My three-year-old daughter is puzzled. Why, she wants to know, did Georgie Porgie kiss the girls and make them cry? "Because he's mean," I say, with a sinking feeling, for how can this be the right answer? As the rollicking little rhyme makes all too clear, young George is a clever rogue, all pudding and pie; the tearful girls are merely boring. Mother Goose in one hand and a leaky juice box in the other, I begin the sad, infuriating task shared by all modern mothers of daughters: to raise my child to be confident, adventurous and happy in her gender...
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