So to start with some of you may know me a little and my son even less, so let me describe my son a little to understand what I am about to go into. My son is 5 and he is amazing to me (duh what parent doesn't say that about their child). My husband and I have always raised him with the saying that "there are no boy toys and there are no girl toys. Just toys." I think that from a psychological stand point it's ridiculous that we let society create isles of toys within the supermarket that are all pink geared towards girls and the boy isles are all trucks and legos and such. Now don't get me wrong, I am not one of those crazy people that you see on the documentary that are extremists. I just don't think children should feel guilty about playing with opposite gender targeted toys. Little boys enjoy dressing up (not usually in dresses), and little girls like playing with cars. They should be free to use their imagination and express themselves however they want.
My son is a very smart and imaginative little boy. One of his favorite things to do is dress up like an explorer with a backpack on his back, a headlamp strapped to his head, his bicycle helmet securely strapped on, rain boots and some form of weapon at his side. He is crazy...and cute...and different...he is not a cookie cutter type of child.
(a hazard vest, winter boots, sandals on his arms like armor, a headlamp around his waist to guide his way, a magical bracelet in one hand and a sword in the other)
I love that he's not a cookie cutter type of child, but it can have its difficult situations too. One of those times being this past weekend.
A week ago I bought blue nail polish. I never wear any other color other than red or pink, but I saw on pinterest a really cute fourth of july nail idea that I was going to bravely try out in my extra spare time. My son was with me when I bought the color, his favorite color, a deep and sparkly blue. Apparently the color really struck his fancy because he asked me saturday if I would paint his nails with it. I told him to ask his dad, a reaction I usually have when he asks me to do something I'm not sure about. Dad said he didn't care. I hesitated doing this for my son not because I thought he might be too girly or flamboyant, but because of how other people and kids would think. Thinking the cruel things they might say to my son. As a parent you want to protect your child from any hurt you can prevent, and so that was my first instinct. So I was honest with him, as we always are. I told him that I would love to paint his nails, but that he needed to understand that what he is asking me to do is something different. That most little boys don't wear nail polish, or their parents won't let them. I continued to explain to him that we loved that he was different, but that sometimes people don't understand things that are different to them and it scares them. My husband and I told him that other kids might make fun of him, that they might say he is like a girl. This might seem cruel to you, but just like a grown up, a child needs to know what entails the decision they are embarking upon. I asked him if he understood what we were saying and he nodded yes with a serious expression of contemplation. "Do you still want me to paint your nails?" I asked him. He answered yes, and I painted them blue for him. And he loved them, telling me that he can shoot x-ray beams from his blue nails and electrocute bad guys, proceeding to show me his amazing super hero moves.
The more I mulled over what had happened and what was said; I thought to myself that I should be a proud parent. Proud because my child is different, proud because even though he may get picked on he still chose to be different. Proud that I'm not the parent that stifles my child's creativity in fear, scared that he will be too different for society. Proud that one day when he is grown enough to understand all that he had and all that we gave him during his childhood he will be happy. Happy because we let him be who is without guilt or constraint, that we didn't make him who we wanted him to be...
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