Chadwick Moyer’s three-year-old son Fallow doesn’t care how revolutionary you think wearing a dress is. The only thing he cares about is being happy.
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This my son Fallow. He is three years old and recently received his very first dress. While this dress is a far cry from his original dream dress, this was the dress he grabbed from the shelf. In this very moment, I was a very proud parent. However, I want to make it clear, my son is not a cross dresser. While many articles of clothing are better conformed to the female body, we don’t believe in male or female clothing. We never raised our kids to see the difference, so, when Fallow saw Frozen for the first time and wanted an ice dress, there were no politics, no anti-gender binary rants, just a little boy who simply wanted a dress.
I will be the first to admit, I did go through the motions when I finally handed the cashier my card. I felt anxious and worried what other parents thought about me buying my son a dress. Even as a parent who doesn’t identify within the gender binary, social norms have a way of creeping in and taking hold of us all. Of course, for me, it is easy to push away these thoughts.
Fallow is three, so he really has no understanding of gender or sex. At this point, he identifies as a boy. When it comes to wearing a dress, he has both feeling of excitement (as seen in the picture) and shame for wearing his dress. On the first day he wore his dress, he was amazed by how “cozy” it was. He said with great confidence, “I love my dress!” However, he also worried about how our roommate would react when she came home. We were quite puzzled, where did he get this idea that people would make fun of him for wearing a dress?
Soon after, the dress got stored away, as we were in middle of a move to a new city closer to my office. It didn’t come out until we were at our new apartment. When it did, Fallow was more confident in wearing his dress. He was using it and his imagination, to create a costume. He wanted to be Link from Legend Of Zelda. You know, the video game about the daring young boy whose destiny is to save the princess Zelda. Link, wears a tunic and tights, but as far as my three year old is concerned, he wears a dress.
Link inspired Fallow to be confident in wearing his dress outside of the house. So when he was asked if he wanted to go out for ice cream with my partner and her very conservative mother, he was excited to show Grandma his new costume. I’ll admit, in my mind, I was a little resistant to the idea, knowing the outcome nearly before it happened. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to take his dress away from him, I’m not going to shame him into dressing “like a boy” like all boys and men have for years. So we decided, that it would be good for his confidence for him to express himself outside of the comfort and privacy of home and we would be the worst parents ever if we took that opportunity away from him.
Upon his arrival back home, he seemed crushed. He seemed to be ashamed of his dress and himself. Turns out, ice cream wasn’t all he got. The outing ended with my partner’s mother kneeling down to Fallow’s level to discuss with him that “dresses are for girls”. When my partner told me the story, I was outraged. I immediately wrote grandma a text, calling her out for bullying my son and not embracing his individuality. Then came the damage control with my heartbroken son. Puzzled with how to go about this, I sat Fallow down at my computer and showed him a Google search of men in kilts and quickly realized that there is nothing more homoerotic than a Google search of men in kilts, yikes.
After showing Fallow a couple of G rated pictures of men in kilts, he was back up chasing his brother with a sword again, trying to save Zelda. He too, realized that dresses can be for everyone.
It may not be clear, but, I guess what I am trying to say is, my son, doesn’t care how revolutionary you think wearing a dress is. The only thing he cares about is being happy. Whether he is dressed as Spiderman, acting like a puppy, meowing at a cat, or wearing a dress because he wants to be a princess, he is just pretending at this point. No one kneels down to tell him that meowing is for cats and no one should. Even when he is simply wearing his “cozy” dress, he is happy in his dress, so don’t be a jerk. He isn’t wearing a dress to inspire anyone, he isn’t wearing it to say, “fuck the gender binary”, and he definitely isn’t wearing it to piss you off. He just wants to save princesses and look fabulous doing it. So, leave him and other little boys alone.
Originally published on Medium.com
Photo of Fallow courtesy of author
Photo of Link from WikiHow
Photo of Men in Kilts: JenniFrog/Flickr
The grandma needs to shut up and mind her business. I am sure she was wearing pants as she scolded the boy for wearing a dress. Hypocrite!
I think lisa has a point Chadwick. Grandma was raised in a different time and her beliefs are more rooted than yours. Certaily around tbis subject. Even yours were somewhat challenged by how people might react when buying it. Personally i believe that there are no such things as boy or girl stuff, its just stuff. The cut of one thing may look better on a girl but by itself the concept, a dress or skirt, toy or whatever is just an article of clothing devoid of intrinsic meaning to the article itself. But culturally only a few of us… Read more »
I found the writing Grandam a text amusing. Grandma wasnt doing any harm. It takes a community to raise a child, and she is part of it. She wasnt bullying him she was doing what Grandmothers try to do and that is to guide him. It was a different opinion that perhaps should be adressed in a conversation not a text.
My personal definition of manhood and masculinity is living life on your own terms and NOT what society says it should be llived as! Ultimately this little boy is arguably as manly as any Navy SEAL or US Marine!