By Susan Payne
“Painting your nails is only for girls,” a daycare teacher told the three-year-old son of Christian Shearhod, a Los Angeles County math teacher.
“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!” Shearhod said in a TikTok video posted last week.
Shearhod said the boy’s daycare teacher scolded him for wanting painted nails, calling it a “girl’s only” activity.
In an interview with NBC News, Shearhod said his son expressed interest in painted nails at the age of two.
“Since then, we started painting our nails together,” Shearhod, a straight LGBTQ+ ally who uses his TikTok platform to promote LGBTQ+ equality, told NBC News.
Shearhod told NBC News he wanted to cheer his son up after the daycare worker’s comments.
“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,” Shearhod said, adding that he wants his son to enjoy life to the fullest at his age, without “strict gender norms.”
Shearhod, the next day, spoke with the daycare teacher.
“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,’” Shearhod told NBC.
