Trying to make gender less of a drag
Challenging gender norms with my son through dress-up and dance, while reflecting on World No Tobacco Day.
“Only girls like unicorns”, my five-year-old son Ted told me confidently as we walked to the park. He elaborated, explaining the gendered “rules” he had already become aware of in his nine months of full-time school. He’d presumably forgotten about the unicorn bell decorating his bike, which he’d specifically asked for at the end of last year.
Like a good progressive parent, I challenged him: “what if I said only people with brown hair like Paw Patrol? Would that make sense?” I tried, which of course shifted things into a discussion about the likes and dislikes of his school friend who has ginger hair. Once again, I regretted embarking on an intellectual debate with a child.
Where does this stuff creep in? We don’t teach him to isolate his interests based on his gender, and presumably neither do his teachers. “Kids will be kids”, you could say, and yes, school-age children exist on clearly-demarcated lines around things like age and gender. At this point I think it’s better to just question his assumptions and leave it at that: trying to force his opinion proves nothing.
So I was surprised, then, a few weeks ago, to hear him ask us to make him a dress out of paper. He’d recently been for a play date with our neighbours and their similar-aged kid, whose dad had made both boys a long, trailing paper dress. They showed up at the pub we were collecting him from in flowing, colourful dresses. Ted was initially excited about his dress but soon began to be self-conscious, and off it came.
But it stayed with him: first he wanted to make one out of paper again, and when our papercraft skills failed him, he asked me to get him one from the shops, which I duly did (reasoning that his younger sister might enjoy it one day even if he decided he didn’t want it).
He was overjoyed to put it on and dance around in it. We were careful not to make a big deal of it: kids like to explore and experiment, and he was clearly curious about this stuff, despite his initial surety over what was for boys and what was for girls.
When I got home from work this evening, though, he asked if I would let him put lip gloss on me. After some parental bargaining (“if you eat two more pieces of chicken, you can put lip gloss on me”), he quickly upgraded me to agreeing to put on one of Maddy’s dresses and wear a tiara. Soon we were dancing in our dresses around the dining room to Disney songs.
“You have no waist”, Maddy complained, as I tried to wear the dress she’d picked out. “This isn’t my colour”, I countered, trying to accessorise with one of her scarfs. This felt like another “teachable moment” with Ted: if I refused to play dress-up with him, or acted self-conscious about wearing lipgloss, I’d be reinforcing those ideas about what you can and can’t do based on gender. Last weekend, an older kid upset him by calling him “a girl”. The fact that his opponent was herself a girl didn’t complicate his feelings about this perceived insult.
So I danced to princess songs with my kid and reflected on the nature of gender fluidity, costume play, and tried to remember if we had any deliveries due that evening that I might have to go and sign for while wearing an ill-fitting dress and tiara. Thankfully, it was almost bedtime – and, more importantly, parenting robs you of any sense of dignity, humanity or standards of beauty, so I honestly felt no compunction about getting into drag to entertain a child.
Mini-feels this week
No smoke without fire
As you read this, it’s World No Tobacco Day. I’ve been inadvertently observing it for the entirety of my life, despite spending my formative years in sweaty clubs and gig venues where smoking was, incredibly, still allowed. I still remember getting cigarette burns on my skin from my fellow gig-goers, fags akimbo in the moshpit.
The truth is that at nearly 40 years old, I’d be too embarrassed now to attempt to smoke in front of people even if I wanted to. Much like being unable to click my fingers (please don’t try to “teach” me next time you see me, it can’t be done), I lack the ability to do this simple thing and will never be able to master it.
I’ll continue to observe No Tobacco Day indefinitely, perhaps solely to avoid choking on a poorly-inhaled cigarette, or accidentally swallowing one by sneezing at the wrong moment.