Capital One wants to give my son a platinum credit card.

 

He gets letters every week or two, urging him to call in immediately to claim his large and convenient line of credit. I'm sure the Capital One folks don't know they're offering that line to a developmentally delayed 9-year-old with fetal alcohol effect. I'd tell them, but the mailings offer no phone number or address to get off the list, only an automated call-in line to sign up. And so the come-ons keep on coming.

 

Now, I know how he got on this mailing list: We have a bank account in his name, and his grandmother set up a college fund for him, and computers don't know from 9-year-olds -- it's just another name in the bank's database. But here's the interesting thing: My daughter has, in her own name, all of those same accounts. Her name is right there next to his on all the same the databases. And yet -- she never receives credit offers. No junk mail for her. And while I'm not the sort that's quick to jump up with charges of sexism, I have to wonder -- why would that be? There is no list that he is on that she is not, and yet only the male name is worthy of a Capital One card. It's enough to make you go hmmm.