On the weekend we went to a five-year-old birthday party. We were told it was a dress-up party and that a fairy was going to come. As it was a girl’s birthday party and a bit of a fairy theme I asked Jules if he wanted to wear his fairy wings or his batman costume.
He decided on his fairy wings. He also wore a light pink t-shirt he was given for his birthday as he’d told the present giver that pink was his favourite colour.
I didn’t have a problem with him being the only boy there dressed in pink and fairy wings, not that I expected any other boys to dress this way. The two other boys who dressed up both came as Batman. Otherwise there was a predominance of pink, and fairy paraphenalia worn by the girls.
When I told mum what JJ was going to wear to this party she asked me why didn’t I dress him as an elf. My reply was that, he has the fairy wings, he likes fairies and we don’t have an elf costume.
He doesn’t care that his outfit is seen in our society today as something girls wear, not boys. And he ain’t going to learn that from me. Nobody said to him or to my face at the party on Saturday, Why did you dress him up like that? I’m not worried that wearing pink now will make him gay. I’m actually seeing more straight men wearing pink these days than I ever have but by the same token there’s not much in the way of girls clothing that is not pink. I also wish that I could buy more in chain store boys clothing that wasn’t blue, brown or black or covered in pictures of skate boards and surf boards.
I’m so glad you let him dress up as he likes. It’s so hard to battle those strict lines about color and decoration for little kids, and so ridiculous!