Although society has become more accepting of how people choose to identify there is still unfortunately a long way to go.
A mother has divided the internet after she allowed her 2-year-old son to wear a dress for her wedding after he refused to wear a suit.
39-year-old Joanna Minuzzo who lives in Cairns, Australia got married to her Navy partner Najee, 31, on May 11.
The mother of three gave her son, 2, three outfit choices which included a kilt from her home country of Scotland but he was fascinated by his sister’s dresses. Minuzzo’s son’s love for dresses emerged in January this year after asking his mother whether he could wear his sister’s dress which has a Minnie Mouse on it.
Mom wrote, “We are a strong family unit and work hard at it. My husband is in the Navy, and I am self-employed as a gentle sleep consultant. We share care of my 6- and 7-year-old girls with their dad, who is an essential family member for us, and our 2-year-old son lovingly calls him “Grandad” — but that’s another story.”
Initially, she had told him that he couldn’t as she thought it was not socially acceptable for boys to wear frocks. However, she found herself questioning her response.
“My gentle, sweet little boy first started to take an interest in wearing “girls” clothes when he began to like Minnie Mouse shortly before his second birthday,” she explained. At first, she was resistant to allow him to wear his older sisters’ clothing. But after thinking about it, Lauren says she couldn’t think of a good reason not to let him.
“His sister has a red polka dot Minnie Mouse dress and one day about eight months ago, he brought it to me asking to wear it. I laughed and said ‘little mate, dresses aren’t for boys,’” she explained. “But then I stopped and questioned that. Why can’t he wear it? Who is he hurting? Who makes these rules anyway?’
She says that it soon became normal for her son to wear whatever he wanted, whether they were deemed ‘girly’ clothes or not.
“He has no idea he is a boy yet and doesn’t bear the weight of society’s expectations,’” she wrote. “My biggest concern wasn’t anything to do with society, it was just that he would trip over something because the dress was quite long.”
“We then bought a little suit to look just like his dad’s so they could be matching on the day. We brought it out for him to try on but he cried and got so upset,” Lauren explained. “That was the reaction every time he saw it and he refused to even try it on.”
However, when he saw the dresses his sisters were supposed to wear, he had a completely different reaction. So, the parents decided to borrow a blue child’s dress from a friend and keep it on hand during the wedding day in case the toddler refused to wear the suit.
“My husband and I discussed it and said we would try the suit first, but if that failed, we would show him the dress,” she explained. “We both laughed about it because to us, it’s not that big a deal, so it wasn’t a hard decision. Ultimately, we knew the dress was what he was going to wear.”
The mom concluded:
“We didn’t want any of the children to feel uncomfortable, so we let them tell us what the boundaries were. My preference was to have both girls as ring bearers as I didn’t have any bridesmaids, but my oldest daughter felt like that was too much pressure, so I respected that.”
“You see, our beautiful sweet boy is 2. He doesn’t yet bear the weight of society’s expectations or gender roles. He doesn’t understand why he can’t wear what he wants, and to be honest, I couldn’t find a valid reason why he couldn’t wear a dress either! The last thing we wanted on the wedding day was to have a really unhappy toddler that was miserable and crying,” She added.
Leave a Comment