My boy asked for a dress. And guess what? I bought him one.

Twirling. 

Tell me the above image isn't glorious.  I dare you.

What does it bring to mind?'

Do you think I'm a goddamned hippie mother trying to prove a point?  Do you think his father is a sissy?  Do you think he shouldn't be allowed to wear "girls" clothes?  Do you think I'm putting him in harm's way by subjecting him to public scrutiny?

Or do you think it's beautiful?  Innocent and miraculous.  A young boy experiencing the sensation of a full blown twirl?

I bet you can guess in which category I fall.

However, what you might not guess is that I struggled with this.  Much like the Crocs debacle, this dress thing pressed my buttons -- and big time. 

I've been open on this blog about my own sexuality and how I fall somewhere left of center (call me bisexual, if that makes you feel better), but apparently that doesn't predispose me to making this kind of thing easy.  Not even a little bit.

I have a very left-leaning attitude towards sexuality, gender, and how it's all expressed.  I've continuously avoided saying things like, "Do you like any girls?" instead asking simply, "Do you like any boys and/or girls?"  I do assume his gender matches his genitals, but we'll tackle that issue if ever arises later.  I think it's fair enough to be sex-neutral when talking about attraction without further complicating things with gender.

In any case, my point is: I'M A REALLY FREAKING OPEN-MINDED, HETERO-SENSITIVE, HOMO/WHATEVER-FRIENDLY MOTHER.  And still, buying my son a dress was hard.  Really freaking hard.

We were in Target with the purpose of getting him a garment.  He was in the cart, cute as all hell in his little boy ensemble and his short hair and there I was holding up dresses.  First a dark gray one.

"How do you like this, baby?"

"I like the pink one."

"Are you sure?  This grey one's really nice."

"NO.  I want the pink one."  And this "pink" was like fire-engine fuchsia.  I squirmed.  And then I squirmed at my squirming.  I said, "Ok," and tossed it into the cart.

"Are you sure you don't just want a tutu?"  Somehow I felt that less fabric would be easier on me.

"NO.  I want the pink dress."

I sighed and rounded the rack of clothes.  That's when we spotted the same dress in lavender.  I was strangely mollified when he said he'd rather have the purple.  I swapped out the dresses, tossed in a matching purple tutu for good measure and wheeled to the register.

I was fascinated at my own reaction to this transaction.  I was self-conscious as I discussed my son's dress color preference around the other shoppers.  They kept looking at me, I was certain, like I was crazy/stupid/weird.  But I pressed on.  If only not to shame my son's desire to try wearing a piece of clothing he sees his best friends at school wearing (who happen to be girls).

Seriously.  What's the big effing deal??  But wait - I don't want to get ahead of myself here.

We checked out with no incident.  Not like the time I bought him sparkly red ballet flats.  (And again, trust me, I tried my  hardest to get him to pick the silver or black versions, but he wasn't to be dissuaded.  UGH.  WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM IN ME??)

That afternoon the checker was a 50-something woman with raisin-like skin and a hairdo that looked more tired than she was.  She saw the shoes and saw the boy.  Then looked at both twice again each for good measure.  She looked at me questioningly, "Yeah, he's a boy." I answered her unspoken question.  "And why can't a boy want sparkly shoes?  It's not his fault they only cover girl shoes in glitter," I bit out before she could say another word.

She stammered and, I thought, recovered well enough to say, "Well, I guess you're right."  I continued to glare at her for good measure.

Ok, so now we're back to Christmas Day, the day Hawk gets to open his skirted treasures.  And guess what?  He LOVED THEM.

At first he was shy and only wanted me and Rooster to see him in his dress.  Then, the twirling began and he was begging PapaMimi to watch him.  He wore that stupid dress over his footed pajamas for 8 yours.  We practically had to peel it off of his little body.

Rooster and I talked about our feelings.  Turns out he was surprised at his own confusion over it.  He said he wished he wasn't so torn up about it, but refused to elaborate more on the subject.  My mom, on the other hand, was more vocal about her worries.

"Are you gonna let him wear that to school??"

"Yes.  Why wouldn't I?  There's a little boy there who wore a Spiderman costume every day for almost the entire year.  Why can't Hawk wear a dress?" (Clearly I think there's some sort of ranking for strange clothing for children.)


"Well," she pursed her lips, and let the sentence die on the vine.  I bet I could fill in the rest, "... what will the kids say to him??"

So I went ahead and just answered, "I'll help him navigate that when it comes.  I'd never send him to a situation without first telling him what he might expect from others.  And if it's awful for him, we'd talk about it and go from there.  But, really, [his school] is not going to be a place of judgement or ridicule."

And so there you have it: I defended his right to wear a dress all the while battling my own sense of discomfort with the whole thing; my confusion.  What the fuck??  What's the big effing deal that my boy wants to wear a dress??  It means nothing.  And it yet means everything, something.  It's a visual representation of my love and support of him as well as a slap in the face of what we think should be.  It's beautiful and weird and awesome and honest. 

And I swear to God I will always support this kid's desires no matter how they challenge my antiquated notions.  I swear.

Taking Mimi to bed.

Gender stereotyping, sexuality, and toddlers: Bring on the lipgloss

 Has Hawk's exposure to other children bent him towards more "traditional" boy colors? 

There's something I've never really come out and said on this blog, though I've alluded to it in other places around the Internet: I'm bisexual.

As a young woman away from home this manifested in a proper girlfriend for a few months and later morphed into something less romantic and more sexually driven.  I've never had a relationship with a woman since.  I prefer relationships with men but am still attracted to women and enjoy their company when compelled.  If you can imagine that sexuality spectrum then I'm somewhere left of center closer to what would look like straight to you.

All my family and friends know, but I keep it close to my chest in most cases.  Every time I tell someone I'm "coming out."  It's a never-ending process and always causes me some nervousness.  The word "bi" seems trite and fickle, when it's neither.  I just don't have a better word for it.  Rooster knows how I'm oriented and never bat an eye about it; friends all knew long before I did and my family pretty much pretends I never told them (why wouldn't they?  if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, blah blah blah).

I'm sharing this now because Hawk is a boy -- genetically speaking, and I have raised him as such -- but I am extremely careful about the words I say when it comes to attraction and love.  I avoid asking him if he has any "girlfriends" at school, instead I ask him if he likes any boys or girls.  I encourage him to show loving affection to anyone who seems amenable to it, regardless of whether or not the recipient is a wee boy or girl.  And I make sure he sees me as openly affectionate to the world as I want to be.

I've trained my family and friends to do the same.  I'm the one who always adds, "... or boys!" to the  question of "Are there any cute girls at school??"  I'm pretty sure my family and in-laws think I'm nuts and overzealous about all of this, but too bad.

But my goal here is to normalize the spectrum of feelings he's beginning to develop; the bonds he's making with other children both boys and girls.  I remember quite vividly being attracted to boys when I was three because that's all I knew, but by the time I was six I had intense infatuations, lo, crushes, on other girls that I couldn't make any sense of.  If anyone had ever said to me, "Hi, Jessie!  So are there any boys or girls you have a crush on at school?" it would have revolutionized my childhood and I might have skipped over years of self-loathing and fear of my sexual proclivities.  Or maybe not, it's hard to tell, but it couldn't have hurt.

I don't want to take for granted what I imagine for my son.  I have no freaking clue where he's going to land on that sexual spectrum.  He could be as queer as a three-dollar bill or be straighter than a friggin' arrow, but I damn sure don't want to be the cause of fear and loathing in his own private Vegas.  Sexuality is confusing enough without any outside pressure to be someone or do something that doesn't come naturally.

At school he has two best friends.  A little girl named Fleur who plasters herself all over him on a daily basis, towering over him by an inch and toppling him with her vigor; and Keenan, a sprite of a boy with strawberry blond hair and bright blue eyes.  The two boys are particularly drawn to one another, seeming to share some unspoken thing between them, but Fleur isn't discouraged in the least and the three of them are usually found napping or eating lunch together like a pile of puppies.


Hawk's little heart is so open and pure to friendship no matter who it is right now.  When else are we ever this blank? this accepting?  I'd venture to say never again as we grow up and learn to judge others and it's now that I want to impress upon him the range of love.

Ok, so I've got my non-straight vernacular down and my kid is hanging with boys and girls with equal fervor.  What's next?

Well, quite honestly, it's onto tackling gender stereotypes.

I've written before about pink shoes and gender-neutral nurseries and how I've avoided shirts with footballs on them and things that hype up masculinity.  I buy more expensive Gap clothing for the sheer fact that I can get pink shirts there or Easter-colored plaid shorts (at least they used to have 'em).

And now that Hawk is more engaged with me as a little person he wants to do what I do, so that means every morning when I put on makeup, he "puts on makeup, too."  He paints his face with blush and smears his chin and lips with gloss and peers into the mirror exclaiming how pretty he is.  I encourage the exploration as enthusiastically as I would him mirroring his father's morning ablutions.  I mean, why not??  Allowing him to explore every facet of his life (which includes mine) will help him better define himself later on down the road when decision making is paramount.

 

All gussied up.

 Since starting school Hawk is exposed to so much more than just my bathoom.  The children at his school do all sorts of "traditional" play while continuing to mix it up and bend gender biases.  Boys shoot each other with sticks while wearing dresses and girls try to figure out the best way to scoop dirt with the dump trucks while braiding each other's hair.   It's all a hodge-podge, as well it should be.

All this to say, though, I am still unable to erase all gender-specificity from his life.  He is drawn to things with wheels and gadgets, rockets, lightsabers, guns, any kind of tractor or piece of heavy machinery.  The other day he shot an older couple at Wholefoods with a bunch of carrots, the spray of green fronds tucked under his armpit.  They chuckled and told me it was "a boy thing."  I had to agree since every little girl I know would have been rocking that bunch of carrots and combing the greens instead.

I also admit to not buying him clothing from the girls' section.  I avoid scalloped trim and puffy sleeves, skirts and dresses.  I'll buy him the pinkest pink shirt but it will be an androgynous cut.  I hope it's enough to let him identify with being a boy without too much pressure to stay in that particular box.  If he ever wants to wear a dress to school I'll back him up the best I can and pray the kids don't eat him alive.  I'll explain to him what might happen and why and see where he takes it from there.

His bedroom is still pretty much just a kid's room, except for the tractor pillow cases he made with my mom.  I mean, I'm sure there's a girl out there obsessed with tractors, too, I just haven't met her yet.

Ok, Spiderman might be a hint there's a boy in residence, too.

And yet, just the other day, we were at my friend's house with her twin daughters and Hawk dove right into a spare princess dress and happily proclaimed he was a princess, too.

 

He fluffed his tutu.

Kids explore and they search and they play with everything that crosses their paths and this includes concepts as well as preconceived notions.  Just because we see a certain trajectory for them doesn't mean it's what they're going to choose.  I believe that keeping our words non-straight friendly and our minds open to imaginative play without gender discrimination we can teach a child to accept him or herself later on down the road.  And it also doesn't hurt to start to re-program our own ways of thinking about gender and sexual orientation.  Take it from one non-straight person, it's better to be flexible now rather than later.

How do you guys approach this whole thing??


Oh, and here's Hawk's new pair of Crocs:

Surprised?

Dealing with my hate of advertising

This is so wrong on so many levels.

I am staunchly against "themed" toys. Anthony thinks I overreact to things like "pretty princesses" and our kiddie camping chair with Disney's Cars plastered all over it (I HATE it). But after years of studying advertising and its affects on a kid's perception of him- or herself and their world I think it's safe to say it skews things towards a marketer's world view. Not a realistic, humanistic view.

I think that McDonalds and the like, should not be allowed to include toys in their meals, or even cartoons. I think that Disney should stick to making movies and maybe a themed lunch box or two, maybe a pair of sheets, but not a whole suite of themed merchandise. We're just over saturated.

I remember having a set of Miss Piggy sheets and they were special. Is it special anymore to have a thousand things with a franchise plastered all over it??

Currently in our house it's not an issue, but I'm gearing up for it. I have to be prepared even though right now Hollis plays with a turkey baster and is happy. There will come a time when he might say, "Mommy, I want that Spiderman backpack" and I'll have to consider his little kid desires against my natural inclination to avoid brand-loyalty, consumerism, and sexism. Why won't he want the Wonder Woman bag?? Or the Cinderella bag?? (Although, maybe I'm not giving him credit and he may want one of those in which case I'll be thrilled he's following his own heart, but I'll still have to contend with the mass-branding of a money-making franchise...)

I was just at a good friend's house who has 2 1/2 year old twin girls and her living room was filled with "little girl" toys: mini high chairs and baby play pens for their dolls, all plastered with Disney princesses and in bright pink. I thought, "Will my living room one day be filled with a mini-garage set up in dark greens and blues?"

My friend is an opinionated, fiery feminist and plans fully on leading by example that women are equal to men, can do everything a man can do intellectually, and can do whatever their hearts desires, yet, her room was filled with stereotypically "girl" toys. Why was that?

"All this is from my mom," she explained with a laugh.

Aha! Exactly! And if I think to any stereotypically "boy" toys that Hollis might have it's usually from a friend or family member. Thankfully, no guns, yet. I think I'll just donate those outright (sorry, Granddad, if you had big plans on "shooting" things with your grandson).

I have another friend, again, another wickedly smart woman and feminist, whose 3 year old is obsessed with princesses. I laugh because of course she'd want to wear her tiaras and princess costumes all day every day. OF COURSE she would! And my friend lets her and it's wonderful and amazing and I know that this little girl will remember her childhood full of magic and fun even while she enters womanhood with a her mother's voice in her ear about how woman are powerful beings and can do anything they want in the whole wide world.

Will I have the presence of mind to be as kind with Hollis??

I've written countless papers on this stuff over the years, most notably I did research on the affects of advertising (images and otherwise) on girls relating to their body image and any eating disorders vs. the affects of their mother's views of their own bodies and a girl's body image and issues with eating. I wanted to know which had more weight in a girl's life: her mother or advertising.

In my research I found a stronger correlation between how a mother felt about her body and her daughter's body image than advertising's effects on a girls' ideas alone. Basically, a daughter will follow her mother's lead.

However, and this was very important, advertising could still be darkly superior in a girl's life if her relationship with her mother was not a good one.

Will commercials and movies dominate my child's choices if I am not a positively strong enough force in his life? Will he think he has to make everything into a gun? Will he think that men have to be masculine and never cry? Big and brawny? Tight-lipped?

I remember a study I read where given a stick, the boys would shoot with it or jab it; the girls would cradle it or coo to it. And all this with no former knowledge of stereotypes according to their parents who kept dolls and guns out of the home and only gave them gender neutral toys and books and they themselves considered their roles to be non-stereotypical (as in, they shared all chores and care giving). All this to say, Hollis has hard wiring in him that is totally foreign to me.

Right now Hollis loves his play kitchen and pots and pans, but he shows no interest in his doll, Lukas. He'll pick up sticks in the back yard and he pokes everything and swats at the cat. He doesn't cradle it or talk to it. He's started making motor noises for things and has them "drive" all over everything. I haven't seen any little girl do that at this age. And he's only ever watched a little Sesame St. on YouTube so where is he getting this?

I know he's a boy, but it's weird to see him shift from a gender neutral kind of little being into a more "boyish" figure.

What has been your biggest struggle in this department? Do you give in? Or do you draw the line at the brand-marketing and stereotyped toys??

I just hope I can keep up an intelligent dialogue with him on this stuff and not sweat the small stuff, like having a living room full of pink, princess toys.