For anyone who knows Lala, the first thing you notice is her bubbly personality, followed closely by her rough and tumble attitude. Though she's not even 3 yet, some may call her a Tom Boy.
She won't hesitate to tell you that she loves Darth Vader ("He's my best friend, momma."), Minions, and soccer. However, she also loves wearing tutus (especially with her Darth Vader pajamas), dancing up a storm saying she's a ballerina, My Little Ponies (my original ones from my childhood!) and, like every other little kid right now, Frozen. True, her favorite character is Marshmallow, the giant monster snowman, but she still loves the movie.
The other day, I had her and her sister at the store with me. While rocking pigtails, Lala had demanded to wear her new Minion tee that I got her from Target. Sure it was from the boy's department, but who cares. We were walking around, and a lady at the meat counter stopped me and started this conversation:
"Why does your little boy have pigtails?"
"....because she's my daughter?" (one of our favorite meat guys, who had been helping me, gave me the 'did she really just say that?!' look)
"Oh. Well, I couldn't tell. My son has the same shirt."
She huffed off after that, leaving both the meat guy and myself starring after her in disbelief. He looked at me and said, "There's no way she looks like a boy. She's all girl!"
...I HATE that people feel like there absolutely has to be different genders for everything. Lots of Lala's clothes have come from the so-called "boy" department but who am I to tell her what she can and can't wear? Part of this relates to my last post. As long as she is happy, and is confident in how she looks, why should I push her away from something she likes because it's "not for girls"?
Thankfully, our families have supported us in giving our girls a wide range of things to play with. They have books about princesses and construction sites. Cars, trains and castles to play with. They encourage anything that they show interest in and don't put a gender on anything.
I'm not sure how this will play out in their future, but for right now, all I see are two happy girls rolling all over the living room floor, without a care in the world.
If you have an opinion about how someone should be dressing their kid/indulging their toy requests (ie girl wanting hot wheels/boy wanting barbies)....please keep your opinions to yourself. They're not your kids to raise. There's enough challenges for kids these days and they don't need judgement. They just need love and acceptance.
