son wears a dress.... - Page 4

[Hikaru]

This thread hits me where it hurts

I logged in today for the first time in ages and whoo hoo, this thread is really speaking to me. A few days ago
we needed to order a winter jacket for my son (two and a half) and I showed him the catalogue and asked him which color he wanted.
Of course he pointed to the bright pink one and I am totally ashamed that my first reaction was to try and talk him out of it!
As a biracial child he is already singled out for being different and I
just couldn't expose him to the teasing that he inevitably would have experienced.
BTW, I showed him the catalogue again later and he pointed to the yellow jacket, so I rushed to order that one for him before he could change his mind again.

Oh yes, another thing. Yesterday I had a Halloween party in one of the college classes I teach. I told the kids to wear costumes...
and two of the guys showed up in skirts.....and I am pretty sure both of them are straight (not that it matters really). Clearly some guys just like to play dress up, and don't necessarily outgrow it as they get older.

[Xenogenesis]

My son looovves the colour "pink"

[tara]

"Gender identity consists of two components: a person's sexual identity, which is biological, and a person's role identity, which is cultural? They need adult help to understand that their gender identity is based on their anatomy; ?not ? what they like or do, how they dress, what they feel, and how they express their feelings."

Hmmmmm.... I know it isn't often that a child is transgendered (don't know the stats, but it's pretty rare), but I know from my partner's childhood stories how very, very hard it is for a trans child to be told over and over, "You're a girl. You have a vagina. You're a girl," when he feels like a boy inside (or vice versa). For this reason, we don't plan to make the connection between anatomy and gender so cut in stone. It's not. Well, for most people I suppose it is, but in reality there are so many shades of grey in there. Basically, from my experience being partnered to someone who is trans, I call my child a boy but feel like we never know until he's old enough to tell us himself.

Check out this article: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Really great article about raising a transgendered child.

[selket]

My son also pulls his shirts down to make skirts. For long hair he puts a pair of his sisters tights on his head or he rolls up the sleeves of a shirt then puts it on his head for the Princess Leia "bun" look, I thought that was pretty clever!
A common theme in these threads is that it might be just a stage. That was the mantra in this house for a period of time and then befor you knew it he was five and still very feminine. So we decided to just parent in the moment. It can get very frustrating
when you are waiting for something to change that's absolutely beyond your control.
Just one more comment, I'm sure you have thought of offering him choices when role playing. In my experience ds would have none of it, he was a girl or nothing. It's still that way, he's always correcting his sister during play when she calls him brother.
I don't know anyone around me with wonderfully creative boys like my son, it's comforting to read about all these different experiences.

[bindimama]

I want to be 'Just a girl'!

Hi again, its bindimama here. Its lovely to read all these messages regarding boys opting for things that are considered 'girlish'. I feel so liberated yet so saddened at the same time. My son Callum pleaded with me at two and a half, he said 'make me a girl Mummy'. For so long I let him be who he wanted to be, but at this stage he believes he is a girl, and hates any reference to 'boy' stuff. He denies even having a penis, and pushes it back up so its not visible!
My husband and I started correcting him when he said he was a girl and said you are pretending to be a girl. But he says, I want to be just a girl.........Lately his two year old brother says he's a girl too, but I correct him immediately and say he is a boy, and he laughs! I couln't go through the same saga again..... but I feel he's picking up behaviour rather than any desire to be anything else. He is a TURBO charged boy and no matter how he pretends to be a princess, it doesn't look convincing.
I made cloaks for Hallow'een, and Cal converted being a wizard into a princess! Its always interesting in my house......
bindimama

[leafylady]

I skimmed through most of the replies. My 2 year old boy loves the idea of being a princess. I don't think he identifies it with being a boy or girl. He likes to wrap up in my long sheer curtains and talk about being a princess. Why wouldn't he- the costumes are glitzy and fascinating. The princesses get all sorts of attention on tv shows. We don't make a big issue of it. We probably encourage him more towards other types of play, but we don't discourage the princess stuff.

He also likes cars, swords, and all sorts of stuff. He hasn't wanted to wear dresses out of the house. If he did, I'd probably dress him up in some type of male robe or wizard dress. We generally don't wear dress up clothes out of the house anyway.

Gender issues? Those seemed like odd responses to me too.
I don't even think about those at 2 yrs old. He is not worried about being a boy or a girl right now- just a kid. My cousin said her little boy used to love having the older girl cousins make him all up with makeup and dresses. Now he's a teen boy into skateboards and jeans. Why worry about the gender stuff now? I haven't seen any definitive study on clothing and makeup in early childhood and its effect on gender issues in later life.

By the way dad is a definitely manly man, blacksmith knifemaker. He doesn't have a problem with this stuff either. Male role modeling has more to do with behavior, not dress.

[montanafiddler]

HI all, I'm new!
Wow, what a read! Alexis, I immediately thought of my "little brother" at 6 and 7 yr. I remember the time he sat still for HOURS braiding microscopic pieces of wool into the longest, thinnest braid possible. Then, he crowned himself with his creation and revealed his HAIR! He told me that it matched mine and wore it proudly thru town, to music lessons, the homeschool group, field trips..... for a year! he still has that hair braid curled up in the army trunk somewhere. after it served as hair he reverted it to a tail. it never meant "girl" or "boy" to him, just hair and then tail .
I distinctly remember another time we were playing "little house" and he told me to go hunt cause he was taking care of the "children" (dolls).
Doesn't anyone remember the days when boys wore dresses till age 3 when they were shortened? KNow why? So they wouldn't crawl or toddle near fire before understanding danger!:

[veganmamma]

Check out the French movie Ma Vie En Rose, it's in the foreign section of every major video rental place. It's about a family with a similar struggle, and they tend not to handle it so well. It may do you well to see what it's like from the boy's point of view.
Lauren

[selket]

Bindimama, my son used to do the exact same thing to his penis. It was pretty shocking at first, but now he seems to have accepted it. He also used to insist that all girls have penises.
What more can we do than to let them express themselves?
My son is going out as Avril Lavigne for halloween she's this punky pop singer who is big in Canada right now. There is never a dull moment in my house either, I can easily say he makes us laugh daily with his get-ups and the greatest thing is that he laughs at himself.
Hope I'm not sounding too preachy or anything I can just totally identify with what you are going through. It can be really frustrating sometimes.
Selket

[fummy mommy]

for what it's worth. My ds who is now four wears a dress often. he also pretends he is Marry Ingalls. He does have an older sister who likes to dress him "properly". Both my dh and I have let him wear a dress out in public. He has worn one to church , the library, visiting a friends house. sometimes he digs inthe dirt with his "best dress" on. When we go out in public I just make sure that his wearing underwear, or shorts. but he loves to play in the dirt with his work pants on too. My dh and I figure they are just clothes, and he can wear what he wants. He even wears a girls swimming suit when we go swimming. But now that it is colder out and snow is landing on the ground the dress thing has slowed down.

[indigofamily]

I know exactly what you are going through. My son was 2 or 3 when he declared that he wanted to be a girl. I think this had a lot to do with advertising--"It's a great time to be a girl-Barbie"
Almost everything he was interested in was supposedly for girls. My husband and I chose not to buy into these stereotypes-thank goodness. I say support your child's interests and love him for the creative boy he is becoming! Yes, it has been hard sometimes- I kept wondering if he would outgrow this-if he needed therapy-if I was "turning him gay" -but these were my own insecurities-not the worries of a creative kid. My son just turned 9 and he still loves the costumes-but now they also include star wars capes and Harry Potter cloaks! He also loves paper airplanes,legos, Titanic history, collecting bugs, bmx racing,skateboarding,etc
lots of "boy"stuff! There is a book called Gender Shock-Exploding the Myth of Male and Female- I can't remember the authors name,if you can't find it please e-mail me and I'll try to find it. It was a great help to me and saved us a lot of worrying and frustration. We also have a 3 yo girl who is quite a tomboy-go figure!

[amy mama]

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. What bothers me about this is how it is really about sexism-the traditional anti-woman kind. After all, when our little girls like to climb trees and play sports and wear jeans, most of us prouldy say, "oh, what a little tomboy she is." People are happy to see a girl exhibiting strong "boy"like qualities. But because there still is such wide disregard for things thought of as feminine-it's not ok for boys to do things that are seen as "girly". When will society stop equating pink,soft,nurturing things with being weak and silly and having no value-and certainly not good enough for a boy? what is inherently girlish (i.e. bad) about fairies and pink? And what is inherently boyish (i.e. admirable and good) about being strong and climbing trees? Shouldn't our children have the ability to be both strong and nurturing, and like things that are pink and blue? It's 2002 already.

ok, mini-rant officially over.

[Stylishned]

Boys playing with girl's dolls and stuff.

Hay what is wrong with a 2 year old boy playing with girl's stuff like dolls and things. When I was three I used to love to have my mother put finger nial polish on my nails. I even rember once I wanted to wear lip stick to school, which I was not allowed to do. I even like to wear skirts and dresses with my aunt Linda playing dress up, I had a grand time too. I guess the only thing I refused to wear was the rumba panties and no one forced me too.
Don't worry about your son, he is as normal as can be. He will turn out to be a fine young man, wait and see.

Now I am a granddad with eight grand kids, and a wife that can't be beat! She is a great mother to our Kids and a Great grandma to the grand kids.