Kids DO dress in socially inappropriate clothes all the time. 99.9% of the time, it's a complete non-issue.
...and you know what? If the parents let the kid wear the his dinosaur costume everywhere he went for a while - he'd still be fine.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Princess Boy
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
- Start date
Kids DO dress in socially inappropriate clothes all the time. 99.9% of the time, it's a complete non-issue.
...and you know what? If the parents let the kid wear the his dinosaur costume everywhere he went for a while - he'd still be fine.
Of course they do.
As much as I, as a parent of a 5 year old, may not like it - they definitely have the ability.
Ever hear of a 5 year old wandering into the street and getting killed? There is a 5 year old that made a life altering choice for himself.
Of course - the dress thing is different, in that there is about a 99.9% chance it won't be "life altering" at all.
- Oct 7, 2000
- 18,619
- 38,939
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
Ahhh... a very loaded pistol here. 
My first thought was, this woman is sick.
After thinking about it a little and watching some of the video, I changed my mind. For many of the reasons already posted, but also...
I substitute teach at a HS for many years. When I went to school in the same neighborhood over 30 years ago, things were incredibly different. You had to look and dress a certain way. It was the disco/rock era. If you didn't you were an outcast and paid a price. I did, and wound up dropping out with all my other rocker friends. And the racial tensions, hatred, and violence that was going on was horrible. One of the few things that I love about teens today is that nothing in the way of differences seems to phase them anymore. Kids have become astoundingly more accepting of everything (at least at my school). Race means little at all, just about everyone is friends with everyone, and nobody seem to bat an eye at even the strangest of kids I see walking around. There are openly gay guys, lots of lesbians (as that seems to be cool), kids with all kinds of disabilities, nerdy kids, goth kids, punks, gangstas, even a cross dresser or 2 - and nobody (or very few) seem to care at all. They're all friends with each other. How is that a bad thing?
My first thought was, this woman is sick.
After thinking about it a little and watching some of the video, I changed my mind. For many of the reasons already posted, but also...
I substitute teach at a HS for many years. When I went to school in the same neighborhood over 30 years ago, things were incredibly different. You had to look and dress a certain way. It was the disco/rock era.
If you didn't you were an outcast and paid a price. I did, and wound up dropping out with all my other rocker friends. And the racial tensions, hatred, and violence that was going on was horrible. One of the few things that I love about teens today is that nothing in the way of differences seems to phase them anymore. Kids have become astoundingly more accepting of everything (at least at my school). Race means little at all, just about everyone is friends with everyone, and nobody seem to bat an eye at even the strangest of kids I see walking around. There are openly gay guys, lots of lesbians (as that seems to be cool), kids with all kinds of disabilities, nerdy kids, goth kids, punks, gangstas, even a cross dresser or 2 - and nobody (or very few) seem to care at all. They're all friends with each other. How is that a bad thing?
Ahhh... a very loaded pistol here.
My first thought was, this woman is sick.
After thinking about it a little and watching some of the video, I changed my mind. For many of the reasons already posted, but also...
I substitute teach at a HS for many years. When I went to school in the same neighborhood over 30 years ago, things were incredibly different. You had to look and dress a certain way. It was the disco/rock era.
+1. Oddly enough that describes most of the kids in my neighborhood too.
My point is that a parent needs to raise a child that function successfully in society. Even the biggest rebel needs to have a socially accepted foundation that will allow him to negotiate the world he is in. I'm sure a loving family can raise a confident, successful, cross-dressing little boy, but it is not a set of hurdles I would encourage.
So during Jim Crow it was important for African-American parents in the USA to teach their children to submit to whites?
I think your age and past experiences are making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill. I don't think it sets up much a "hurdle" at all.
I think you are addicted to disagreement and habitually make mountains out of every molehill you see, especially if it is me taking a position.
Since you can't resist bringing up race, I will simply say that a Black parent in this country raises children understanding that race can make a difference, sometimes a huge difference.
As for Jim Crow, both of my parents were born in the 1920s, and they certainly had to know how to negotiate that world, because it was a world where they could be killed or raped with no recourse if they put themselves in a bad situation. Both of my parents went on to become successful, college educated people who were part of the Civil Rights generation. They were not taught to "submit" to Jim Crow, but they certainly were taught how it worked, and they eventually found ways to undermine it.
Similarly, a child today needs to know how the world works, and how to negotiate. If the Princess Boy were my child, he would not be out and about in a princess dress. If the child were yours, you do what you want. Either way might turn out a child who is wonderfully adjusted, or a child with issues. I am comfortable with the choice I would make, you don't have to agree.
I got picked on in high school for being fat and having long hair and wearing striped bell-bottom jeans by leather jacket wearing leftovers from the fifties. Kids will get picked on for any number of reasons, most of which involve not fitting in with for seem some fairly arbitrary reasons. Any thing about an individual that can possibly be classified as different will be focused on with laser like intensity and be used as an excuse to hassle someone as a way to deal with their own inferiority complexes.
I get the idea those who would make their kid dress in a "normal" fashion are more afraid of their kid being perceived as gay and that would somehow reflect on them being a failure as parents. It's more about them than the kid.
I get the idea those who would make their kid dress in a "normal" fashion are more afraid of their kid being perceived as gay and that would somehow reflect on them being a failure as parents. It's more about them than the kid.
I can.
Just as there are scientists who believe the literal creation myths - education doesn't remove all biases based on ignorance.
There's quite a lot of parents that do, educated or not. How many times have you heard a story about a gay son or daughter coming out to their parents only to be ostracized by them. It happens every day.
I have to agree with this as well. Is there a week that goes by where you don't hear of this happening at least once? It's not even looking at them as a "failure", but disgrace, let down, etc. - and from all walks of life, too, sadly.
I completely agree with folks who don't like that the parent brought this to the media and is parading her kid around.
But, if my son wants to wear dresses at 5, I will not have a problem with it. I don't think it's necessary to force a kid to conform to gender rules at an early age and then have the freedom to break them "later."
I wouldn't actively encourage it, because of the grief. I'd want to explain to my son how other people might ask if he's a girl, say that only girls should wear that clothing, or call him names...but if he wants to, I'll have his back. I want my kids to be good people who are secure enough to be themselves, and confident that I'll always love them. Then, I can hope that they'll talk to me about other things, and not follow the crowd when it's not doing the right thing.
Societal gender customs are obvious at an early age; if my kids want to break them and they're not doing anything harmful...well, the world better get out of our way.
Will you be my father?
I understand, and appreciate, that all of our norms and roles and whatnot are A: artificial, and B: in a constant state of flux and evolution.
I'm still not convinced that this is beneficial for anybody, though - and to be honest, Joe Nerve, I'm not convinced that everybody accepting everybody is necessarily a good thing.
Not getting what you want when you're a kid is necessary for growth and character development - we all know what happens to kids who get everything they want. Why is it okay for a parent to decide that 50 cookies daily are not okay, but the decision as to a child's attire is somehow up to the greater public?
I'm not trying to start a fight here, but I fail to see the connection.
I'm still not convinced that this is beneficial for anybody, though - and to be honest, Joe Nerve, I'm not convinced that everybody accepting everybody is necessarily a good thing.
Not getting what you want when you're a kid is necessary for growth and character development - we all know what happens to kids who get everything they want. Why is it okay for a parent to decide that 50 cookies daily are not okay, but the decision as to a child's attire is somehow up to the greater public?
I'm not trying to start a fight here, but I fail to see the connection.
At a high level:
The way I differentiate them is for the basic good of the individual (i.e. your cookie example would obviously be detrimental to their health, and spoiling the child does nothing good for them) versus individual psychology (i.e. the child may identify as female, though they have male "parts", therefore they want to dress as female etc. This would be something that you're not going to change, just make them feel bad or good, about).
That's over simplified, but gets a general point across. Whether or not a 5 year old has knowledge of sexual identity versus their physical gender, I don't know, but I would suspect that they would, even at that age. And I feel that if an individual does have an identity as one sex, but physically is not of that sex, that we shouldn't force them to fit into the box of "norms" for the sex of which they physically belong.
I know you are not talking to me, but being a hemaphrodite has nothing to do with clothing. Many hemaphrodites are even aware they are hemaphrodites until a doctors tells them so.
5 year old kids need guidence. people today have lost touch with the real world. stop listening to tv host and parent mags. the problem is nothing is wrong anymore or it might offend someone. One day a child rapist will have a bill of rights thanks to some lawyer.
...you're kidding, right? Cases have gone to the Supreme Court about hermaphrodite's being put into one box for sex, and then they later identify themselves as the other later, and hence needing to get everything up to an including a new Certificate of Live Birth in order to have their lives set straight, with what they identify to. So the child is deemed a "male" at birth, parents put all the social norms for males into effect for the child, but the child itself identifies itself as female...
Again, just an extension of the discussion that was happening, and probably too far OT to really continue, anyway.
Will you be my father?
Sure. Woohoo, we've got a babysitter we won't have to pay!
Thanks for the compliment.
