Stephanie Kaloi is ready to accept that her son wants to dress more like society’s expectations of a boy.
I have spent most of my son’s nearly four years on the planet scouring thrift stores and online shops for fun, colorful, and bright clothing. It’s been easy to meander back and forth between boy’s and girl’s departments as, for the most part, a lot of the clothes could work on a boy or girl.
Granted, my son has worn his fair share of puff sleeves and rainbows, but MOST of his clothing has been boy-leaning, with a dash of glitter on a sleeve.
As he’s gotten older I’ve increasingly struggled with finding stuff that works -– a lot of toddler and preschooler boy clothing is dominated by stripes, robots, and dinosaurs, while girl’s stuff is covered up with stars, hearts, ribbons, and lace. No matter: with the right balance and stubbornness, I’ve been able to find stuff that we both like.
Granted, I’ve noticed that through the months the clothing he’s wearing is more dominated by dark greens and reds instead of bright yellows and pinks, but that’s cool. He’s a dude, and until he declares a gender persuasion, I’m going to assume he’ll fall in line with most dudes.
Before I go further, I get that a lot of people really don’t care about gender-neutral clothing for kids, and I’m OK with that. My desire to dress my son in bright colors that could work for a boy or girl is half a political stance and half a frustration with how despondently boring I find most boy’s clothing. It’s been a kind of song and dance I’ve been performing: how much fun can I have?
Back to my mission. The other day I was leafing through the racks of a local Goodwill when I saw it: a bright pink sweater covered with multi-colored hearts. I swooned, smiled, and then stopped: Was this too girly?
My son is in preschool now, and even though the kids range between 3 ½ and 5, they still notice this kind of thing. A few weeks ago, my son said he wanted to have long hair, longer than mine. I told him he needed to grow out his bangs to make this dream a reality, so we pulled them back with a hair band.
Upon entering the school, he was immediately greeted by his friend, who asked, “Why is your hair like that? It’s like a girl’s.”
This was TOTALLY a legitimate reaction—and one that I anticipated and told my son would probably happen—and the kid’s mom did a wonderful job of answering, “He’s growing out his hair, it’s not a big deal,” without missing a beat.
But this was the first time that I realized that these kids, as young as they are, are really picking up on all of the gender cues around them. No one told my son his hair was wrong, and as far as I know it wasn’t a topic of conversation the rest of the day, but a few days later he said he wanted a haircut, so part of me thinks the exchange stuck with him.
That, or he just got sick of his hair in his eyes.
Ultimately, I think the whole hair discussion impacted me more than him—a few months ago I’m not sure if I would have even batted an eye at the heart sweater. I would have just bought it and been done with it. Now I pause, and ask myself if I would want to be a little boy in a pink, heart-adorned sweater. As much as I’d love for that answer to be, “Hell yes!” I wasn’t surprised when it was “Eh, probably not.”
And right now, I realize this isn’t the biggest deal in the world. Right now, my kid is wearing an Angry Birds pajama shirt and owl-covered tights under plaid pants, and that outfit is awesome. It’s colorful and fun, but it’s also a little more boy-friendly than clothing he’s donned in the past.
I suppose this is all part of realizing my kid is getting older, but there’s a real part of me that mourns the loss of freedom in clothing, however temporary it may be. For all I know, he’ll totally be into glitter and sparkles when he’s 8, 15, or 25—or he won’t. I will be perfectly fine either way, because it’s not my call to make.
But, MAN, I’m going to miss those rainbows in the meantime.
Originally appeared at xoJane
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I totally understand. Boys clothes choices are boring.
So I deliberately kept my son’s hair way long into the girl-range until he started school. That way he could and did wear anything without comment. But after the haircut we put the real unquestionably girl things into the collection for just wearing at home.
He’s seven now, pretty much all boy, except when one gf comes to play. Then he’s quite likely to be the one in the glitter blouse and skirt. But out of respect to gender norms, his most recent pettiskirt is BLUE!
My son is now a young adult. When he was born nearly every clothing retailer sold ‘girls’ clothes and ‘boys’ clothes for babies – the ubiquitous pink and blue babygrows and here and there and yellow for parents who didn’t want to know the sex before the birth. This was more than 20 years ago. I decided to dress my son in gender neutral clothing and it was very difficult to do. But I found suitable outfits in bright primary colours and nobody ever thought he looked remarkable other than remarkably smart and much more colourful than his pink/blue /beige… Read more »
How sweet. Moby would be proud.
Get this kid a slingshot, and tell him to nail the next moron who tries to dress him like a girl.
The rules do matter, though. The rules bind us as humans to humanity, and teach us about meaning and values. To put another way, the rules are the code by which humanity knows you want to contribute and be a productive member. Breaking the rules haphazardly and without cause can signal to the people around you that you’re not safe. Now, I wholeheartedly support rebellion and revolution. There are lots of rules and systems that need to evolve for the sake of survival. But that’s only when those systems are getting in the way of humans expressing themselves. We learn… Read more »
“But that’s only when those systems are getting in the way of humans expressing themselves. We learn as children to follow the rules first, and practice that. Once we’ve learned the rules, then we learn how to bend and break them, but only after having the context and experience of following them. Breaking rules is most potent when you know how to follow them first because it signals a conscious choice and expression by the individual.” In that case, those systems ARE designed to get in the way of humans expressing themselves. It’s meant to create good little clones who… Read more »
It’s interesting that she says “even though the kids range between 3 ½ and 5, they still notice this kind of thing.” She doesn’t seem to realize that this is the exact age that they are going to worry about it most. Preschoolers are working very hard at figuring out gender–am I a boy or a girl? What makes us different? What does a boy or a girl do? If I do boy stuff will I accidentally change into a boy? Oh no, I’d better stick with the rules! It seems that preschoolers absorb the ‘rules’ and then apply them… Read more »
“It seems that preschoolers absorb the ‘rules’ and then apply them with great enthusiasm.” The way to respond to your kid applying the rules in this way is to dispel the myth that those “rules” actually matter, define people, or have to be observe for anything to function right. Drag queens and female lumberjacks don’t make the world explode. We should have kids learn that identity isn’t something you need constantly validated. And I’m saying that as a trans woman (identity validation is very important to me almost by definition). I can live with being misgendered sometimes by clueless people,… Read more »
I don’t think you understood my point, which was that concern and rigidity about gender rules is a normal developmental phase for preschool children as they try to figure out the world and how they fit within it. As they get older, they relax and learn that the world is not governed by strict rules–but at ages 3-5 they crave pattern.
This.
So glad I had kids before Mommybloggers could tell me what I was doing wrong. I sure had no trouble finding bright colored clothing for boys or girls. Maybe LA is just more colorful than Portland? Or else, buying at thrift stores means the colors had faded?
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You can disagree all you want. Please do.
This again, isn’t about your son. Count the “I” and “me” statements. This is about your priorities. Not about what your son actually wants.
Isn’t her whole point that she’s going along with what he wants? He wants more boyish clothes, so she’s doing that for him. He wants to grow his hair long, so she’s going along with it, he wants it cut now, so they’re going to cut his hair? I mean, where is she saying “no” to him or judging this wanting boyish clothes and stuff? Yes, it IS all about her. She makes that clear. But it’s about her understanding masculinity and accepting the ways in which her son will express his own masculinity. If you want to go back… Read more »
“Isn’t her whole point that she’s going along with what he wants?” I think that’s her intended point, but her own words show that while she may have thought she was being “gender-neutral” until know, all she’s really done is dress her son like a girl until he got old enough to notice. I think it’s to her credit that she’s going along with that, but she’s deluding herself if she thinks it was gender-neutral until now. Consider: Granted, my son has worn his fair share of puff sleeves and rainbows, but MOST of his clothing has been boy-leaning, with… Read more »
You hit the bullseye Marcus. If she was really interested in true “gender neutrality” she would have been dressing the kid in black, grey, white, and brown. Instead she is intentionally choosing girl clothing and calling it gender neutral. To claim otherwise is disingenuous. She also said she found it boy clothes to be boring. I’ve never found robots and dinosaurs to be boring so she’s obviously projecting a dislike of traditional boy “decorations”. If she doesn’t like it that’s fine, but don’t call it boring. I wore a shirt to work the other day with a robot on it.… Read more »
Sometimes I really think human beings are doomed. If we aren’t forcing our own bullsh#t on our kids, we are writing articles about our own stuff for others to tear apart. Or both. Any parent who is that pushy with their kid (and yes, that pink heart shirt is most certainly coded “girly” in our culture and she knows it) is gonna cause them trouble, if not because of the topic at hand, but because they are willing to use them for articles. But then, there are parents who would do the very opposite only allowing traditionally coded clothes, disallowing… Read more »
Kids under say, 5 are at our mercy for the most part with what they wear and what we make them do. They should get a say. After they age up, they get even more because it is their body we are dealing with. We are so extraordinarily capable of messing up such easy stuff. Let the kid wear what he wants, buy a real variety of clothes and listen to what the child says. They are not full reflections of us and our own dysfunction when they are born, we make them that way. I agree! That’s how I’ve… Read more »
It’s odd, isn’t it? I get the desire to push against the norm, I do. I don’t think our pink/blue division is healthy or even rational. It’s a story we all believe, for the most, part, and we freak out when people shift from that story. I personally enjoy new stories and I don’t see any reason a boy or a girl shouldn’t get to pick what they want. I’m just not a fan of using my own kids as political tools when they aren’t old enough to consensually participate. It’s hard though. Writers write about what they see. Lord… Read more »
TW [Tangent Warning]: While I think some of it is a “writers write” thing, I think the bigger factor is how social media now leads to otherwise un-noteworthy reactions and opinions being broadcast, and that gives a false impression of importance sometimes. Twenty years ago, if someone made a passing comment about a kid they saw in public dressed like the opposite gender, that comment would live and die with the companion or small group of companions who heard it. Now if they tweet it, or status update it, or blog about it, that fleeting everyday opinion looks like it… Read more »
I agree with this. I wouldn’t put a pro-choice tee shirt on my kids. You know? But in some places, my sons’ long hair WAS a political statement. We didn’t cut their hair until they asked us to. That, in and of itself, is a political statement. The truth was, my husband had long hair in the 70s and loved it, loves it on the boys.
Is that a political statement?
Great post. This one wins the prize.
And this line is terrific: “and yes, that pink heart shirt is most certainly coded “girly” in our culture and she knows it”
Marcus, she’s not forcing him. She’s saying that when he wants to wear boyish clothes, she lets him and will continue to let him. That’s it. We ALL “force” our kids to wear stuff before they have opinions. My kids didn’t care what their clothes looked like aside from a character they may have wanted (ie Elmo) so until a certain age, Izac wore girlie stuff a lot. If he liked it, we went for it. Then he didn’t want girlie stuff and stopped putting on Petra’s dresses, and I didn’t care. See, we all choose our own kids’ stuff… Read more »
We ALL “force” our kids to wear stuff before they have opinions. Right. I said the same thing. Then Julie said it her way, and I agreed with her, too. The nit I’m picking with the author is that she represented what she was doing as being gender-neutral in how she dressed him until he could form and express his own preferences. To borrow some of Julie’s phrasing, to me that would mean choosing either colors and styles that are coded intersex, or a roughly balanced ratio of girly to boyish stuff. What she described sounded to me like dressing… Read more »
Joanna a child of that age isn’t choosing anything. Kids want to please their parents. If the kid can tell those are the clothes his mom likes of course that’s what he’s going to choose (and I mean previous to now since independence increases with age anyway).
Not my kids. Good heavens. I mean, if I got UPSET it might be different. But this mom isn’t a monster. If he says “no” she listens. Do you have kids, Jimbo? My kids, at least, want to please us, but if they don’t like a shirt they do NOT wear it. If there’s a situation where they have to wear something, like a wedding and a dress shirt, we enforce. But that’s literally like 4 times in their lives. They have never seemed to be trying to please us in their clothing choices. If they were, my kids would… Read more »
Wait wait wait….
Just growing out your bangs will make your entire head of hair grow longer?
Hair bands cause hair to grow faster?
Quit using the term “gender-neutral.” It’s obvious that boys being raised “gender-neutral” are very much being steered in a particular direction, and that direction is feminine. Well enough, but call it what it is because there is nothing “neutral” about this.
Hairbands and hairclips prevent loose hair from going in your face when your bangs are longer than eye length but shorter than the necessary length to put them behind ears and have them stay there (and then again, even when this length is attained, some still prefer the clips and hairbands, the hair has more chance to stay put this way). “It’s obvious that boys being raised “gender-neutral” are very much being steered in a particular direction, and that direction is feminine” If that’s true, it only speaks of how decidedly extremely restrained and limited male roles are allowed to… Read more »
Schala, Your responses are ridiculous. How you can you can read this putrid article and not see how horrible this woman has been to this poor child is beyond me. Even if we were to accept the claim the child is being raised “gender-neutral” (which itself is a moronic concept) this child is not being raised in that fashion. these two portions of the artcile speak highly of the disservice to this child: “As he’s gotten older I’ve increasingly struggled with finding stuff that works -– a lot of toddler and preschooler boy clothing is dominated by stripes, robots, and… Read more »
It’s a catch 22. There will be no winning this argument. Article after article on GMP is all about being “outside the box” and how society has to change the way they think. How many articles are about bullies? Yet here we have a mom who dresses her kid up like a girl and expects everyone else to “accept it” and not to judge. We dress our small kids. They like color and shapes. Looks to me like mommy wanted to make a statement and didn’t care about how it would affect the child. Very selfish from what I can… Read more »
Yes, let’s have all kids be clones of each other, lest others find a reason to bully your kid. But don’t worry, even if you’re the best conformist there is, they can still find reasons to bully your kid. So you’re stifling any and all expression of your kid…for nothing at all. Congratulations.
@Shala …What kind of “statement” would a 5 year old boy be making by wearing hearts and bows? The “statement” is moms and not his. Let’s get real here. Clone? I guess you believe that little kids should start out being individuals by the things they wear and not who they are? The reality is that this is all about mom struggling with the boy growing our of what SHE wanted him to wear.
My kids expressed themselves with their skills, talents and personality, not with what mom and/or dad wanted them to wear.
I still cannot figure out this website – and instead of simply deleting heretical thoughts, it would be great to find an answer. What do these articles about radical feminism have to do with being a good man? I know – I know – this is a forbidden topic, but why? Who decides what is posted? An article like this is obviously intended to pull the chain of any man who reads it. It is deliberately insulting. Yet it is one of many – in fact, it is the most prevalent theme here. Does anyone know why? And for pete’s… Read more »
You need to google ‘manosphere’.
Thanks I need the laugh today. This article reaches a high level of ridiculousness. ——– “My desire to dress my son in bright colors that could work for a boy or girl is half a political stance and half a frustration with how despondently boring I find most boy’s clothing.” ——– Yet another 20 something hipster parent who is more concerned about their own wants and needs than their child’s. I wouldn’t really care what you dress your kid in if you were buying equal amounts of boy clothing too. Instead you are sending the message that the styles of… Read more »
Masculine clothing is boring, that’s a known fact.
It was designed that way pretty recently. It used to be more colorful and more decorated, a marker of class, not of gender.
But since feminity became associated with aristocracy and masculinity became associated with ruggedness and being working class, any and all non-functional (read: decorative) clothing came to be seen as feminine, while masculine clothing needed to be entirely functional, a clone of what all other men wear.
This is a recent happening, I’d say no more than 100-150 years.
“Masculine clothing is boring, that’s a known fact.”
You need to learn the difference between what a fact is and what an opinion is. The sun is 92,960,000 miles from the Earth is a known fact. Masculine clothing is boring is an opinion and a retarded one at that. Might as well just schedule this kids first psychiatrist appointment right now.
Masculine clothing is boring, what men wears going to special occasions? SUIT, just SUIT. While women can wear thousand type of dresses, with long skirt, short skirt, showing off her cleavage, showing of their side boobs, etc. Its known fact for men to cover up everything they have on their bodies except for their head and hands to be called properly dressed and sexy, while women can wear anything, covering up or showing off their body and still called sexy and properly dressed. MODERN Men clothing is boring. Just compare men dresses on Roman Age to suits. Back then men… Read more »
VERY biased headline. “Society’s expectations of how boys are supposed to dress…” Really? That’s terrible. It could be that your son is indeed desiring to dress in a certain way, like a man, and wants to find male role models that he can imitate and aspire to be like. As a mom, you *could* chalk that up to the nurture side of the “nature vs. nurture” argument, but frankly that’s incredibly biased, and potentially harmful to your son. If you believe that masculine desires or behavior on his part are simply “societal expectations” you’re going to make him question his… Read more »
“This is a gendered comment that I’ve just made. And if you think that gender is a societal construct, you may be offended by it. That’s ok. However, men and women are different, and want different things as children. There is rich meaning in the male and female desires we experience and feel as we grow and mature. Not to say that men don’t experience or have feminine energy, or that women don’t experience or have masculine energy, but that men will overwhelmingly *prefer* and be drawn to masculine gendered behavior.” Are you aware that pants are a recent invention… Read more »