stark major

[Roz] remembers one phase, when [her children] were, what? Four, five, six, seven? It went on for a while. They'd decided that all the characters in every story had to be female. Winnie the Pooh was female, Piglet was female, Peter Rabbit was female. If Roz slipped up and said "he," they would correct her. She! She! they would insist. All of their stuffed animals were female, too. Roz still doesn't know why. When she asked them, the twins would give her looks of deep contempt. "Can't you see?" they would say.

She used to worry that this belief of theirs was some reaction to Mitch and his absences, some attempt to deny his existence. But maybe it was simply the lack of penises, on the stuffed animals. Maybe that was it. In any case, they grew out of it.