My son's uncle had a lot to answer for this weekend

My little boy recently turned five, and for his birthday he asked if he could have a toy kitchen.

Seeing as he loves to help me bake and cook, I agreed that it would be a lovely present to celebrate his big day.

Already hugely impressed by our son’s culinary prowess, his dad also agreed that while expensive, it was certainly a worthwhile gift.

Although I thoroughly enjoy having him help me out in the kitchen, sometimes that child of mine is nothing more than a liability when he gets under my feet as I’m trying to prepare dinner.

So the notion he could tinker around with a little kitchen of his own using spare pastry or small snacks seemed like the perfect solution.

That was until his uncle got wind of the news and deemed it wholly inappropriate

“Why would a big boy like you want a kitchen?” he asked. “Wouldn’t that be more suited to your sister? Leave it alone and let Grace play on it. We’ll find you something else. ”

Crestfallen, he sloped into the kitchen and asked me whether he was silly to want a kitchen for his birthday.

“I think I made a mistake,” he said. “They’re for girls.”

Crouching down until I was at eye level with my son, I asked him to name his favourite chef.

“Jamie Oliver,” he hesitantly replied.

“And who’s your second favourite?” I asked.

“Paul Hollywood?” he ventured.

“And are they boys or girls?”

“They’re not boys or girls. They’re men like Daddy!”

“Exactly.”

Seeing where I was going with this, he suddenly appeared hopeful.

“So it’s OK that I wanted a kitchen for my birthday? “ he asked. “It doesn’t make me the same as Grace, does it?”

Assuring my son that an interest in cooking wasn’t gender specific, he scampered away to rejoin his relatives.

Incensed that a throwaway remark would make my son doubt his choice of hobby, toy or sense of self, I approached my husband and told him to have a word with his brother.

“What’s the point?“  he replied.  “Jeff’s idea of masculinity is beer and football. He’d probably sooner see Josh slurping on a can than playing with a toy oven. Do you really want to devote time to someone with that thought process?”

He had a point, but still.

To think a member of my own family could still harbour such idiotic and sexist ideologies in this day and age grates on me.

I managed to talk Joshua around, but what if he hadn’t approached me with his concern and brooded over it instead?

What if he’d taken the comments to heart, obsessed over them and come to the conclusion that certain interests were specific to boys and certain were specific to girls.

What if one throwaway remark erased everything myself and his dad had taught him over the past five years?

One thing’s for sure, I know who’s not being invited to Joshua’s next birthday party.