‘My son is being bullied by girls for his pink outfit’

When her kids wanted to wear a mask for a themed day at school, but her six-year-old son turned down a pink one, Kate understood. “But after a few minutes he came back to it: he wanted to wear the pink mask anyway. Fine, I thought, and dropped him off at school. But later that morning I got a text from his teacher: two girls had bullied my son because he was wearing a ‘girl mask’.’

The teacher had discussed it with the class and explained that there are no boy or girl colors. “I appreciated that and my son had happily shrugged off the incident when he got home in the afternoon.”

Authentic

Kate herself, however, continued to think about it for a long time. “I had prepared for boys in his class to tease him, but girls? I didn’t see that coming.’

Kate feels that her son has made himself vulnerable by going to school in a pink mask. “Unfortunately, he was teased about it, but his teacher handled it well. But it could also have gone differently. Perhaps my son had realized that his preference was unacceptable to the girls in his class. And that might have changed his behavior in the future.”

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On her blog, Kate says that men should be accepted as they are from an early age. ‘Then they develop the courage to lead their own, authentic life. That can start with wearing a pink mask, but can also manifest itself later in, for example, performing household tasks.’

Other standard

In order to achieve that, according to Kate, it is important that parents talk about this with their children. “Tell your son how important it is for him to express his true feelings. But also discuss it with your daughter, as we have: has she ever seen her boy friends do something girly? And how did she react?’

She encourages her daughter to support the guys who are brave enough to go beyond the gender norm. ‘Because only if both boys and girls realize that this is normal, can things change.’

Source: Scary Mommy