Letter to the Dragon: Cultural Mirror Training

“Why don’t you wear your sister’s pink rain jacket until we get you a new one.”

“Mom! Nooo! I will bring my other too small one to school.”

Sigh. Is this because it is pink? Or because your sister has cooties?

“Okay.”

No reason to delve. He has to figure out this himself. Just be grateful for all of those years you were dressing him in whatever gave you pleasure.

On the off chance, dear son, you didn’t choose to wear your sister’s fushia rain jacket because of its color, I want to share with you why so much of your early childhood was spent in a dress.

Frilly dresses, colorful dresses, flower dresses, dresses with flounce and flair and bounce and fun.

On several occasions, I would find matching dresses so you two could “be ding dings” (Thank you Ms. Patty).

I knew it would not last long. I knew the clock was ticking on your eventual noticing your father doesn’t wear dresses, owns not one skirt, and has scant flower prints in his closet. You noticed before I was ready for you to notice - around age 5.

I had cut off all of your long locks in anticipation of my rebirthing stint in the hospital via the BMT floor. I knew if I had barely enough patience to get you to sit down and brush through your hair - it was too much of an ask for anyone else.

Two weeks later, at Baba’s memorial weekend in DC, you told me you didn’t want to wear dresses anymore. You had become tired of people calling you a she and assuming you are a girl based on your clothing. Once you began to notice other people’s noticing - that was it. Or, as Tatum states in her great book Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, “the parts of our identity that do capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflect back to us.”

Consequently, both you and Bean wore matching suits for Baba’s life memorial.

Your comment about the rain jacket might have escaped my notice, if it weren’t for my current pleasure book.

Ross Gay’s first essay in The Book of Delights starts with delighting over his 42nd birthday: “it’s all I can do not to bedeck myself in every floral thing imaginable… if there’s some chance to wear some bright and clanging colors, believe me. Some bit of healing for my old man, surely, who would warn against wearing red, lest we succumb to some stereotype I barely even know. (A delight that we can heal our loved ones, even the dead ones.)”

Gay answers a bit of why I choose to put you in “girl’s” clothing. It feels good to your mother to disrupt our cultural norms around gendered dress codes.

Additionally, from a practical standpoint there are many good reasons for dresses. They are comfortable, easy to put on, and you can pee in them very easily (or have your diaper changed). As long as they are not too tight or too short - they are remarkably freeing - it is almost like entering the world in one’s pajamas.

Most importantly of all, there are very few things more joyful and delightful to your mother than a happy child with a cute dress on.

Thank you for that gift - my beautiful son.