For the past few days, my girlfriend and I have been on the hunt for Halloween costume ideas for our daughters. We’ve gone from Disney Princesses to Dora and the challenge is always just to find the perfect mix of creativity and affordability in a costume. Finally, I get the following text:
“With no energy to have a boy vs girl debate, she will be Sponge Bob this year…and couldn’t be happier.”
I mentioned that to Leila and her response was, “Nooo, she can’t! That’s a boy!” Now, while my daughter has become pretty aware of the “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina” bit, I felt a little torn over her opposition to a girl wearing a boy’s costume. First of all, it’s SpongeBob – hardly the symbol of manliness or machismo. So what’s the big deal? What’s more is that I don’t necessarily want her to feel such separation between the sexes this early in life.
Now, as I say that, I have to revert back to last year’s Halloween. I met a woman who was beyond ecstatic sharing her pride in a Halloween costume she was able to help her 7 year old son craft – Lady Gaga. Wig, skirt, stockings, you name it! My first thought after seeing it was, “How nice that she is so accepting of her trans-gendered son,” when, in all fairness, the kid was only 7 and I probably shouldn’t have tried to assume his sexuality based on the costume he chose. It may very well have been that he truly enjoyed the pop icon. However, others around me responded quite differently though, thinking that mother should have imposed more of a boundary for her young son.
Now with that said, what do you think is “acceptable” when it comes to dressing your child up as another gender? Girl Elmo’s? Boy witches? What’s considered going too far? Please be respectful in your comments!
Good question. I think it’s ok actually. It is just halloween and its a costume. As you get older and go to parties, Men dress up as women and vice versa all the time for this holiday. And I don’t get into all the scaryness of this holiday and take it as a time the kids get to be something they are not. That being said, I would probably never suggest my son be a girl character or vice versa for halloween…but if they suggested it…I would just have to give it some thought. Whewwwwwwwww Good luck
I think a child should be whatever they want to be as long as the parent approves. Characters are meant to be fun. I find that children don’t really focus on gender it’s adults who focus on it. Most times kids see a costume as just a costume and nothing more.
None my kids have ever asked to dress up in a costume different from their gender, but if they did, I would be fine with it. Halloween costumes are supposed to be fun, and I don’t ever want to make a big deal about their choices. If my daughter wants to be Superman, by all means, she can be Superman. We put too much stress off onto our kids with forcing them to do what is socially acceptable, instead of doing what they really want to do.
Geez I never even think of these type of parenting issues. I’m going to ask my husband what he thinks.
The parent should back at the activities if the child like, not to disturb everytime
As long as it’s age-appropriate, she wears whatever costume she chooses. Adults make things far more complex than they need to be.
We sure do, Suzanne…