I'm pretty sure this little boy rocked Daphne much better than I did on Halloween!
I'm about to get preachy, and I'm sorry, but the article got to me. Before I even begin I am not going to try to claim that I am free from gender stereotyping. I'm just as guilty as anyone. Yesterday's post is proof of that. But it does really bother me that little girls can wear blue, green, brown...any color of the rainbow (that is not intended to be a pun), but my boy can't wear pink, and hardly even purple. It bothers me that a girl can dress up as a football player or a transformer and we say "you go girl!" but a boy can't even put a dab of paint on a single nail without shocked expressions. It bothers me that we get all up in arms over "freedom" because a city tries to ban restaurants from giving toys away with unhealthy meals but yet we're stomping those very rights to freedom of speech and expression in our own children's lives.
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| Drew is wearing pink AND purple in this rainbowy tie dye onesie! (He is also looking VERY tiny!!) |
But what bothers me more than anything is that these parents are the bullies that we keep screaming we need to rid our schools of. School bullying leading to children committing suicide has been all over the news recently. In fact one of the first stories came out of the very county I teach in. But what can we do to stop the problem when the problem isn't even the children themselves? It absolutely hurts my heart to imagine this little boy with his creative costume idea (dressing up as Scooby Doo characters with a friend? That sounds like a blast!) standing nervously at the doors of his school worrying what the kids will say, only to be greeted by what the moms have to say. I understand that the moms were "looking out" for the boy and worrying over how he would be teased, but in doing so they became the bullies themselves. I can only imagine that this boy will never even so much as touch anything pink, purple, or sparkly ever again.
I think as adults we need to be more careful about the stereotypes we perpetuate with something as simple as a look on our face and the fact that those simple actions tell our children that it's okay to judge. Like I said above, I cannot claim to be free from guilt at all. This article really brought to my attention the problem we've created though and as a parent and a teacher I am making a promise to myself to be more conscious of my actions. Drew will learn from what I do, not what I say, and while I'm not going to start dressing him in pink and bows, I won't blink an eye if he wants to play with a Barbie doll instead of a GI Joe.
I had read that blog post through Babycenter.com (one of my November Birth Month friends knows the author and re-posted it along with her comments). I too was HORRIFIED that the moms were the culprits of bullying instead of their children. One of the things that scares me most when it comes to raising a child in this day and age is bullying - whether it be on the internet or in the schools. We never had to worry about crap like this or at least not anywhere near as bad as it is these days. I'm glad you have made a commitment to your son to lead by example. I am having a girl, and while I know females typically seem to be the recipients of more tolerance when it comes to crossing the line in relation to "gender specific" norms, I vow to let her be who she wants to be and always make sure she knows she is loved!
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