Can a boy be a princess for Halloween?
Julie Deardorff
October 26, 2010
All the real women-loving men that I know are EXACTLY the same way.There is only one thing our 3-year-old son loves more than toy trucks: princesses.
Hmm ..., I missed out on this phase. No regrets.
Most of the time, he dutifully carries around tools and wears traditional boy clothes. His "worker-man" outfit, which he often wears to preschool, includes a leather tool belt, a plastic construction helmet and a neon orange safety vest. Like many little boys, he is obsessed with machinery, especially ice-cleaning Zambonis, and can spend hours observing work sites, mesmerized by backhoes, cement mixers or front loaders.
We men ALL like our pink princesses.
But our little construction worker is also a big fan of the calming color of pink and anyone who wears it. Especially princesses.
You weren't paying attention.
Normally, we indulge his nontraditional choices. He rides in a pink "Girl Power!" car seat that my husband purchased; his most trusted companion is a pink blanket that we (naturally) named "Pinky." He has a princess toothbrush, a princess mirror and a princess crown. If we're not reading "I Love Trucks!" he wants to hear the stories about Cinderella and Snow White.
But my husband and I were caught off-guard — and slightly unnerved — by his latest request to venture into the world of pink: He wanted to dress as a princess for Halloween.
RED FLAGS? Are you kidding me? The problem is with YOU and your traditional (and mostly useless) notions of gender, lady. The problem is NOT your son.!
At first I wasn't sure why this raised red flags. It's Halloween, after all, a time for role playing and fantasy, which psychologists say are both normal parts of development. I have friends whose sons sleep in Tinker Bell sheets, who cried when they didn't get the "girl" party favor and who sneak into their sisters' closets to try on their clothes.
OKAY, woman, and NOW this bothers you that your 3-year old kid is gonna "cross" a gender line? A figment of the imaginations of repressed adults?
My husband and I, meanwhile, have both crisscrossed stereotypical gender lines. I was a tomboy who hated dresses, ignored dolls and played with fake guns, baseballs and basketballs. I started my journalism career in the male-dominated field of sports writing.
My husband, a carpenter, is a stay-at-home dad. He cooks nearly all our meals from scratch and does the laundry, cleaning and gardening. One of my favorite images is of him strolling through Home Depot with an infant strapped to his chest and a baby bottle jammed into the spot where his tape measure should be.
You should learn to listen to your 6-year old son.
What worried us about the dress, however, was the potential public humiliation. We pictured him being teased by other children and bursting into tears, ashamed by his choice. And though our 6-year-old son supported his little brother's love for pink and princesses in private, he seemed to feel he should mock "girlie" things when he was around his friends.
Being labeled by WHO? Who are you surrendering all this psychic power to? And WHY?
Let's face it: While little girls are free to dress as pirates, "Star Wars" characters and male superheroes, our sons risk getting labeled as effeminate if they show a preference for pink, fairies or rainbows. Parents may preach egalitarian principles, but boys still don't have cultural permission to wear what they want or what they think looks beautiful, even on Halloween.
HELL, I love PINK and PURPLE ... talk about regal splendor!
And among the strongest gender enforcers around, it turns out, are other children.
Three-year-olds are "still blessedly nonjudgmental," neuroscientist Lise Eliot wrote in her thought-provoking book "Pink Brain, Blue Brain," which argues that parents, teachers, peers and cultural factors unwittingly work to reinforce gender stereotypes.
"By four, however, many children enter an inflexible stage in which they start viewing gender choices as a matter of right or wrong, a phase that peaks around first grade," Eliot wrote. "The remarkable thing is that young children are so much more vigilant about enforcing gender norms — what to wear, what to play, who to play with — than any adult."
When I e-mailed Eliot to tell her about our son's inner princess, she told me it's fairly common for boys to be drawn to pink and purple. "It sounds like your son just hasn't been brainwashed (that pink is for girls) yet," she wrote.
It's quite logical that the next generation is going to be much more flexible and tolerant. They won't have much wealth, so, trivial things are not gonna matter. It will be difficult enough just trying to get by.
Eliot suggested we go shopping and that I ask him to try on a few choices. "If he doesn't change his mind, don't worry about it," she wrote. "(Your son) is still really young, and I am starting to think the next generation is going to be much more flexible about gender than ours."
This same woman is probably gonna write about when her son starts downloading internet porn. But, with internet porn, it's REALLY pink!
At Target, while his older brother begged for a "Star Wars" gun, our youngest picked out several dresses but stopped short of trying them on. The next day, he ran over to our neighbor's house and came home carrying a yellow dress decorated with pink roses, lace and a pendant of the beauty Belle from the movie "Beauty and the Beast."
Still, once he actually had the dress, he seemed to sense that he was violating a serious rule. He waited a day, then briefly put the dress on for his father, who genuinely smiled when he saw his little princess boy. We snapped a picture and told him how nice he looked.
But the dress came off and, so far, has stayed off. He wouldn't show it to friends or venture outside in his costume. "Maybe it's his way of saying he likes the image of a princess but doesn't want to actually be one," my husband said.
When our son is inside, he stays true to his own idea of beauty. When he's not playing with trains, dump trucks or LEGOs, he'll be coloring a picture of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, or cutting out pictures of pretty women. And if you ask him, he will still smile and say he wants to be a princess for Halloween.
But unlike three weeks ago, he now realizes that if he dresses like one, he risks being put down for what he likes. Before leaving for preschool one day last week, he pulled his tractor T-shirt over his new pink princess T-shirt, a gift from his best friend, a girl who just turned 4.
"If I wear the princess T-shirt, people will think I'm a girl," he told my husband.
He seemed to have learned a life lesson. But in a way, my husband and I wished he didn't have to.
This sentence is a total crock. Remember, this woman and her husband were SHOCKED that the kid would even consider going haloweening with a princess costume. What guy WOULDN'T WANT to be a princess. Have somebody await him hand and foot for life (in our earlier days, such people are called "mother;" in our later years, they are called footservants.
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