My son put on various dresses and tutus at that age in the comfort and shelter of our own home and his make believe world. I had no problem with it at all. We have pictures!
On the other hand, there’s no way in hell I’d let him wear it for Halloween. Not that I think it would reflect badly upon him at 4 years old, but I would seriously be embarrassed for me and my wife. Yes, I would worry in this case about what the neighbours thought. (Did you see the Leaf’s son? He was dressed up as Snow White! Whisper, whisper, whisper.) Nope. I wouldn’t let him do it.
When we get guys looking for a long time looking at ladies dresses or lingerie it creeps out my young staff and some of the older ladies.
I tell them.
They are customers and customers pay our craptacular salaries.
Isn’t it wonderful we live in a society where we don’t stone people any more for dressing against the norm (and you don’t know if they are looking for a dress for their wife/daughter/girlfriend. Women looking at men’s dress shirts isn’t creepy, so quit gender profiling. Blah blah blah.)
If women can wear pants, men can wear dresses. This is purely from Eddie Izzard. Thanks, Eddie!
Men in kilts are HOT.
My best friends youngest son ( she has three, and two of the three are ultra-go-go-competitive motocross boys.) let my daughter and her best friend spend an afternoon putting makeup and nail polish on him and doing his hair. He was 7. The parents were very ok with it. My other best friend has three boys and one of her boys, if I asked him to wear a dress to school with ribbons in his hair he would do it for a lark. He is a freshman in high school. He has no shame in that department. I love this kid so very much.
My son runs from the color pink ( and anything that resembles a tie) like it is a spider. He also runs from spiders, too.
I remember going as Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web when I was maybe 6. It’s a sad day when kids can’t dress up how they want because the parents would be embarrassed. Do you also duct tape their mouths shut so they can’t say anything untoward about people in the supermarket?
Why try to repress such a desire in a little kid? What do you tell them, wait until you are 21 and out of my house before you play dress up?
Do I tell my 4 yo girl she can’t wear a construction hat and tool belt for halloween? Oh I know what you’ll say… only if its pink and made for girls, right? :rolleyes:
Most kids love to play dress up, girls in men’s suits, boy’s in prom dresses, it’s all about role playing, imagination, creativity, expression, exploring…Why in the hell does someone want to squash that?
I get the feeling it’s the Dads who lack the confidence to handle the potential criticism from the alpha males in the neighborhood. And instead of sticking up for his little boy’s right to be snow white on halloween he caves in to conformity.
I would say no if he’s likely to get teases about it. I have no issues with the costume, but really it’s not worth it if the kid is gonna get teased for the next few years for a costume he wore for two or three hours.
I wore my older brother’s Halloween costumes for several years as a kid. I am, and always have been, a girl, and happy to be so. But one night a year it was fun to pretend to be somebody else.
Really? Is that really a good enough reason to avoid doing something? The trauma of potentially getting teased? I’ve never understood that rationale, makes no sense to me to let some harsh words from an imaginary bully dictate my choices in life. :dubious:
So now you tell the boy, no because he might get teased, he might get called girl, a fag, or a sissy and you don’t what that do you. Of course not, but you can bet your cowgirl boots as soon as he sees another male snow white on the block what’s he gonna do? Tease him, call him a girl, a fag or a sissy for wearing snow white, and he’ll mean it too because he’s pissed he couldn’t wear the crown. :smack:
Anyway, I played a guy plenty of times in dance and drama and loved it, rather better than being a girl. Doesn’t mean I want to be a guy. The kid just wants a dress.
As is often the case around here, we have an OP espousing a view that, while having *some *merit, is a bit distasteful because of the way it was expressed. On the other side, we have people falling all over themselves to show how open minded, loving and progressive they are.
I must admit I would be surprised if the six year old male child in my life asked to wear a female character’s costume for Halloween. Not angry or disappointed, but I sure would be wanting to get a little insight as to what he was thinking. I’m not a parent so if the consensus is that this is typical behavior for little boys then I’ll have to take your word for it. It doesn’t ring true for me in the slightest, but my experience with boys of that age is limited to my brother, cousins and my male friends when I was growing up. Again, not saying it’s “wrong” but I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to question or even feel a vague discomfort with it.
As for those comparing a young child dressing as the other gender to teenagers / frat boys: oh please. When the captain of the football team does it it’s because it’s the ultimate goof. The pinnacle of masculinity dragging, usually in the tackiest, sluttiest getup with as much stuffing as the dress will allow. It’s done with irony. A four year old may just like the way the pretty costume looks but I doubt it has any sexual connotations or really much of any other reasoning beyond that.
It seems to me that trying to deny him this, is a surefire way to make dressing as a girl far more attractive to him. Sort of like the school of thinking that believes my child will never have a play gun, as I oppose violence of any sort. My sister tried that. Didn’t work. The child became obsessed with the forbidden, it became all the more attractive. He just snapped a few wings off his xwing fighter model and, voila, laser gun. Once she let it go, he got it out of his system, it lost most of it’s appeal as it was no longer taboo. Grew up to be a peace loving, non gun liking, successful young man.
Nothing guarantees future gender issues, for your family, like telegraphing yours onto your child.
Akin to forbidding your 14yr old daughter from ever seeing that blond haired boy again, yeah, that’s gonna work out real good, wait and see.
Considering that I spent last night perusing websites that sell shoes for strippers and transvestites in order to find a pair of ruby slippers that will fit a man’s size 11 extra wide (my husband’s decided that he wants to Dorothy for Halloween this year), I don’t see it being a huge issue.
I don’t get the people who are saying it is okay now, but not later. There is no reason to encourage something that you do not want your kid to do later in life. It’s like those parents that laugh at their little kids’ wisecracks because they’re so cute, and then wonder why they talk back so much as an older kid.
I also want to point out that the whole “I disaprove, but I’ll let you do it anyways” is probably lost on a four year old. I have yet to meet one that can comprehend that level of moral complexity. If I let the child do something, I am saying it is okay.
As for the issue in the OP–I really don’t know. If it’s so insignificant, then letting the child go wouldn’t be that big a deal, but then again, not letting them wouldn’t, either. I do know that, even if the kid’s peers don’t make fun of him, the parents generally will. And they will also make fun of the parent. My parents and I got made fun of for a lot less.
I’m not sure I’d want my (hypothetical) daughter to wear a Snow White dress for Halloween. I would be gravely concerned about reinforcing feminine stereotypes in her before she was old enough to understand the strictures which go hand in hand with the stereotypes. Furthermore I would be reluctant to encourage the crassness of Disney commercialism and the politics of encouraging little girls to think of themselves as ‘princesses’. But if she still wanted to dress like Snow White, even after we discussed all that, I’d let her do it.
If my (hypothetical) son wanted to dress like Snow White, I would be more eager to encourage him to explore the boundaries of societal expectations. I would probably keep my concerns to myself until he’d tried it and we were discussing it afterwards.
I have no intention of having kids - it’s probably best for all of us.
Anecdote: my 3 yo niece has been drawn to the princess thing from the moment she could make her preferences known. I’m a little reluctant to indulge her in it, but it’s clearly all her. My sister is not the toddlers & tiaras type in any way. The niece was just born knowing that she should wear at least three tiaras at all times. Who am I to tell her otherwise? She has several boyfriends at daycare who all wear dresses in attempts to get her attention (with mixed success.) I’m sure if you asked her, she’d tell you, “Princesses are girls who were pretty dresses” and that would be the extent of it but I try hard not to inflict my political issues on her. When I was three, I was conflicted about wearing pretty dresses (I was worried about being vain). I’m glad she doesn’t worry about things like that.
