But enough about you

Elliott's been learning pronouns one by one over the last few months. First he learned "you," which he used for both first- and second-person. "Carry you, please!"

Next came "I" and "me."

Most recently, he's started saying "she," but not "he." It's not that he can't pronounce it. He just doesn't understand the difference between them, so he uses "she" for everyone.

Sometimes this grates, when he is talking about a specific male person: "Where is Daddy? Is she at work?"

But more often, his indiscriminate pronoun use makes me question my own assumptions. Elliott refers to every animal at the zoo, every unspecified person, every unseen person as "she." About a giraffe: "Does she like to eat leaves, Mommy?" About a baby of indeterminate gender: "Is she crying, Mommy?" About someone far down the street, whose gender I can't determine: "She's riding a bicycle! Is she riding a bicycle, Mommy?" About a person having a coughing fit in the next aisle over in the grocery store: "She is sick! She is coughing, Mommy!"

In all of those cases, I would have said "he." Why? No reason. For all of our modern sensibility about taking the gender out of our language whenever possible, there's still a surprising amount left over.