Wednesday, April 19

Chicken Mommy

Doodles is in a gymnastics class. He's been taking gymnastics for about seven months now, and he adores it.

During the next session, the entire gym will be putting on shows. His class will be doing a "Chicken Little" routine. It's all a big sham, I think, to get the parents to fork over money for costumes and then to pay an admission to watch the show. I feel like this is my inauguration into the world of just dumping all the contents out of my wallet for extracurricular activities.

Anyway, that wasn't my point. The point is, the girls will be wearing yellow leotards with yellow hair scrunchies that they'll put around their ankles, like chickens. The boys will be wearing black shorts and a white T-shirt. Now, if you were a 2 1/2 year old, which outfit would you rather wear? Exactly. Now compound that by putting one of your two best friends--who is a girl--in the class and she gets to wear the yellow leotard and hair scrunchy. Doodles declared today that he wants to wear the yellow leotard.

What to do? Do you know, as much as I worship the Free to Be You and Me album, I hardly ever play it for Doodles. And one of the main reasons is the song "William's Doll." For those who lived under a rock in the '70s--or with Republicans--the song is about a little boy who wants a doll and his friends make fun of him and his father doesn't want him to have one. His grandmother finally gives him a doll because "someday he is going to be a father, too." I loved this song growing up. I still love it. But I don't want Doodles listening to this song because it would never even occur to him at this point that boys don't traditionally play with dolls. We have some dolls at home that once or twice he's done something with, but I do know that he has enjoyed playing with dolls at school. I'm afraid if he hears the song, it'll put the notion into his head that boys don't play with dolls.

My point here is that I really try to be gender neutral in dealing with my children, a fact made difficult by my buying Doodles's clothing off of ebay (lots of very "boy" looking clothing) and that Sweetie Pie's clothing is mostly hand-me-downs (hence a preponderance of pink), but I offer Pie plenty of trucks and I didn't blink when Doodles wore Pie's pink socks to school.

Because the gymnastics show is still two months away, I simply steered him away from the clothing rack without saying anything. But what do I say? The leotard is girl clothing? Uh, I don't think so. Do I point out that the boys will be wearing something else? Well, I could do that, but what's going to have more effect on him: some boys he sees once a week or J., who he follows/fights with/plays with/hugs on an almost daily basis?

Okay, so maybe I fork over the $30 and let him wear the leotard. I mean, he is only 2 1/2. And if we were doing it in the 'burb we live in, I think I'd feel quite comfortable doing so. But the gym is a bit aways, and it's more of a working class environment, and I don't think I want to go around explaining why I think it's okay for my son to wear a yellow leotard and a scrunchy. But is that classism on my part? Or just laziness?

I'm hoping that by the time we have to order the outfits comes around, he'll want the shorts and T-shirt (yeah, right. Even I covet one of those little leotards!). Otherwise, I'm going to have some great pictures to embarass him with when he's 16 and trying to impress girls. "And here's one of Doodles when he decided to perform his Chicken Little routine in a yellow leotard!" Might be worth the cost of the leotard just for that priceless humiliation.

1 Comments:

Blogger Fran Loosen said...

I remember reading a wonderful commentary on this very subject a couple of years ago called something like "If my daughter can be a tom-boy, why can't my son be a jane-girl?". I think it was on Hip Mama, but it may have been in Brain, Child. Anyway, it was written by a woman whose son had a penchant for wearing capes while he played soccer, and the like. It was a great article about just going with it and letting your child experience what he wants to experience. My friend Jim, bless him, has been able to overcome his latino machismo roots and lets his son play with pink vacuum cleaners (because, you know, they only come in pink)and dress up in tutus whenever he wants. I think it's a good idea if you can stomach it. Unfortunately, you can't control how other kids will be, or for that matter how the teacher will be, but go with your gut.

Best,

Fran

1:43 PM  

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