Five-year-old in floods of tears after pals ridicule him for wearing nail polish

It’s something no parent ever wants to see – their child in floods of tears.

But this is exactly what Aaron Gouveia and his wife experienced recently when their five-year-old son Sam came home from school.

The youngster says he spent the day being ridiculed by his so-called friends – and all because of something a little unusual he had chosen to wear.

Sam, who loves bright painted nails, had decided to go to school wearing red nail polish but unfortunately his classmates didn’t think it looked as "beautiful" as he did.

His father, a former journalist turned parenting blogger, shared the experience on Twitter .

In a thread, he revealed how Sam would probably be described by many as a "boy’s boy" because he’s "rough and tumble", "loud" and "always dirty".

But Sam also enjoys many stereotypically "girls" things – he has a collection of handbags because he likes to "carry things around".

The father-of-three wrote: "This is my son, Sam. He’s 5. And today he learned how s***** and harmful Toxic Masculinity is. My rage meter is spiking right now so excuse me if this is a little raw but there are some things I want to say about BS gender norms.

"[Sam] loves to have his nails painted bright colors because he thinks they ‘look beautiful’. And he’s right – they are beautiful…

"So he proudly wore his red nail polish to kindergarten this morning because Sam has absolutely no concept of nail polish only being for girls or reason to think anyone would possibly have a problem with beautiful nails."

But it turns out his classmates did have a problem with it.

The kids made fun of the five-year-old all day, calling him names and telling him to take the polish off.

"When my wife picked him up from school he collapsed into her arms and cried uncontrollably. He was devastated at how other kids turned on him, even his friends. He asked them to stop but that just made it worse. Only one kid stood up for him," Aaron said.

Later the young boy called his dad at work to tell him about his day and he uttered 17 words that broke the man’s heart: "Daddy, I want mommy to take off the nail polish so they don’t make fun of me."

He attempted to comfort Sam by telling him he thought his nail polish was "badass" and that the only thing that mattered was whether he liked his nails.

Then he turned his attention to the real problem and slammed the parents of Sam’s schoolmates.

He exclaimed: "I know these kids are only in kindergarten but this toxic masculinity bulls*** is LEARNED. Learned most of the time from parents. So parents, I hope you’re proud. I hope this is what you wanted. I hope you’re satisfied.

"My wife and I spent five years successfully preaching tolerance, acceptance, and the importance of expression and your kids unraveled that in one school day. He now feels the shame you desperately want to associate with being different."

"But I want you to know I talked to Sam and I told him those other kids are just jealous of his nails. I told him to wear an even brighter shade tomorrow. And I told him to ask these kids why they’re so upset and see what they say.

"I bet they don’t know. I bet their parents don’t even know. But what I do know is Sam is a goddamn fireworks show of a human being and I won’t let that be dulled for a second by this restrictive bulls*** that’s been choking boys forever."

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Aaron told Sam he could remove the nail polish if he wanted, but after careful consideration the little boy decided to keep the red colour on because "it’s pretty and good luck for The Patriots".

Then his 10-year-old brother got involved in the conversation – and decided to paint his nails in solidarity.

Their dad then painted his own nails as well, letting Sam pick a colour for him.

His thread, which was posted on October 23, has since gone viral with over 29,000 likes and 1.7k retweets.

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