“Oh my goodness that is just too cute! What princess are you?”
We’re in Home Depot and my nearly 3-year-old is dressed as Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, wearing a ball gown complete with elbow-length gloves and a sparkling tiara.
Unsurprisingly, she’s caught the attention of our fellow shoppers.
“No!” my daughter yells at the man who had tried to talk to her, before diving behind my knees, near tears. Part of her reaction is from being overtired, but she’s also a kid who doesn’t particularly enjoy talking to strangers.
I flash him an apologetic smile and kneel down to her level.
“If you’re going to wear an outfit like that, you have to be prepared to talk to people,” I say.
But before I can even stand back up it hits me that I am sending my daughter a very unhealthy message, one that girls and women get too often in our society. Her outfit — no matter how glamorous — shouldn’t open her to unwanted contact, even from well-intentioned strangers.
I take her hand and we walk from the store. I think of all the times women have been chided for what they are wearing; all the victims who have been blamed for sexual assault because they were in a revealing outfit; all the women who have been cat-called as they walked down the street because a passerby liked the way they looked.
I certainly did not want to sexualize the experience of people being friendly to my daughter because of what she was wearing. However, I needed her to know that no matter what she wears, she never has to put up with unwanted attention because of it. She isn’t consenting to any contact when she chooses what to wear and I want her to internalize that important message from a young age.
“I was wrong in there,” I say as I buckle her into her car seat. “You don’t have to talk to people just because they like your outfit. Next time, you can just say, ‘No thank you.’ ”
It’s an imperfect response, but better than my initial reaction in the store.
Dressing can be fraught, especially for girls and women. Ideally, choosing clothes, hairstyle and accessories should be an expression of our individuality, but too often women and girls have their choices critiqued by a society that likes to control how women define themselves.
Ever since my daughter could express an opinion, she has always demanded the loudest, frilliest, girliest outfit available. Looking at her wardrobe I can see exactly where she found her voice.
Her infant clothes are speckled with blue and black and (gasp) pinks. Just after she turned 1, her wardrobe took a drastic turn toward pink dresses, the bigger the better. At first I tried to fight it, but I soon realized that pushing my daughter away from her preferences was no better than reinforcing the traditional gender roles that I had tried to steer clear of.
My daughter’s everyday attire is fancy, formal dresses, whether we are going to a party or playing in the dirt. On a casual day she might opt for a tutu instead, but she never chooses to wear pants. Usually, she’s also sporting some sort of accessory, whether a tiara or a purse. I’m living with a real-life Fancy Nancy.
For now, her outfit choices are fairly simple. I invest in expensive laundry detergent to remove stains and let her wear what she wants, when she wants. However, I know that moment in the store is just the beginning of many complicated conversations that we will have to have about how she dresses.
As we prepare for preschool in the fall I am stocking up on shorts to go under her beloved dresses. It’s easy to explain that underwear has to be covered up outside the home. I know it’s going to be much harder to explain why she may want to think twice about low-cut shirts or short shorts when she is older.
I never want to shame my daughter for her body or what she wears. I want her to know that she can choose to express herself however she sees fit.
However, I also want to prepare her for the reality that her choices will elicit reactions and judgments from others, whether they should or not. I just hope that she has the confidence to make the choices that balance those two things in a way that she is comfortable with.