The One With The Little Boy Princess

So there’s this boy. He’s three years old. Quite mature for his age. I mean a little three year old that can acknowledge they are full by using their words..instead of, you know, doing the opposite of using your words is pretty mature for his age.

He’s also mature in the sense that we can have seemingly decent conversations (that should speak volumes about my own maturity) and all that.

 It does help that he has an older sibling- 6 year old brother-who has contributed in large (in my opinion)to his maturity. Do we feel like I’m using mature a lot in this post? Because I do. Let’s just exhaust it completely then I’ll never ever use it again. Mature,mature,mature,mature,mature,manure,mature,mature. Well done all you lazy readers for not noticing manure is in the sentence)

So at the age of 3, gender roles aren’t really defined yet (especially in this day and age where boys wear pink and girls are allowed to cook badly). There are no stereotypes (yet) and everybody can be anybody at 3 years. However, this little one has been highly influenced by his brother (and his brother’s older friends)to react in a certain way regarding certain things. For example, the little one can only hug me in private (that’s not meant to sound creepy at all). Little forehead or cheek pecks are a no-no. Tears are shun, and if they do fall, greatly denied. Playing with girls (in public) is also a no. Yet my class is the one where communal changing by the poolside is accepted (they’re 2 and a half for Pete’s sake).

This one time, during free play, I happened to hear him sing (sometimes he’s also too manly to sing in class) whilst making a little Barbie doll dance. And to top it off, he was wearing our classes princess tiara.

As soon as he saw me, the guilt on his face was like that of a man caught cheating.

He quickly removed it and picked up the toy truck.

2 minutes later, he was back to the doll and crown. Liberation, right?

NOT!

Anytime he felt my eyes on him, he quickly threw the tiara like he’d just noticed it was atop his head and picked up the truck.

I felt so bad for him living that lie for the rest of his 30 minutes of free play. Regretting why he wasn’t true to himself before it was too late..and it was circle time. Losing sleep over his past (morning) during naptime.

No I refuse to let him go through that turmoil.

I’m starting a campaign:

Do you booboo do you! No judgement.