10 November 2017

My son's gender-nonconformance does challenge me.

I'm going to start this post off with a paragraph I read on another blog:

Before anyone asks, no, I’m not some sort of new age, millennial, hipster chic parent living in a commune, attempting to raise genderless, nameless offspring who will one day grow up and decide these things independent of their father and me.

(Okay, so maybe I am that parent, perhaps even worse. But I think this should be prefaced with, "I never intended to raise my child as my son... it's just, he had other plans for me.)

My son was just shy of two when he started wearing nail polish. I have a ton of colors, and he picked a shiny blue to decorate his tiny nails, little jellybeans dancing on the ends of his fingertips. I thought very little of it at the time, thinking it was cute and, shoot, blue. He babied those nails and showed them off to everyone he could.

He's about four and a half now, and today, he wanted to wear sparkly press-on nails to go with his pink button-down shirt. For picture day.

And ya damn right, that's what he's wearing.



I always believed myself a progressive mom who refused to let gender norms dictate what her son did or wanted. To this point, it's been relatively simple, even adorable: The female-centered Paw Patrol shirts from the girls' section, the rainbow tutu and pink galoshes (two sizes too big but worn every day for over a week), and the manicures -- we've upgraded from simple nail polish to the full-on at-home salon experience.

But recently, I've been tested. My little gender-creative child recently asked me for a dress. And not just any dress, but one with sequins and glitter and entirely white.



It may have something to do with recently marrying my soulmate, an experience and a subject that deserves a post all of its own. I bought two dresses off Amazon, one lace and form-fitting, the other adorned with silver details and tulle. A few weeks ago, Tycho wanted me to try both of them on, and though his preference was for the latter, in each instance, he gasped and said, "Mommy, you look like a princess."

It took me a while for the stars in my eyes to dissipate, I won't lie!

A couple days later, he asked me for a dress. "A princess dress, like what you have for when you get married!" I paused for a second... did he want a dress because he wanted to be more like Mommy, or did he sincerely want a dress? I told him sure, I'll look around for one, and that was pretty much that.

I've already had to go through the painstaking effort to get both his classmates and his preschool teachers on board with his penchant for polish and glitter and all things whimsical. Kids have come up to me asking why Tycho is wearing nail polish, and most of the time, it was averted by saying, "He likes to wear it." And I've had to correct a teacher for saying pink is a "girl color" by noting every color is for every kid, and please don't make my son feel ashamed or wrong for liking pink. 

Now that they've known him for a few years, literally no one bats an eye at the polish or the pink or anything else wild he comes up with.



But a dress? I admit, this one is even difficult for me to wrangle. Guess there's more gender normative behavior engrained in me than I like to admit, especially since it's now personal. But maybe he dropped the matter entirely, right...?

As Tycho examined and admired his glittering pastel fingertips on the way to preschool, I asked if he still wanted a dress for maybe Christmas or Thanksgiving. He misunderstood me at first, thinking I was asking if he wanted to wear one: "For both!" I clarified it'd be for a present, and he was still insistent on wanting one. "Umm... white, and sparkles, and poofy."

I simply can't deny this is who my son is. Shoot, at Target yesterday, he quickly and almost recklessly abandoned a set of Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas for a two-set of footie jammies, one gray background with colorful birds and one pink and white polka dot with a large pink fox face. The disappointment in his eyes when I told him they were 5T and he still fits in 3T was palpable, and we hunted that damn clearance rack until we found his size. The moment we got home, he had those jammies on.

Before he was born, Matt and I had a few discussions about what we would do if Tycho was gay. Obviously, we'll love him no matter what; that's not at all predicated on who or what he is. At this point, I don't think Tycho is gay, or trans, or potentially anything else on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum (though it wouldn't surprise me if he was!), but it's very clear that he's gender-nonconforming (or, as another beautiful article put it and how I'll always consider it, gender creative).

And I never thought I'd be challenged by it, but here we are. His happiness, though, far outweighs my desire to be comfortable, so this Christmas, he'll be getting a white dress. I'll be a bit anxious about it, I totally admit that; this is more pushing my boundaries than it is his, since he's clearly comfortable with his decision.

We owe it to our children to let them make their own decisions and, so long as it doesn't harm others (and I don't mean their delicate sensibilities!), to not force them to conform to whatever society deems "appropriate." Tycho knows himself, far more than I ever will, even with the privilege of being his mom. I owe my trust to him, and he deserves every ounce of unconditional love I have.

So he'll have that. And his little white dress. And all the love and support he could ever want.

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