THIS MONTH, I committed a couple of parental sins involving the scourge of nail polish. As I was painting my daughter’s toenails pink — buying into the culture of girlishness — my 2-year-old son wandered in and announced that he wanted his toes painted, too. I splashed yellow polish on one big toe before he lost interest completely. But apparently, I was setting him up for a lifetime of gender confusion.

That was the point of last week’s pseudo-controversy over a J.Crew e-mail ad, which showed the company’s creative director at play with her towheaded young son. Their Saturday pastime, the ad suggests, is painting his toenails the color of a plastic lawn flamingo. “Lucky for me,’’ it reads, “I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.’’

Read the rest of the column from the Globe here.