The other day I read a story about a woman whose son was in a tutu and a man came up to her and said some awful things.
The story was inspiring, that so many complete strangers came to this woman’s defense, and the message was clear: no one should be be bullied for the way they look. I couldn’t agree more.
My son loves beautiful pink dresses, too. Every morning he sneaks into his older sister’s closest and puts on the same pink dress. He comes downstairs in it, eats breakfast in it, talks to the neighbor kids in it, takes his sister to the bus in it, but when it is time to leave the house I ask him to take it off and put on his boy clothes. For a while he threw a few fits, and since then he knows the rules: he can wear it at home and around the yard area, but when he is going to school or on a play date, or to the grocery store, he changes. This is where this mom and I differ. So does that make me a mom who is conforming to some sort of gender lines? Maybe. But here is how I see it.
My son is too young to be making some sort of statement. All he knows is his sister wears these long pink things and so he wants to wear them too. He doesn’t know what he is doing by putting them on, he doesn’t understand why his sisters first thought it was so funny, or why my in-laws have to consistently bite their tongues and roll their eyes.
It is no different than months ago when he was refusing to wear any clothes at all. He threw fits to leave the house in nothing but shoes. We would get in drag out wars as I put his clothes on and he repeatedly tore them off. So as his mother, I had to make the decision for him and explain that no matter how upset he was he couldn’t go outside without clothes on. I mean, he could….no one would arrest me, people might even comment on that cute baby butt. To me, this is no different.
I don’t need my 2 year old to be my expression of my own liberal views I don’t need him to be some sort of statement on gender neutrality. Not at 2 years old. If he comes to me at 6 years old, knowing damn well what the long pink material is and what is means and he feels he needs to wear it anyway, then great, I will buy him all the beautiful dresses his little heart can desire. And if he is 15 years old and comes to me and says he is gay or trans or bi or gender neutral, then great, I will hug him and accept him for whoever he is as long as he is happy. But not when he doesn’t know what he is doing. I don’t want him to look back at school pictures and ask me how I could have let him go out of the house like that. So as far as I see it, I am defending and protecting him until he is old enough to navigate gender and sexuality all on his own.
About the author: Liz Gantz is married to her high school sweetheart and a stay-at-home mom of four. Born and raised in the city of Chicago, she recently gave in and made the move to the suburbs. When she isn’t wrangling her kids she can be found writing or complaining about how much she misses the city. You can follow her hilariously chaotic life on Instagram.
