Every week, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields (thank you, Rochelle!) hosts a flash fiction challenge, to write a complete story, based on a photoprompt, with a beginning, middle and end, in 100 words or less. Post it on your blog, and include the Photoprompt and Inlinkz on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!
PHOTO PROMPT © Jan Wayne Fields
A big decision
“So, which one would you like?”
James looked at the sunhats and wondered whether he dared say.
“They’re all baseball caps, mum. I don’t like baseball.”
“You’ve got to have a sunhat, James. Just choose one.”
Blushing, James pointed to the pink one. His older brother, Edward, sniggered.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s suitable. What about this one? It says ‘Aloha’. And it’s bright – you like colourful clothes.”
“The pink one’s only 35 talas; I’ve got enough spending money. Can I have it if I buy it myself?”
“Oh, James…”
“Let the boy have it,” said his dad, quietly.
Autumn Leaves 
O well pink’s such a nice cute color but he may have to expect quite a major razzing
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Dear Larry
Thank you for reading and commenting kindly. Yes, James is into cute; and I think he realises about the razzing…
With best wishes
Penny
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I like it too but it’s a smidge on the controversial side
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So much not said, but so much said between the lines. Good story!
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Dear Jade
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comments. I’m glad you read between the lines!
With very best wishes
Penny
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Penny, you are welcome, thanks for the well-wishing!
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Dad knows. Subtly done, Penny
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Dear Neil
Thank you for reading and for your perceptive comment. Yes, Dad knows. I think Mum knows too, but can’t admit it yet.
With very best wishes
Penny
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I was going to say what Neil just said. Nice slice of family dynamics with a hidden story.
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Dear justjoyfulness
Thank you for reading and your insight into the story. Family dynamics are fascinating, aren’t they?
With very best wishes
Penny
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i’d say let the kid decide for himself to bolster his self-confidence.
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Dear Plaridel
Thank you for reading and engaging with the story. Your advice to let the kid decide for himself to bolster his self-confidence is very appropriate.
With very best wishes
Penny
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Whichever hat he chooses, in decades to come he will look back at the family photos and blame his mum for making him get one! Touching story lying underneath the surface Penny, nicely done.
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Dear Iain
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m hoping mum notes what dad has said. If she lets him have the pink hat it’s possible that this will be remembered by the whole family as a watershed moment.
With very best wishes
Penny
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A successful navigation through the minefield there. Nice one.
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Dear Anthony
Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, this was a moment that needed careful handling.
With best wishes
Penny
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Good story, Penny. It can be read on several levels, which really causes the reader to think and ask questions.
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Dear Michael
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. I’m glad it caused you to think and ask questions. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about transgender people, so anything that provokes thought is good!
With best wishes
Penny
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Ah, bless dad! What a top parent for stepping in just when his son needed him. It’s the kind of unconscious gender stereo typing that reinforces generations of ridiculous assumptions about what it means to be male/female. When my son was very small he had a bag from a charity shop – pink and silver with a big Star on the front. The kept his favourite toy cars in it, swinging it about by the strap. Kids aren’t born with these preconceptions, they’re taught
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Ah, Lynn!
What a lovely, humane and tender comment. You are so right; Dad deserves ten out of ten baseball caps for his intervention.
I agree that many gender stereotypes are learned, but there are also authentic differences between man and women. Mind you, those differences should never be used to discriminate against people of either gender.
And ten out of ten toy cars to you, Lynn, for giving your son a pink bag with a silver star!
With very best wishes
Penny
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You’re right, there are differences, just perhaps not as many as previous generations and assume current cultures would have you believe. And thank you for the kind comment re the bag – he really did love it!
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Dear Penny,
Sad that there should be a stigma surrounding a color in any event. People like what they like. At any rate, the dad is obviously intuitive and loving. Good one.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle
Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re right that it’s sad that there can be a stigma around a colour. Mind you, at Pride marches I’ve seen encouraging signs that young trans people are finding it progressively easier to live as themselves. This means that there is less stigma associated with any style of dress, and any colour.
Shalom
Penny
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Yeah, the pink one’s cool, mum 🙂 Dad’s more in tune with James than Mum, I think.
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Dear Ali
Thank you for reading and commenting. I agree with you; dad is more in tune with James than mum.
With very best wishes
Penny
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You’ve done it again, Penny: expertly managed to convey a huge story in just a few words. Fantastically well done!
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Dear Susan
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. It’s a delightful prompt to write to, isn’t it? Rochelle does a great job!
With very best wishes
Penny
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I just shouted “YES!!!!” right out loud. I love this story!
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Dear Lish
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. Your comment made me very happy – thank you so much! It’s so good to know when a story gets an emotional response.
With very best wishes
Penny
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I love this, Penny! It is so rare that it is the dad who is this open to a child’s choices and desires. I have a FB friend in New Zealand with a daughter and two sons and she and her husband always allow the children to pick what they want to wear (kind of funny when they pick what they want HER to wear, too, which she does). The boys wear pinks and purples and flowers and whatever and the daughter wears whatever she wants (mind you, being the eldest she doesn’t have the hand-me-downs that the boys have). It is so refreshing to see this total erasure of the classic “for boys” and “for girls” culture in their house.
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Dear Dale
Thank you for reading and commenting. It was lovely to read about your NZ friends and the way they’re empowering their kids. Gender stereotypes are a bad idea, damaging to both boys and girls.
With very best wishes
Penny
xx
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Well said Dad! I’m wearing a pink tee-shirt, I wonder what Edward would make of that!
My short story
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Dear Keith
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m sure your innate dignity would be more than enough to quell Edward’s sniggering!
With very best wishes
Penny
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I love the powerful subtext layered between the breezy lines, Penny. The nod of approval from the dad at the end was very impactful.
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Dear Varad
Thank you for reading and commenting thoughtfully. I’m glad you found the dad’s intervention was impactful.
With best wishes
Penny
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Great realism to this story. It amuses the cultural issue with the colour pink. It originally was the colour for boys (considered an off shoot of red) & blue for girls. Then marketing powered switched it. Still just a colour…
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Well done dad, well done penny
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Well, good for Dad!
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Yes. Let the boy have it.
He is who he is. He loves what he loves.
Let the boy be.
Excellently done, this.
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James is fortunate to have such a supportive dad. Love the way you presented the family dynamics in this story, Penny. Well done.
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Isn’t it the old saying that “real men wear pink”? I think that sometimes people so hung up on little things that they stop thinking about their purpose and only think about reacting. When I was teaching high school there were a few transgender kids. There was one in particular who would say she was a girl to people who wanted to hear that she was a girl, or she would say she was a boy to see people’s reactions. I never reacted and she never made a big deal of it in front of me again. To each his own.
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