At seven o'clock on a Thursday morning, my 4-year-old son announced, "I'm going to wear a dress to school today." I froze, teacup halfway to my lips. I shouldn't have been entirely surprised by the statement, given Sam's history on the pink side of the dress-up box, but this time something was different.
The previous weekend, Sam and I had visited his grandma in Malibu. Looking to cool down after a sunny playground romp, the three of us had wandered into a high-end children's boutique. While his grandma and I snickered over rhinestone-encrusted Converse sneakers and $600 infant sweaters, Sam was drawn to a frilly pink sundress. "Can I have it?" he asked.
I blinked at him. Trying to keep things light, I told Sam the dress was not his size. He dropped his chin to his chest, big blues fixed on me. "Well, are there dresses in my size?" he asked shyly. I paused, trying to decide what to say. "Boys don't wear dresses" came to mind, but that wasn't true—Sam had always loved trying on his girl friends' princess costumes. "I'm not going to buy you a $270 dress from this ridiculous store" also came to mind, but that didn't address the point—his or mine. He would be asking the same question about a $7.99 sundress at Target, and I'd still be wondering why my boy wanted to wear one—and why, really, he couldn't. As I steered him out of the store, Sam started to weep. "I wish I had a pink dress!" he wailed.
"But sweetie," I said in my best calm, concerned mommy tone, "you have two pink dresses. Your princess dress-up costumes are both pink."
"But I want one I can wear to school!"
At 4, Sam has been expressing his preference for pink for half his life. My husband and I have bought him several pink items that fall in the sort-of-odd-but-socially acceptable range: pink Converse sneakers (hold the rhinestones), pink T-shirts, and—our most risqué to date—a hot pink polo shirt. His grandparents gave him a pair of pink light-up Skechers that he adores. The dress-up box at home overflows with pink tulle, lace, and marabou feathers.
But for public appearances, my husband and I realize that certain things—hair accessories, flowery clothing designs, dresses—are on the other side of a line we haven't been quite willing to cross, one that sits right between eccentric-but-cute and is-that-a-boy-wearing-that? We have tried to find a comfortable place on the near side of the line where Sam can express himself without inviting ridicule, and we knew that a pink sundress would go beyond that. But it was starting to look as if Sam was no longer happy within the narrow parameters we'd established to protect him.
Next Page: "Is This a Phase?"
