Forever Family

I was checking out the new spring line in toddler clothes at Target this weekend, and once again I became frustrated with being the mom of a little boy.

The girl stuff is just SO darn cute!!!!!!!!  The sun dresses, the little capri pants, and even the ruffled little summer tops are just about the most darling things I’ve seen.  Every estrogen hormone in my body quivered at the prospect of buying up some of those adorable outfits and dressing up my daughter.  Oh!  And look at this adorable pink hat!!  It completes the look!

Oh…wait…I don’t have a daughter.  Darn it!!

I put down the the pretty little dress with matching cardigan, cursed under my breath, and moseyed over to the boys section.

Hmmmm.  The coveralls are cute.  Hah!  Here’s a funny little tshirt; Kiddo will like it.  I like these button down tops.  Is that it?  There are only like 3 racks of clothes here.  The rest of this stuff is clearance winter clothes.

I stopped and looked back at the section of toddler clothes I had just traversed.  The sea of pink and ruffles stretched back as far as I could see, with just a itty-bitty section of boys clothes.  Oh yeah, I forgot.  It’s always like this.

My little shopping trip got me thinking.  It ROCKS to be a little girl.

Not only do girls get expansive racks of the most adorable clothing on the planet, they aren’t confined to just the girls section of the store.  It’s completely acceptable and even encouraged for girls to wear boys stuff and play with boy toys.

For example, a few weekends ago Kiddo was invited to a birthday party for a female schoolmate.  She was having a Spiderman themed party.  EVERYTHING was Spiderman, including the cake.  When we arrived, the little birthday girl greeted us at the door with a very boyish Spiderman tshirt, and wearing pink pants with little ruffles on the ankles.  I thought it was just the cutest thing, as she was embracing both her girly-girl and her unconventional tomboy all at once.

When I was growing up (I’m the eldest of 3 girls), my sisters and I had the Ewok Village and Castle Grayskull.  We used to wage epic battles between He-Man and She-Ra in Castle Grayskull and the Barbies that had taken over the Ewok Village. However, a contingent of the Guardians of the Gemstone led by Golden Girl lived in our toy box, and sometimes they would become involved with the battle.  Mostly they joined forces with She-Ra, but occasionally they would betray her and attempt to take Castle Grayskull for themselves.  Voltron was also an unreliable interloper, but always on the side of Barbie.

Like the little birthday girl, we embraced both the typical girl stuff along with the boy stuff.  Santa was just as likely to bring us a boy toy as he was to bring us a doll.  We played and dressed with whatever we desired across either gender, and it was even encouraged to act more “boy.”

My son doesn’t have it so good.  When we shop for toys, we tend to skip over the aisles of Barbies and baby dolls.  We really only get to shop half the store.  Clothes, as I indicated in the start of my post, are always a disappointment to shop for, because there just isn’t as much stuff as there is for girls.  A girl may be able to wear that Spiderman shirt, but can a boy wear the pink ruffle tank top?  What would people think if I had a party for my son, and it was themed My Little Pony?

I would like to think people are as open minded about my son having an affinity to My Little Pony as they are about a girl liking Spiderman.  Yeah right, and pigs may fly out of my butt.  For the most part, people would judge us and my son and label him a pansy or a girly boy, and accuse us of raising a gay kid.

Is that a bad thing?  I’m relatively sure that playing with My Little Ponies is not going to turn anyone gay.

But let’s think about this for a sec.  It sounds like girls have it made, right?

The more I thought about this, the more irksome it became.  I’m glad girls are being encouraged to reach out beyond the typical female stuff and not be limited to only girl things.  Our mothers and grandmothers worked very hard to push for equality for women, and a girl playing with Spiderman and being encouraged to do so seems to be a step in the right direction.

But if we’re truly equal, then that pendulum needs to swing both ways.  If my son wants to play with Barbies, he should be able to do so.  What would you think of if you saw a boy playing with Barbies?  Would you wrinkle your nose and say with disgust “those are GIRL toys?”  Heaven forbid any little girls around you just saw you do that.  What kind of message are they going to hear from you about girl toys, and thereby what it means to be a girl?

Besides, we all know Barbie would kick GI Joe’s butt any day of the week.

Davida and Danny over at Glue 4 Families seem to have been reading my mind, as their post today is about the movement among men to dress more metrosexual and embrace some trends that are typically identified as being female.  I would love to see some gender specific clothing to go by the wayside, but not totally.  It’s ok to embrace being a girl or boy and wearing something that enhances that.

Girls and boys both need to understand that we’re not defined by what we wear and what we play with.  We can use these things as a way to express ourselves, but seeing a boy (or a man) wearing something pink does not mean he’s a fruit loop who fell off his rocker.  Not only do we make a judgment about that individual, but we also send a signal to girls/women that pink is substandard and weak.

And then we take our little girls shopping, and it looks like Pepto Bismal exploded all over that sea of clothes.  That could be really confusing to a developing girl’s sense of self worth.

By the way, I happen to love having a son.  Fortunately, I can appease my need for cute frilly outfits by buying them up for my niece, and she adores them.  I’m not quite prepared to send my son out in that ruffly top just yet.  The public isn’t ready.

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