A little boy in England is banned from playgroup for wearing his princess dresses. JJ Vincent is tired of how common these stories have become.
I was sent this link earlier today with the headline, “‘If wearing a princess dress makes my son happy, it’s fine with me!’ Mother outraged as church bans her five-year-old son from playgroup for wearing girls’ clothing.”
I hate getting these. I love getting these.
I love getting them because each one shows a parent or caretaker loving their child for who they are and letting them express themselves as they choose, whether it be in princess dresses or pink sneakers or baseball caps and ties (little girls get called out , too).
I hate getting them because in most cases, the other kids don’t care. It’s the adults making an issue of it, and teaching their kids to make an issue of it, too.
Children aren’t born with hate. They aren’t born to harrass and ostracize and judge and fear.
They are taught, just as they are taught kindness and acceptance and understanding and love.
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I have friends with boys who bounce back and forth from wearing their sister’s dress-up clothes to their own torn-up, grungy overalls. I know boys who treasure their sparky blue jeans and wouldn’t be caught dead near a football, and others who sneak some polish onto their toes.
I’m afraid they will stop.
I’m afraid it will become something to be hidden, that people will nod with satisfaction that it really was “just a phase”.
It might be. It might not be. Sometimes it doesn’t go away.
It won’t be gone, but no one will see it, not because they stopped liking it, but because they won’t want to pay the social penalty. Even barely-grade-schoolers are old enough to understand dirty looks, peers being pulled away. They don’t understand why people think it’s not ok for them to wear bracelets and purple hair to a playgroup, but they understand what is happening.
Some parents embrace their child’s “differentness”. Some try to find a middle ground, that it’s ok here but not there, or it’s ok then but not now. Others encourage them (at best) to let it go, thinking they’ll save them from bullying and ostracism or some sort of punishment. At worst, they hurt it out of them.
There are four lessons here: 1. It’s ok to be who you are. 2. Sometimes it’s ok to be yourself, sometimes it’s not. 3. Sometimes you need to change and hold for a bit. 4. It’s ok to let other people tell you who to be, and look what happens if you don’t.
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I hope with everything in me that we stop seeing these stories.
Not the stories of loving, accepting parents. We need more of those. We need to see families of all sorts rallying for children.
I’m tired of the sad ones, the too-common stories of boys being told they are not ok by adults who should be guiding, not shaming.
Because as much as I love pink boys and princess boys and kid bronies and the families and friends around them, I’d love them to become news for joyful reasons.
More, please…
A Husband. A Pink Tutu. A Portrait of a Marriage in Action.
Yes, I’m Letting My Son Wear Pink Dresses
The Problem with Pink (best line: If only the parents could learn to play nicely)
“‘If wearing a princess dress makes my son happy, it’s fine with me!’
and the father has no problem with it according to the paper. very good.
the boy’s outfit while a little flouncy in the skirt drops below the knee, and so is modest.
and reminds me of male clothing in the european middle ages (if i can bothered or if someone aggravates me i might find a painting or two)
what caught my interest more, was the number of comments and thumbs-up in support of the boy.