Frankly, when my son asked to do similar things I recognized any discomfort I may have was my issue, not his. My discomfort was not a good enough reason to say no.
If I had a son, I’d not let him wear a dress for halloween at 4. Some here say that it’s OK because he has no clue about gender roles. To me, that’s the very reason not to let him. He needs to learn the facts before he starts to suffer the consequences. If he comes to me when he’s 13 and says, “Dad, I’m wearing a Snow White dress for Halloween” then I’d say, “Well, you know you’re gonna catch crap for it, so it’s your choice.”
That’s the thing: your “gut feeling” here seems at odds with your acceptance of gender equality and gay rights. Note that I’m not accusing you of being dishonest or disingenuous when you say you support gay rights! But it would be interesting to see you articulate an intellectual defense of your gut feeling that wouldn’t be invalidated by your philosophical positions on gender and sexuality. For example, it seems to me that someone who would be embarrassed by their four year old son wearing a dress for Halloween would be mortified by their fourteen year old son wanting to take another boy to the school dance. I can’t think of any reason to oppose the former that would not apply equally to the latter, but from your posts, it sounds like you feel differently. I’m curious how that works.
And here’s the relevant Onion link: Yay!
I’m reminded of when I ran across the ‘one-legged pant’ for men at a store in the mall once. For girls it’s a skirt, but for men, it was the one-legged pant? I got a giggle out of it anyway.
As far as the OP, I don’t have kids, so I have no idea what I would say. Seeing someone else letting their kid do it? Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. When I was a kid, lots of girls dressed up as zombies, ninjas, pirates, etc. Is it “normal”? No. Does it need to be? No. It’s Halloween, you’re supposed to dress up and be crazy.
Not to speak for Leaffan, but I think much of it has been addressed partly by (allglorytothe) Hypno-Toad:
Four isn’t terribly old; the parents are still making a lot of decisions for their kids. What the kid wants isn’t necessarily the best for them, and here I’m not talking about Halloween but in general. Parents pick out clothing, decide where and how their kid will interact with other kids, tell them what to eat, so on and so forth. In such a situation, the implication on seeing a young boy in a dress, even on Halloween, is less that the boy specifically wanted the dress and the parents are simply acceding to his wishes, and more that the parents actively want him in the dress; it’s not the kid’s choice, it’s the parents’. Obviously this isn’t likely to be the case, but I can see how that would be someone’s first impression.
Once the kid is old enough to really start making his own choices, and it’s clearly off the parents’ shoulders, then it’s easier to be accepting of whatever they want to do.
I think it’s possible to be accepting of your 14 year old son taking another 14 year old boy to the school dance and also be embarrassed by it. I’m quite serious. If my son told me he was gay, of course I’d be accepting, but to think that I wouldn’t feel somewhat embarrassed by this is disingenuous. I would be. And I freely admit it.
You’re the one who threw in red herrings about “societal norms” that don’t exist. It’s not hard to read more into your objections when the reasoning offered behind those “gut feelings” are so damned specious.
Man, oh man. I forgot that in progressive land, you have to make decisions based upon what might happen, regardless of how rare that is. Apparently I have to raise my kids like the might be gay or they juuuuust might be transgender. I forgot that you’d just jump to ultra-rare scenarios and not even pay need to the common, everyday occurances that your kid will have to deal with. “A liberal is a person that says a man can’t have a steak because a baby might choke on it.”
I’d also like to point out that I never said what decision I’d make regarding the Halloween dress. I was responding to the “gender issues suck!” idea that
So how come if I let my boys wear dresses, it won’t make them gay/crossdressers, but if I prevent it, they’ll end up turning tricks in a bathroom? You don’t see the double-think going on there? Do I have the ability to affect my kids’ gender/orientation or not?
Excellent post. I agree entirely.
As is typical on the dope, when someone mentions gender, the posters jump straight to LGBT issues and skip right past the other 99% of things that gender affects. You skipped right to “Divas” and totally skipped past wearing a tie to work, making money, enjoying competition, knowing directions, taking wisecracks from his buddies with a smile, etc.
It would suck. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. But it’d still suck. I’d feel bad for my kid. I’d feel bad that they’re going to be social misfits. They’re going to be teased and laughed at. They’re never going to fit in. That would really, really suck, and I hope my kids don’t end up transgendered.
(And girls play sports. That’s extremely normal. My “girls will be girls” and still play sports. :rolleyes: backatcha.)
No, that was me. But that’s got nothing to do with gender roles and everything to do with knowing my girlfriend. I’ll give 100:1 odds that that never happens. Any takers?
/hijack
Bottom line: Whether you raise your kids with gender roles or not, other parents will. And other kids will grow up to be normal men and women. You can either show your kid how to interact with these people and live up to their expectations of behavior, or you can ignore it and create a social misfit. You raise your kids how you want, but when the guys start talking about baseball, my son will be able to hold his own. And when his girlfriend gets a flat tire, he’ll be able to fix it. And when some drunk is taking advantage of her in a bar, he’ll be able to click over “violent male” mode and tell the punk to back off. And when he goes for a job interview, he’ll leave his bottom jacket button open.
So you don’t like gender roles? Feel free to handicap your child. It’s just more room for my kid to succeed.
Well it suggests you have clear views about both a man’s and a woman’s role in this world, and that there is no way a woman can fulfil the role of a man. You said as much before, and again below.
Ooh, how apha male. 
Don’t worry about my daughter. Like her mother, she’ll know how to change her own tires, handle drunks with good humour and no nonsense in equal measure, and be doing the hiring.
For those who wouldn’t want their kid to wear the costume, please provide a list of costumes you would refuse to let your four-year-old daughter wear but would be fine for your four-year-old son. The aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? How about Harry Potter? Diego? (Speaking of, someone mentioned people trying to tell their kids Dora the Explorer is for girls – and I’ve heard just that sentence in the toy store – who’s making sure their little girls don’t watch Diego?)
It’s come up more than once on the SDMB that, geez, all this stuff is so ingrained and I tried to give my little boy dolls and he made them into guns and I would be fine with my little girl being an astronaut but she wants to be a princess (and, like me, none of my kids has ever seen a commercial or movie and no one’s ever treated them in any way that would dissuade or encourage them to act masculine/feminine), nice to see what happens in reality.
Wow, that’s ridiculous. One of the beefiest, most chutzhpah-having males I ever knew was a gay guy who cross-dressed–not a transsexual, mind you, he just liked wearing women’s clothes and makeup–in downtown Detroit. And god help the drunk who tried to make issue of the fact he was sporting a goatee, eyeshadow, and a Bea Arthur wig, because that drunk was going to get his shit destroyed while the bartender laughed.
And any daughter of mine had damn well better be able to hold off drunk assholes without a boyfriend around–and she will, should she choose to take advantage of having her dad teach her some aikido, kendo, and being able to turn on asshole mode as needed. Same goes for changing a tire or the oil, or whatever.
My kids are going to grow up being able to function in normal society AND to choose when to break society’s rules when they don’t matter or aren’t relevant or are just plain stupid. I guarantee you they’ll keep right up with your kids in happiness, satisfaction, and ability to support their own lifestyle preferences and choices.
And again, what the everloving hell does a choice of Halloween costume have to do with goddamn anything you mentioned? I WAS the cross-dressing kid for Halloween at that age, and see aforementioned football trophies and white-collar job. I’ve got gay co-workers, straight co-workers, transgendered post-op co-workers, ultra-liberal co-workers, Tea Partier co-workers, and everyone seems to have a good idea of how to dress for the situation and do their damn job regardless of upbringing or social mores.
It’s always the same. I don’t have any problem with it, it’s just society, you know. I just feel sorry for the poor kid who has to be ostracized and treated like a freak for picking a certain costume that doesn’t match a certain set of expectations. And as a reasonable and compassionate parent, I’m going to treat my kid like a freak. So he doesn’t want to dress that way anymore. Talk baseball, son. Get in fights. Scratch your balls. You’re a man.
It’s that society, you see.
Eh, it’s fancy dress. Is dressing as a woman more offensive than dressing as an animal?
I’m not personally fond of pantos-style drag, where a man dresses as a woman for comedy, but it’s actually a custom some places. And dressing as the opposite sex for Halloween seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do for Halloween.
Perfectly communicated.
And, once again, you have utterly failed to understand the conversation taking place.
He didn’t say your attitude would make your kid gay. He said your attitude would (if your kid turned out gay) make him into the sort of raving hypocrite that pretty much defines Conservative America on this issue.
Well, I skipped past that, because not a single one of them is gender-related. The closest you come is “wearing a tie to work,” which almost makes the cut, insofar as it’s something that’s expected of (some) males but optional for (most) females. I mean, honestly: “making money?” Knowing directions? Who are you, and how did you connect to the internet from 1952?
Didn’t used to be like that, though. Time was, a woman wearing pants was literally breaking the law in some places. We’ve turned things around on that to the extent that even you (of all people) think its appropriate for girls to play sports. Having so radically altered gender expectations for one side of society, and finding it to be largely to the good, what’s your resistance to altering them on the other side?
And, again, you’ve come up with a list of things your child will excel at that have nothing at all to do with gender roles. These are skill sets that should be taught to everyone, regardless of whether they wear pants or skirts. And that’s the idea behind the explosion of gender roles in the first place.
Oh, and Leaffan: thanks for the explanation. I get where you’re coming from, and don’t have any objections to what you’ve said here.
Buttoning your bottom bottom of a suit jacket is effeminate now? It’s so hard to keep up. Sometimes I wonder how most guys stay manly enough. Do they keep the “Be like John Wayne” scene from La Cage aux Folles playing on a loop in the back of their mind or what?
I don’t care about your daughter, I care about my son, who more likely than not, is going to meet a girl (eventually) that won’t be able to stick up for herself and won’t be able to change a tire.
And what do you mean “THE role of a man”?
No, it’s not effeminate, it’s incorrect. Buttoning that button = “I don’t know how to wear a suit.”
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If my kid ends up blowing guys in a bathroom, it won’t have anything to do with how I raised him. Unless, of course, you concede that my parenting has the ability to affect behavior. If my parenting can lead to him doing that, then why can’t my parenting keep him out of Divas? Is it "He’ll end up in the bathroom/at Divas whether you like it or not, " or is it “Your parenting will make him blow guys in the bathroom/be a good husband”? Pick one, or be a hypocrite.
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None of those are gender related? Seriously? Tell me, then, how are women different than men? I’ll let you pick anything you want. Give me something that’s commonplace, not cross-dressing.
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Because you take it too far. Well, I don’t know about you, exactly, but certainly posters on this message board. They’d be happy if tomorrow, everyone’s behavior was independent of their sex. That’s obviously ridiculously damaging! My resistance stems from the fact that, if they had it their way, you wouldn’t be able to tell men from boys from girls from women. You’d have no idea how to behave in mixed company. You’d have no idea what jobs you’re expected to do and what jobs you can expect your mate to do.
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But those skills aren’t taught to everyone. And it’s not so much about skills like “change a flat”, which are easy to point out in a conversation, but more about social skills. The world requires gender roles so that men know how to act when they’re together and women know how to act when they’re together, but more importantly, so a man and a women know how to act when they’re together. Because like everything else in life, social interaction is all about sex - making and raising a new generation to replace the old one. And as a wise mentor once said “Is it fair? Maybe not. Is it reality? Yes. And you have to respect that.”
I get where Leaffan is coming from, I don’t totally agree with his viewpoint but can respect it.
Chessic Sense sounds like my parents, who when I was 17 sent me to a ‘Christian therapist’ because they felt I wasn’t behaving masculine enough. Three days of being grilled about everything I’ve ever done or said. (Ok, so maybe not everything) Men apparently don’t wear jewelry of any sort that isn’t a wedding ring, Men walk like John Wayne, blah blah blah. The only positive thing that came of the entire ordeal was that he basically told them that being gay was a phase I’d grow out of because “He knows that God wouldn’t have made him that way” so they mostly left that alone for quite a while.
I’m probably getting way off topic here, but these ‘gender role’ debates really annoy me sometimes.