Wearing a Pink Dress

My four-year-old son informed me the other day that he thought I should wear a pink dress.  The bright idea occurred to him after he saw that I was dressed in a skirt.  I rarely do wear a skirt and definitely never dresses.  It seems so impractical when you're always cleaning up ice cream or chasing after people with dirty diapers in your hands.  It's not really a fashion statement but rather a practicality statement.

Somewhere in all of this, my son got the message that girls wear dresses.  He told me this.  He said, "Girls wear dresses.  You should get a pink dress and then wear it."  I remember a long time ago I purchased a pink shirt to wear and when Dominic saw it he said, "It's a princess shirt!"  He was very excited to have me put it on only to have his face fall into disappointment upon seeing me wear it.  He pathetically uttered, "You don't look like a princess."  Can't say he's the first guy to ever say that to me...

How at the age of 4 has he already clearly gotten the message that girls wear pink and wear dresses?  I guess it just seeps in.  What encourages me about him, though, is that even though he knows girls wear dresses, and girls wear makeup, and girls are different than him he still respects them.  I know this because of the people he role models.  He loves to play make believe.  His two favorite characters to pretend to be are Velma, from Scooby Doo, and Margo, from "Despicable Me."   The reason he likes to be them is because they're clearly the smartest ones and clearly the ones in charge.  He doesn't care that they're girls.  He doesn't think that makes them any less than the guys.  All he sees is they're the ones figuring everything out and he wants to be that.

I love that about him.  I don't know if it's enough to get me into a pink dress, but it's enough to let me know that he's always going to respect women.  Either that or he's a control freak.  It's too soon to tell.