The misadventures of a misguided model/mom

I took this picture of Oli and myself today at the pool. After we got done swimming, we were walking home and had to pass by a group of cheerleaders that were practicing on my uni’s campus. One of the cheerleaders looked at Oliver and said, “She’s so cute!” With a smile on my face, I ruffled Oli’s hair and said, “HE.” as we continued walking past her. Immediately the girl winced, turned to her friend, and said, “Oh my god, she’s turning him gay..”

I am not turning my son gay by allowing him to express himself by wearing a floral dress. I’m so sick of people making comments that I’m altering my son’s sexual orientation or his gender identity because he’s wearing a dress. IT’S A DRESS. IT IS LITERALLY CLOTHING. If he is gay, that’s cool, I’ll accept him no matter what, and if he decides at any point he’s anything but a boy, I’ll still accept him (er, them/her). But allowing him to pick out his own clothes and taking him clothes shopping with me so he can pick out what he likes is not going to have ANY affect on his orientation/identity. The only concern I have about him wearing a dress is when he pulls it up to show me how big his tummy is in public, because I don’t want him showing a bunch of strangers his underwear.

If he was a little girl wearing a pair of shorts or a t-shirt with a dump truck on it, no one would say anything, because dressing as a boy is different. People see wearing a dress as a negative thing when you’re a boy, they say he’ll turn gay and that I’m a bad mom and I’m trying to turn him into a girl. But the bottom line is that him wearing a dress has nothing to do with being a boy or his orientation. If he’s gay, he’s gay. He’s too young to slap a sexuality on him at 3 and a half, and that’s not something I’m particularly worried about, because at this age he treats everybody the same and doesn’t have comprehension of what sexual/romantic attraction is. Wearing a dress has nothing to do with that.

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