Better not get into a discussion about gender with Maren Morris. The country star turned pop singer, who’s one of the most outspoken voices on the political left in the country music (adjacent) sphere, recently took to social media to share a conversation she recently had about gender roles with a male acquaintance – and it went pretty much exactly how you’d expect. According to the “My Church” singer, the discussion started out cordial enough as Maren discussed the “concerns” she has about raising her son in the south: “It started pretty civil because it just was me talking about you know, raising a young boy, especially in the south. We live in Nashville. And just some of the, like, feelings and concerns I have, you know, it can start as the smallest thing because it’s like my son just turned six and some of these gender things happen pretty early where it’s like, only girls can like pink. Girls can’t like Spider-Man. And you know, they hear this sh– like at school from another friend, like whatever.” Maren says she tries to disabuse her 6-year-old son of the ideas behind traditional gender roles: “It’s my job as his parent to correct that and be like, ‘Actually, anyone can like the color pink. I like Spider-Man.’ And they snap out of it pretty quick. They’re like, ‘Oh, cool.'” But Maren says that the acquaintance she was talking to was dismissive of her concerns, telling her that young boys need to “toughen up” anyway. And it sounds like that’s when things went sideways in the conversation: “Upon hearing that, of course, my first instinct is to see red, but I can emotionally regulate myself. And I just calmly said, ‘No, he doesn’t need to toughen up actually.’ And listen, my son is, you know, he has to bust his gums or something to cry. And, but he’s also like extremely gentle and he loves, he loves baseball. He loves musicals. He’s obsessed with Hamilton right now. He loves colors, sometimes we paint his nails, he loves to like make jewelry now and friendship bracelets, and it’s like, he’s a person and our job is just to never shame them for expressing those things. That’s the best part about being a kid.” Maren says that she took issue with the way the guy used the word “tough,” and argued that her son doesn’t need to “toughen up.” “I was like, he doesn’t need to be tough, especially not in the way that you’re using that word. And that made him upset. But it’s like, it didn’t matter how many facts I was stating of like, data analysis of, you know, it’s actually way healthier for everyone’s mental health to be able to identify a feeling and name it and be okay with having it. And my son can emotionally regulate himself better than this man could. My son can say, like, I’m frustrated. Or if he’s overwhelmed, he can, like, go take a beat in his room. Like, he does that for himself without me even needing to step in now. He just knows how to do it.” Apparently that led the man to, in Maren’s words, “storm off into the night,” which she says is the opposite of the way she wants to raise her son: “It’s my job to make a safe environment. That means physically and emotionally for my son to grow up and be able to have the vernacular on how to talk about these things too.” But she also says that she has “hope” for the next generation who are breaking gender stereotypes: “This generation I have hope for because they’re being raised by communities like us that are breaking those patterns and hopefully, you know, it leads to a better life for all of them. But sometimes I see on this app, people shaming women for having children in a world as chaotic as this one. And there are like elements of truth to that, but it’s also like we are raising the better humans. If we want the human race to go on, we’re doing that work with our kids right now. But we have to be able to talk to each other about these things in order for that to progress.” Maren says she doesn’t know if the acquaintance “learned anything from the conversation,” but my guess is he probably at least learned not to have a conversation about gender with her in the first place. @marenmorris i’m so proud of the moms and also the women in my life who don’t have kids helping me raise a beautiful one. ♬ original sound – marenmorris The post Maren Morris Goes Off On Gender Roles After Being Told That Young Boys Need To “Toughen Up” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.