stereotypes

   Ever since the day a person is born, he or she faces stereotypes. If a baby is wrapped in a blue blanket, it must be a boy. If it is wrapped in a pink blanket, it must be a girl. This is just a simple harmful stereotype though, right? It is just something that our country has made a tradition. Little girls wear frilly dresses and bows in their hair. Little boys are expected to learn sports and to never cry. Starting a child off with restrictions on his or her personality is what limits them in life as they are adapting to this world. It also sets a stamp in their mind to stereotype and criticize those that look different.
    Imagine a high school. It consists of students aged fourteen to eighteen who are getting the basics of what the real world is like. One imagines the average teenager of this decade to be wearing name brand jeans, and all the trendy styles such as tech vests, nice sweaters, fleece pullovers and Doc Martin boots. They look like nice people right, good students who work hard for their grades, who are polite, and don�t get into trouble? If you just agreed with this statement, you just made a stereotype on the average teenager. In all actuality, these are usually the students who discriminate others for having spiked hair and big baggy jeans. How can one judge a person�s personality on the basis of his or her wardrobe and hairstyle, or color alone? Everyday people question teenagers and put them down for the way they dress. Why is it so hard for one to imagine a girl with green hair to have a high GPA? Why do people automatically assume a kid with baggy jeans on is going to be rude to adults? One thing can be said true; high school students do get the basics of what the real world is like. They learn they will be stereotyped.
     Teenagers are not the only ones stereotyping. Parents teach their kids to dress nice when they go to job interviews. They know it is hard for someone to get a job if they are dressed in weird clothes, or if they have wild colored hair. When a person is giving an interview, they assume just because someone is dressed nice, that person is going to be responsible. In many cases this is wrong. If you were to judge everyone you met by the way they dressed, it would be impossible to be right each time. Clothes do not make people; people make clothes.
     From what I can remember, my mother never dressed me in just what was expected of a little girl. Even when I was just an infant, she would simply put me in a shopping cart, role me next to the clothes racks, and whatever outfit I pulled off the hanger would be what she would buy me. When I began school, my mother would let me decide on what to wear everyday, even if the colors or patterns did not match. To this day, I wear what I want. Sometimes that will be a blue leopard print dress with black combat boots, but my mother loves me just the same. She always has encouraged me to be different, to do anything I wanted to do, and not to let anyone�s opinions affect my decisions. Because of this, I have become a very outspoken, friendly person.
    Learning to not let stereotypes affect me or to set them on others, has enabled me to make friends with people who do not look like me. Even though I look different from most of my friends, this does not mean we do not have any ideas, views, or personality traits in common. Stereotypes are wrong. Those who do stereotype and discriminate on others� appearances are just locked into society�s standard. They are too afraid to be different, and those who are scare them. Parents need to start teaching their children at the earliest possible age that they should not set standards on them selves, nor let anyone else set a standard on them.