The one day a year that men in drag don’t warrant a second glance?
Halloween.
For kids, though, it’s different. The Halloween costume is important. Will your kid be a superhero? Harry potter? An animal? A hobo? A criminal? A franchised character spat out of Cartoon Network, Nick Jr, or the Vast Unstoppable Disney Juggernaut?
Will your girl be a boy, of one kind or another? How adorable!
Does your boy want to be a girl?
The world screeches to a halt; time stands still, mouths gape wide. Kids aren’t ironic, see—that’s what makes them kids. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. Open; guileless. The boy that wants to be a girl; a girl character; a fairy, a princess, Hermione instead of Harry, Supergirl not superboy, ballerina, Hello Kitty, Dora the Explorer, Ariel, Belle, Bo Peep, Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella; a witch, not a wizard. A dress, tights, high heels, glitter, tafetta, silk, satin, gauze, pink…
Means gay. Or something even worse.
Parents of little gv kids live in terror of halloween. How will the neighbors react? How will the child’s friends react? What will the repercussions be, if we let him be…what he wants to be?
And so parents are faced with the original dilemma all over again. Will you put your kid who lives in a costume, into another layer of costume? Or do you, on this one night, let him be what he really wants to be? Hoping that the world will let it slide, chalk it up to irony, just a costume, just a joke?
Doing that, though, how will he feel, putting his little boy costume on, the following day?
The unfairness of it burns like acid. Other kids get to be what they want to be. Superman. Freddy Krueger. A bagel. But your kid, well, you negotiate with your kid. Again.
“What else do you think you might like to be, honey?” Animals are great. Cats and bats and mice and rats, lions and tigers and bears. All those glorious genderless costumes! GV kids can be weirdly obsessive about things beyond gender; your kid may want to go as his Nintendo DS (in pink of course.) or a Pokemon.
In the end, you find the compromise, that makes your kid (mostly) happy, that keeps your kid (relatively) safe. And you’ll try not to regret, letting him go too far; or not far enough.
For my family, for Oscar, where we live, in our East Coast Oz, our shining city on the river, there was never any question. He was a princess. He was a witch. Blossom the Powerpuff Girl. He was Hello Kitty. And, after the Day The World Didn’t End, that pink Hello Kitty skirt, those white tights, weren’t a costume any more. He wore them to school whenever he wanted.
We got away with it.
Of course, when he became Harry Potter, and a compelling one at that, his waist long girl hair concealed, everyone was bemused. OH! So we’re a boy now are we! Shades of Victor Victoria. And then, Picichu? The electric yellow Pokemon with the clown circle cheeks? What the hell gender is that damn thing?
What will this child become next?
As always the answer, unsatisfying and true, is only—
Wait and see. Wait and see.
Wait.
And.
See.
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