I’ve been trying to work with Isaac on his pink fascination, and to do so without judgment. Ben has reluctantly come along for the ride. He tolerates the pink Tevas, that simply scream girl, and the pink and lavender striped jammies, and a pink golf shirt, and a pink t-shirt with lavender stripes. I even went so far as to get Isaac this amusing t-shirt. It’s a sweet baby girl pink all over, and reads in large black letters, “TOUGH GUYS WEAR PINK.” What’s funniest about this is that Isaac wears it without a trace of irony. He just feels that it’s a statement of fact. He’s tough, all right! He loves pink! The shirt says it all. A special benefit of the shirt is that passersby read it, and smile, and say something like, “Are you a tough guy?” You better believe it! These comments bring Isaac no end of delight.
Isaac pulls this off with apparently no gender confusion among the general public. Somehow he still looks like he’s all boy, despite his fashion choices. And people know, I think, that preschoolers have a way of dressing eccentrically, and that’s normal. Only one time did he actually get mistaken for a girl. We were at Target, and he was dressed in a predominately pink outfit… AND he was buying a toothbrush bearing the likeness of Princess Belle, the heroine of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” The check-out lady made a remark along the lines of “Well, she’s a well-behaved little lady!” Or something like that. It seemed to go completely over Isaac’s head, which I was glad of.
So yesterday Isaac and I were sitting around for a brief snack in between his babysitter and his dance class. We were looking through some of the many catalogues bearing images of “back to school” clothes. Since Isaac is starting preschool this fall (half-day Montessori), I am taking a look at his wardrobe. Really not so much in terms of fashion, but in terms of quantity– to make sure he has enough that while recovering from a c-section, with baby Sassy latched on to my breast, I am also not constantly having to do laundry to get him dressed for school each day. So I asked him what he liked in the Garnet Hill catalogue. He flipped immediately to the girls’ section and selected this shirt:
http://www.garnethill.com/jump.jsp?itemID=12098&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C4322%2C8802%2C8820&iProductID=12098
If you can’t open or copy over that link (and sadly I can’t seem to copy the photo) I can tell you that it’s a pink knit shirt, with ruffles on the sleeves, a scoop neck, and lovely smocking on the chest.
Okay. That one? Hm.
So, I tried to direct Isaac to the more gender neutral sorts of pink-related items. Like a pink and brown striped long-sleeve T, or a dark pink sweater with a lizard on the front, etc. No. This angered him. He got quite frustrated with me and said, “NOOOO! The one that I already CHOOSED!”
I dropped it. Later when Ben came home I showed him, “Wanna see the shirt Isaac wants?” Groaning, preparing for the worst, Ben picked up the catalogue and sighed wearily. “That … is … over the top.”
I have to admit that I find myself balking at this shirt. This is not a shirt that any man would ever wear. Not David Arquette, the movie star who was recently spotted arguing with paparazzi while wearing a pink t-shirt. Not one of those southern gentlemen who make a pink golf shirt look so manly. No. It’s not the COLOR here, it’s the RUFFLES. Tough guys may wear pink, but they don’t wear ruffles!
So again I’m in a quandary. Should I say to hell with the world and social conventions and just buy the shirt he covets? (Would that expose him to teasing?) Should I gently but clearly tell him that some people might think that that’s a shirt just for girls? I don’t know. I think my plan at the moment is to hope the whole thing just goes away into the ether. That I need make neither choice and that Isaac will forget about it.
I was just reading another blog I like, mimi smartypants (http://smartypants.diaryland.com). She has a three-year-old girl who wants to wear Thomas the Tank Engine tighty-whity underwear. And wants a boy’s bike. Mimi is grappling with the same issue exactly, only in reverse.
Well, at least I’m not alone…