Lately, T's obsessed with jobs and growing up; approximately every five minutes he inquires about new career possibilities - "Mom, when I grow up can I be a builder/ fire truck driver/ ice cream scooper/ Batman/ police?" I'm not quite sure why he feels the need to ask my permission, but I enjoy hearing what he comes up with. My current favorite is "can I be a guy who carries a backpack and owns a walkie-talkie?" So many potential careers exist when one doesn't have salary concerns.
I don't remember the girls going through a similar phase, probably because they spent the first four years of life adjusting to the fact that they would never be "real" princesses. The royal wedding occurred during the end of F's princess obsession (some of those dresses literally became rags by the time she finished with them) and one of my friends suggested watching the footage with her. At first, F could barely contain herself, "mom she's so beautiful, look at that dress, and all the people. wow, a real princess. wow." Then she saw the prince, who somehow didn't match her Disney dreams. "You mean, she's only a princess if she marries that GUY?" "Um, yeah, that's sort of how it works." And so ended the princess phase.
Perhaps T's career obsessions are entirely his own making and sex/gender has nothing to do with it. But it still makes me a little sad. All my kids have loved costumes and dressing up, but whereas T's costumes include police, firefighter, musketeer, and super hero outfits; the girls usually preferred glittery purses, heels, and fancy dresses. Not that anything is inherently WRONG with any of this, but it just seems so unbalanced - isn't the goal for them all to enter the same workforce? Apply for the same jobs? Build a future centered on equality?
Oh well, the best thing about our new dress up corner is the combinations that occur - a police hat, a builder vest, and a sparkly dress. I dig it.
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