When a girl wishes she were a boy

Yesterday was our daughter’s Pre-K graduation. Let’s just ignore, for a moment, that cap and gown ceremonies used to once be reserved for high school and college seniors. Let’s also overlook the fact that my daughter will attend yet another cap and gown ceremony in just one year, when she graduates from kindergarten.

Let’s also not even go into the fact that my daughter’s pre-K class seems to know more than most adults—the Latin words for all of the muscles in the human body, which Presidents heads appear on which coins, and all sorts of Spanish and sign language.

My main issue with Pre-K graduation was this: my daughter was supposed to dress up.

This was a huge issue because, for at least the past two years, my daughter has lived her life as a boy. She will not wear pink or purple. She will not play with Barbie. She will not dress up like a princess or attend any friend’s princess parties. She will not watch Hannah Montana. (Note: I am not in the least bit upset about Hannah Montana). She will not wear things in her hair.

She will only wear clothes that are blue, red, or orange, with orange being a borderline color that sometimes gets relegated to the “only girls wear that” category. For her clothes, we must shop in the little boys department. She wears boy shoes.

She plays with Transformers, Pokemons, and Bakugans. She wants a pet newt. Her friends are all boys, and they all want to marry her. (This thing about preschoolers talking about love and marriage is something that bothers me, too, but it’s a topic for another day).

She will not, under any circumstances, wear a dress. The last time I tried to get a dress on her was two years ago. My parents had purchased a beautiful dress while vacationing in Italy. I wanted my daughter to wear it once so I could take a picture to prove that she’d worn it. My husband had to pin her arms to her sides while I forced it over her head. All the while she screamed, “NO THANK YOU MOMMY!” You would have thought I was poking her with a lit cigarette. I’ve since asked both sets of grandparents to please not gift her girly things.

How does a girl who wants to be a boy dress up? That’s what I want to know.

My husband told me, “Don’t worry. I’ll get a dress on her. You’ll see. Just leave it to me.”

I thought, “Do we really have to do this? There must be a better way.”

You know? I like that she’s unique. I like that she’s real. It took me many, many years to have the courage to be myself and not worry what other people thought about all of my neurotic quirks. I don’t want to discourage her from being her.

I just don’t. I’m proud that she has the courage to be a boy, vagina and all. I am.

So I decided that my husband would put a dress on her over my very dead and very cold body.

I thought about driving to Old Navy and buying a boy suit, complete with a tie. She would have loved that. I nixed the idea, though, because she’d be wearing the suit for all of an hour and we’re on a budget.

So, on graduation morning, I rooted through every hand-me-down pile of clothes I could find, searching for something that said “boy” and also said “I’m dressed up.” Oh, and I was hoping it would fit, too, but my standards for “fitting” were pretty low.

It was slim pickings.

I found a blue polo shirt with a collar. She frowned when she saw it. She would have preferred a T-shirt with a Transformer or Phineas and Ferb on it. I whispered, “Hey, at least it’s not a dress.” She smiled. She put it on.

Then I found a pair of pink cotton pants. They weren’t exactly what you would call super dressy, but they weren’t sweat pants, jeans, or shorts, either.

“Let’s see if these fit,” I said. She tried them on.

“They’ fit!” I said. “You look great!”

She frowned.

“Moooommmeey,” she said. “They’re peeeiiiiink. I don’t wear peeeiiiink. Peeeiiiink is a grrrrrl’s color.”

“Hey, at least you’re not wearing a dress,” I said.

“No mommy,” she said. “I. Don’t. Wear. Pink.” She stomped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest.

I said, “You are wearing pink today because your teacher said you are not allowed to wear shorts and I don’t have anything else to put on you. If I had blue cotton pants, believe me, you’d be wearing them. Pink is all we’ve got. You’re wearing pink or you’re wearing a dress. Which do you want?”

I was proud of myself for not completely losing it and for allowing her to decide. I really was.

She burst into tears.

“I hate pink!”

I morphed into Mean Mommy. I told her she was wearing pink whether she liked it or not and I told her to get her pink self in the car. I did not say, “before I give you something else to cry about.” I only thought that.

At school, I brought her into her room and I told her teacher, “This is as dressed up as this kid is going to get.” Her teacher looked at me as if I was the neurotic lunatic that I am and said, “Oh, sure. She looks great.”

All of the other girls were wearing puffy princess dresses. Most of the boys were in suits. And there was my daughter, straddling both worlds in her blue polo top and pink pants.

Later, as the kids walked onto the stage in their caps and gowns, I searched for my daughter. Had they dressed her in a blue gown, like the boys? Or in a yellow gown, like the girls? She was in yellow. Her eyes didn’t look red and swollen. She actually looked happy.

Maybe yellow was a cross over color. I made a mental note to ask her about it later.

On the way home, I told her how proud I was of her. She said, “Mommy, you know what?”

I said, “What?”

“These pants. They aren’t really pink. They are sort of red. Yeah. I think they are really red.”

“And red is a boy’s color, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah! It is!” she said.

“Does that mean you will wear them again?”

“Yes, I think I like these pants.”

And just like that, I didn’t feel like such a bad mother after all.

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