC in an interview, Christian said his son loved nail polish and he first became obsessed with nail paints at the age of 2.
“Since then, we started painting our nails together,” he told the outlet.
“I really just wanted to make sure that he didn’t have guilt or shame, because it is something that he enjoyed, and we had done together multiple times.”
The young father also said that after getting Ashton a nice manicure, he went to his school to talk to his daycare teachers.
“I just told them, ‘Hey, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say that kind of thing to Ashton, kind of let him do his own thing,’” he said.
What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know in the comments.
Yes if that makes him happy let him enjoy that, my son who is 24 and gay never played with girl toys or asked to get his nails painted,very boyish,hmmm who would have known. So let’s not judge by the book cover