A California dad was seeing red when his young son got here home from school “really upset” after he was reportedly told by his teacher that “painting your nails is barely for ladies.”
Christian Shearhod and his girlfriend, Eden, gasped upon hearing the news, they usually took 3-year-old Ashton to a nail salon in West Hollywood last week to hammer some extent about “gender norms.”
They documented their journey on TikTok in a clip that has nailed 4.3 million views and 747,000 likes as of Friday afternoon.
On the salon, green-haired Ashton giggled with excitement as he chosen a vivid pink polish.
He proudly stated he desired to get his fingers and his toes done, telling the technician, “I would like pink.”
He was overjoyed to see Eden decided to match him with the identical color nails.
After the polish was applied, Ashton blew on his fingernails to dry them. Shearhod noted he had “no idea where he learned this at” with a laughing emoji.
Shearhod, a teacher himself, told NBC News he and his son have been painting their nails together since Ashton began expressing interest in nail polish on the age of two.
“I actually just desired to be sure that that he didn’t have guilt or shame, since it is something that he enjoyed, and we had done together multiple times,” Shearhod explained.
The dad stressed that he wants his son to enjoy life without “strict gender norms” — adding that he had a conversation with Ashton’s teacher concerning the incident. The teacher’s name was not disclosed within the article or video.
“I just told them, ‘Hey, I’d appreciate it for those who didn’t say that type of thing to Ashton, type of let him do his own thing,’ ” he told NBC.
Fifteen thousand comments have been filed under Shearhod’s TikTok — most in support of pop and son.
Nonetheless, Shearhod told NBC he sometimes fields inappropriate comments and questions, with one user even asking, “Soo he’s gay?”
Shearhod responded to the comment in a separate video, saying, “He’s literally 3 years old; he can’t be gay because he doesn’t have a sexuality yet, and also you’re not going to assign him a sexuality because he likes feminine things or things outside of his typical gender norm.”
Despite the negative remarks, he hopes to make use of his platform of 936,000 TikTok followers to assist LGBTQ students nevertheless he can.
“I just need to encourage students to really need to be themselves, unfiltered,” said Shearhod, who’s dating a transgender woman and identifies as straight.
The Post reached out to Shearhod for comment.
