Why Painting A Black Boy's Nails Isn't 'Going Against His Culture'

Being a kid who defies gender norms is tough. It can be tougher when you're also contending with pressures — and stereotypes — tied to your race.

This week on Ask Code Switch, we're taking on a question from a couple in Raleigh, North Carolina. They wrote in to ask about how race and gender expression play out in their own family:

"As white parents (of the foster variety) to a 6-year-old black boy, we regularly struggle with maintaining his culture and our liberal gender roles/ideals. One such heated incident arose where we had allowed our 6-year-old to paint his nails. His biological mother became very upset by this and evidently spent much of their supervised visits upset with him. Later, this was brought up to us again by the biological mother's lawyer, who said we were "going against his culture" by allowing him to paint his nails...

Bottom line: Are