Is anyone here following either of the"My son wants to do BBB as a princess" threads?

[BrdwayBoy]

I just happened to stumble upon the second thread (the poll) and was wondering if anyone here has read either/both of them. Thoughts? I'm honestly a little disheartened by some of the comments/responses, not surprised... but definitely disappointed.

 

[mickeysaver]

I haven't seen anything on this. I am quite sure that there are plenty of opinions that are less than supportive of the idea. Like my father always says, "Opinions are like *******s, everyone has one."

 

[TagsMissy]

I saw them; didn't bother reading beyond a page of the two I saw but I did vote to let the kid dress up whenever he wants and who the heck cares lol

 

[BrdwayBoy]

There were only a few posts that bothered me.... the "right of creation" post in particular. As a young man who did indeed wear dresses/tried on women's shoes as a child, I don't see the harm in it... and I'm very grateful that my parents never made me feel like there was anything wrong with it; If they had any problems with it, at least I never picked up on it.

 

[grumpyskirtgirl]

I have not seen the threads, but I can imagine what some people are saying.

My husband and I took our son to Disneyland for the first time in April for his 5th birthday. He proudly wore his Tinkerbell & Fairy shirt. We noticed people talking about him, but we didn't think he did. Until we were waiting for a ride and the girls (tweens) who were right in front of us the entire time, got into their car and then yelled rude remarks about our "gay son" as the ride pulled away. He looked confused and asked why they were yelling at him. My husband had to stop me from climbinh over the gate. Seriously. My poor baby was introduced to cruelty at the Happiest Place on Earth. We went on the ride and talked to him about what happened and asked him if he wanted to go buy another shirt to wear. He chose to wear his favorite Disney shirt and we took him over to the Tink meet n greet right then so he could get some love.

People can be cruel. There is nothing wrong with a boy who wants to wear a dress, "girly" shirt, barrettes etc. I wish people would just let kids be kids and protect their feelings instead of trying to hurt them.

 

[BrdwayBoy]

I want a Tinkerbell and fairy shirt!

I'm glad he chose to keep wearing the shirt!

 

[taylor3297]

I have read them and also voted to let the child wear what he wants. My son has even worn my dd's princess dresses and had his finger nails painted! There is nothing wrong with this. It is very natural to explore. I am lucky my husband understands this.

How in the world do people come to the notion that if a boy wears a dress that makes him gay? I don't get that kind of thinking. When are they going to realize that people don't choose to be gay nor does anyone thing make someone gay. It is just who they are. Why is that so hard to understand? Also, if a person is gay or straight, why does that really matter?

I am so lucky my parents raised me to not judge people on things that are not under their control, but to judge them on who they are, how they treat people etc. Judge is not the exact word I want to use but that is all I can come up with right now. But I think y'all know what I mean.

 

[Eeyore98]

Yeah, I tried to inject a little bit of sanity into the longer thread. There were more supportive folks in that one. BUT it eventually got locked after some guy had to come in and start spreading his fundamentalist bible poo all over the thread.

I try to look on the bright side - on the poll thread, if you add up the three choices that are some variation of "yes, I would let my son dress up as a princess in certain instances", it is a clear majority. And "yes, anywhere and anytime" has the most votes after the single "no" option. If the poll was written by someone who wasn't clearly biased against the idea, the results might be even more favorable.

Times are changing and those who are uncomfortable with it are always gonna scream the loudest.

 

[greenkai3000]

I read the thread and advised the mom to let him wear whatever he wanted. I also said that if people laughed at the boy, or anything like that to just ignore them, since that would be their issue , not the mom's. Too bad the thread is locked now, otherwise I'd go back and continue to show more support.

 

[iankh]

I think it's very natural for children to explore like this and I wonder if there would be as much fretting it it was a little girl who wanted to dress like a pirate and paint on a moustache?

I have been out for a long time, since I was 17 (that was back in 1973)

I have a very vivid memory of one Halloween when I was about 3 or 4 years old (this would have been either 1958 or 1959).

My father came home with a Halloween costume for me. He had accidentally bought a Minnie Mouse costume for me instead of Mickey. I have vivid memories of both my parents, kneeling on the floor, desperately trying to talk me into it being OK for me to dress up as Minnie Mouse, and that little boys could be Minnie.

I stubbornly refused. I would not cross-dress, even as a mouse. My father had to return the costume (luckily the store was still open) and get me the gender appropriate rodent suit.

My point is that kids have their own ideas and what they want to dress up as (or not dress up as) is simply playing with personas and part of exploration.

 

[glenpreece]

I have not seen the threads, but I can imagine what some people are saying.

My husband and I took our son to Disneyland for the first time in April for his 5th birthday. He proudly wore his Tinkerbell & Fairy shirt. We noticed people talking about him, but we didn't think he did. Until we were waiting for a ride and the girls (tweens) who were right in front of us the entire time, got into their car and then yelled rude remarks about our "gay son" as the ride pulled away. He looked confused and asked why they were yelling at him. My husband had to stop me from climbinh over the gate. Seriously. My poor baby was introduced to cruelty at the Happiest Place on Earth. We went on the ride and talked to him about what happened and asked him if he wanted to go buy another shirt to wear. He chose to wear his favorite Disney shirt and we took him over to the Tink meet n greet right then so he could get some love.

People can be cruel. There is nothing wrong with a boy who wants to wear a dress, "girly" shirt, barrettes etc. I wish people would just let kids be kids and protect their feelings instead of trying to hurt them.

Amen!!! I love my Evil Queen `Diva`shirt and wear it proudly on my wdw trips. I left another Disney forum because when Disney began allowing same sex ceremonies at the wedding pavilion people were nasty about it and that`s when I found the Dis!!!

 

[hematite153]

Haven't seen it...I'll look for the poll to vote.

 

[annie1995]

Haven't seen it...I'll look for the poll to vote.

Please send me the link or post it when you find it. I've looked everywhere and must be missing it. I want to vote too!!

 

[BrdwayBoy]

I know the thread was locked, but was it also deleted?

 

[Nancy F]

As long as the child is happy... that's what counts. Do whatever it takes to make his childhood a happy one. He'll be a happier adult.

 

[disneyygirrl]

There were only a few posts that bothered me.... the "right of creation" post in particular. As a young man who did indeed wear dresses/tried on women's shoes as a child, I don't see the harm in it... and I'm very grateful that my parents never made me feel like there was anything wrong with it; If they had any problems with it, at least I never picked up on it.

I couldn't agree with you more! My youngest brother always thought it was fun to try on dresses and my parents never had an issue with it. Why would they? Children play dress-up all the time! I don't even understand why that BBB thread exists.

 

[JoShan1719]

I don't even understand why that BBB thread exists.

A mom posted that her son wanted to do the BBB and dress up as a princess and she seemed unsure about whether she should be concerned about that. I saw the thread but ducked out instead of posting because I could see where it was going and didn't want to read the nasty comments.

It boggles my mind that it would be such a huge deal if a little boy was wearing a dress because, as someone else mentioned, no one would bat an eye if a little girl dressed up like a pirate. They'd call her cute and him gay. Why?? On top of all that, I fail to see how some family I don't even know walking by me at Epcot with a little boy in a dress has any amount of impact on my vacation. Rude people who swear, cut lines, are impolite to other people and CMs impact my vacation, not little boys who love Cinderella enough to want to dress up like her.

 

[kmedina]

I have not seen either threads and just stumbled across this one in the new posts links. My son (4) expresses interest in things that some may deem girly. My niece has a dolly stroller that DS loves to play with when he goes over there. It does not bother me, and I think he should do whatever makes him happy. BBB seems like fun. I will add that I saw a thread a while back asking if it was okay for a boy to wear a princess dress to CRT, which I of course said yes to.

 

[leebee]

But in the real world, people are mean, and as a parent it's natural to want to protect your child from being hurt. As adults, you have the capacity to handle this, but a small child? I am fine with him dressing as a princess for exploration/play, and don't really give a hoot about his possible sexual orientation... truly, I don't (geez, how do I say that without everyone assuming ooops, this one's really homophobic?? but you'll just have to take my word for it, I guess), but he IS going to be laughed at, talked about, bullied, and teased, even at Disney World, by both kids and adults. As a parent, how do I balance loving my child, regardless of their choices (and not just those about sexual orientation), with not wanting them to be hurt by other people? I don't think it's weird that he'd want to dress up as a princess ('do you think this is weird' was the wording of the original post), don't have a problem with it at home or around the neighborhood where families know each other, but would hesitate to let him do so in DW at such a young age because it's my job to protect him from hurt and danger, and he'd definitely be a four year old target. IDK... I guess I'd have to be in the situation to know how I'd truly react.

The mean people ARE at Disney. My 11 year old niece told me this on Monday. She is Chinese, adopted by my DSis and DBil 10 years ago. It seems that on Sunday 10/9, the mean people were on the bus from Epcot to POP. They pulled their eyes out to the sides, pointed and laughed at my niece, and talked in funky, high voices with accents. It was all my sis/bil could do not to throttle this entire family, because not just the kids but the parents were doing it. The only reason it didn't become confrontational was because my niece was so entirely humiliated by the whole thing, she begged her parents not to make it worse. SHe had tears in her eyes relating the entire story to me the next day. If ignorant you=know=what's would do that to a child because of her ethnicity, how do you think they'd treat a little boy in a princess costume with makeup and his hair pulled into a bun/'do and all sparkly?? How, as a parent, could I leave my four year old open to such abuse and hurt?

 

[Monch]

I think leebee has a point above. That story about the Chinese girl is SO disappointing but perhaps representative of how people can be anywhere--even near the happiest place on earth.

I have an interesting POV on this. As a boy, my parents were supportive of the fact that I loved girls' toys. Sure, my mom took me to a child psychologist when I cried to get a doll, but once the doctor told her I was a perfectly normal boy (who just didn't like violent toys like guns), they let me have all the My Little Ponies and dolls I wanted.

They even let me take them to school, to my brother's hockey games, anywhere I went.

And I was teased. All. The. Time. Some might even say I was tortured. Even my friends (all girls of course) turned on me every once in a while because they thought I wasn't normal. And little girls are so nasty! LOL

Just kids being kids. No big whoop. I always stood up for myself and told everyone I didn't care what they thought. I played with dolls because it made ME happy and they could all hoop it.

Not all kids could put up with such abuse, though. And if my mom had known what I was going through, she probably would've thrown my ponies in the garbage (I'm SO glad she didn't find out!). I wouldn't want MY kids to go through what I did, even though I was so self-absorbed I couldn't have cared less what people thought of me.

I would let my son dress up and play with dolls at home, but I would try to explain to him that at school, other kids wouldn't understand why a little boy would play with dolls. Honestly, even when little boys like dolls, they know it's not "normal". At 5 years old, I knew they were supposed to be for my sister. There was another boy in my school who played with ponies, but his big sister forbade him to bring them to school. We used to play with them in secret. He was never teased. He fit in with everyone. Looking back, his way of playing with girls' toys was smarter.

And this may sound like I'm keeping my hypothetical son from trying to make a difference in the world, but I don't think that's up to children. Even though I'm not a parent, I'm extremely protective of kids, and it would tear me up if I knew my kid was being tortured for being unique.

The problem is, as a boy I would've had a tantrum to dress up as a princess at BBB (not sure what that is, eeks!), and so that could be a bigger issue than being teased....

However, I know I wouldn't agree with any hateful comments made in that thread. There's nothing wrong with boys who want to dress like girls. There's only something wrong with people who THINK it's degrading for a boy to be like a girl and not vice versa. Mysogyny sucks...