Parenting Beyond the Pale

Driving home from preschool Friday afternoon, my 4 year old son announced that he needs a red dress.  It should be shiny and sparkly and, preferably, come with a crown.  It's a bit of an unusual request from him - usually everything is Spiderman.  His shirts, backpack, bicycle, plates and cups, toys, beach towel, all Spiderman all the time.  In fact, when I asked why the dress needed to be red, he told me:  red is my favorite color, because it is Spiderman's color.  Okay.  Does anyone have a pattern for a Spiderman dress?  Was their ever a Spiderwoman?  Desperate moms need to know.

From what I hear, a significant number of dads would have a problem with their little boys dressing up like princesses.  At least that situation sets up the joke on sit-coms, like Ross on Friends frantically trying to switch his son's Barbie for an Action Figure.  But I have worked at a preschool, and know that little boys are very likely to pull the princess gear out of the dress up case and put it on - with less frequency than girls, but it is not unusual. 

Melissa and I reviewed the conversation after he went to bed.  For her part, Melissa can't imagine wanting to wear a dress as a child or adult.  I understand and identify with wanting to get a little fancy - its fun to look pretty!  But do we care if Gabriel goes Princess on us?  No... except the nagging uneasiness of "what will people think?"

We've noticed that certain relatives and friends have harbored some quiet uneasiness about two women raising a boy - evident in their happy assertions that Gabriel is "all boy"  and the propensity to purchase toys for him that look like they belong in an arsenal.  And in fact, we worried about it a bit when he was born - what do we know about boys, for heaven's sake?  Until Melissa's mother reminded her that she has been 'one of the boys' her whole life, not so much butch as a true-blue, dyed-in-the-Levis tomboy, and that she'd probably enjoy playing cops and robbers more than a teaparty any day.

There are a couple of books on the market on women raising boys that read either as apologetic "look, our boys are just as well adjusted and manly as those of straight couples!" or radically programmatic, "we are going to raise a new breed of men to overthrow the dominant patriarchal society."  For my part, I'm just not sure of either.  I know quite a variety of men, but I'm not certain what "manly" is.  And if Gabriel grows up maladjusted, it'll be more about my parenting-skills learning curve than my lesbianism.  (We joke that the first kid is like the first pancake, "just for practice".)  On the other hand, as much as any family desires to instill their beliefs and values in their children, be it religion, politics, or radical feminist separatism, I've noticed that kids like to grow against the grain.  [Mom's a Democrat?  Ha, I'm voting Republican and that'll show her!  Dad wants me to go into the family business?  Too bad, I'm running away to join the circus.  Parents are atheists?  I'm getting Born Again.] So I'm going to choose my battles and try spend my time worried about training the kids in empathy and kindness, do my best let them see where my ideals and values lie, but let them work out the other stuff on their own time. 

So will Gabriel get the coveted Red Dress?  Probably.  If the local thrift shop has one to offer, it will come home with me this week.  Because an imagination is a terrible thing to waste.  I think I'll pick up a whole bunch of dress-up items so that we can play Princesses and Pirates and Mermaids and Motorcycle Gang and whatever else we can dream up together.  My only REAL reservation is:  when he is 16, will he hate me for writing this post??