This is my son, Levi.  He’s three.

He likes Lightning McQueen and Thomas the Tank Engine.  He likes slides, and playing in mud.  He likes shaking little baby food jars with fireflies inside (something that the fireflies don’t particularly enjoy, at least the ones that survive).

And sometimes, he likes dressing up in his big sister’s play clothes and dancing.

Look, Papa, he says, executing a brilliant toddler pirouette, skirt poofing out perfectly.  I’m a prince!

Now, look.  I waffle on the whole nature/nurture divide.  He’s surrounded by girl toys, s’ no-wonder, I think sometimes.  Besides, girl toys are rad!  All that plastic hair!  The awesome shoes!  The pink!  ALL THE PINK!  And yet, since he was old enough to work those barely-ambulatory limbs of his towards the toy bin, he’s put his play-effort right into manipulating the trains, trucks, and balls.  Since he was 18 months, he’s been quite content lying on the ground, moving a Matchbox truck back and forth along the ground.  We didn’t encourage it – he just likes trucks.

And, apparently, tiaras.

I let him wear his pink skirt on an outing this past weekend to the library and our local neighborhood co-op.  He flounced around quite contentedly, playing with the Thomas and Friends wooden railway at the library, pushing the mini-carts around the co-op grocery aisles and gregariously asking random strangers if they liked his toenails (which his mother had painted bright orange, yellow and blue a few days earlier).  Nobody scowled.  No disapproving looks.  A few mothers looked at him and grinned.  One of them caught my eye and winked.  It didn’t matter.  Nobody cared.

This post has made the rounds of the parenty-bloggosphere for about 8 months now, and I have no desire to repeat it, though I share the sentiment.  I could link to other articles about how the pink/blue gender divide has actually reversed since the 1850s, or how formative play with gendered toys has little to no effect on gender identity and is, instead, a product of marketing.  Thing is, I don’t care.  He was happy.  My boy was happy.

So I’m not going to take away his pink clothes.  I’m not going to say that he can’t go out in public in his skirt.  (The only time I take a hard stance on clothing with my children is if we’re going to an occasion with a strict dress code or if the clothes are inappropriate for the weather.)  He’s my boy.  He loves being a prince, loves wearing a skirt, and so long as he’s happy, he can wear whatever damn stuff he wants.

Okay?  Okay.

July 13, 2011 2 Comments