Tintype Children (and Parents)

Another companion post to my recent tintype obsession. There was a strange custom in the mid to late nineteenth century for young boys to be raised, almost exclusively by their mothers, like little girls, for the first few years of their lives, (See my post of 10-5-09, A Little Boy In Curls) and I think that the Asian looking child in the dress may be a boy. At least the haircut gives that impression. The second tintype though is all little girl. And the third, once that little boy got beyond a certain age, the feminine clothes and curled hair went, and the boy became his father's son.