Lots of buzz yesterday and today about a Missouri mom who confronted the Gender Role Enforcement Squad when her 5-year-old son decided to dress up as the Scooby Doo character Daphne for Halloween.
I wish I’d thought of it first. We dressed Leo as Scooby Doo, but I ended up just putting on a striped prisoner’s shirt as my costume. I would joke that I was dressing as a Broward County elected official, but that would be cheap. And I’m above that.
Anyway, back to Missouri: she didn’t have a problem with her son dressing as a girl (read her account here). But he, wise as he was, realized some other people might. What would they think?
Well, what do you think?
Me? I respect the mom and the kid. I understand there are gender roles that are natural, and there are others that are imposed by society. And for the most part, I’m okay with both. What’s a cosutme got to do with it? There are roles for species, too, but I’m not worried that Leo’s going to grow up to be a canine with a speech impediment. Besides, Missouri mom makes an important point. If her boy were a girl and had chosen to dress as Batman, she points out, no one would have said a word.
She’s right. But let’s expand on that. If it’s NOT Halloween and little girls dress like boys and do boyish things routinely, the worst we think is that they’re tomboys and will grow out of it. And they usually do.
This wasn’t a Sunday. It was Halloween. This wasn’t an outfit he wore to church. It was a costume he wore to a costume party.
Here’s where I think the well-meaning made a wrong turn: they assume that the little boy is trying to make a complicated statement about his gender identity by choosing a Daphne costume. No doubt, these are the same people who thought Katy Perry should have covered up when she was on Dancing with the Muppets… I mean, Sesame Street. We adults like staring at Katy Perry’s revealing outfits (did I say that out loud?), so we project our lechery onto our kids and assume they’ll see her as we do.
Well, they don’t. A pretty lady singing to a muppet is, to them, a pretty lady singing to a muppet. Nothing more complicated than that.
And a costume? Just a costume. He is not making a statement about his sexuality any more than my wife and I made a statement about religion four years ago when she dressed as a priest and I dressed as a nun. He was having fun on Halloween.
