I can still picture those wonderful words carefully laid out in my mom's scrapbook, "Your imagination was innocently unlimited by gender stereotypes, and you would choose to be a princess over a prince every time." These loving words sat under the picture of a young boy in his friend's pink fairy princess dress and his favourite sport team's jersey. He smiled as the mud stained his white jersey brown and his tiara sparkled under the ceiling lights. Other moms weren't sure what to think of this young boy who kicked the "winning goal" of the match and also waited for a prince to rescue him and his other princess friends; the boy who played in the dirt with grazes on his knees and sand in his hair whilst trying to find the prettiest dress for his friends' Barbie Doll. The picture shows a boy who didn't care what anyone thought about him and he still doesn't. I guess you can call it "Foreshadowing" as now this boy plays his sport in his teams' jerseys, getting dirty and rough, then goes home...waiting for his prince (or princess) to come and rescue him.
I've always been proud to have the first thing I ever learnt to draw (properly) be a fairy princess at the ripe old age of five. I was the boy who sat amongst a circle of girls learning to draw up my favourite fairies and after went to go build a fort of blocks with the other boys. I would feed my baby through a bottle and then build a house for us to live in. I'm sure teachers thought I was different and probably thought how interesting it would be to ask him why he likes dolls and blocks. When we played pretend I'd always be the badass girl who was a fierce superhero or powerful fairy. The best part was that the other children didn't see a problem with this, they may have thought it different but they never told me I had to be a boy character. It's funny that as you get older this situation seems stranger and stranger, until you realise: "It's actually not. He's just a boy who wants to wear his fair wings to his older brothers soccer match (that story is for another chapter though). I still remember my best friend asking if I wanted to be a guy called "Max" and I said, "No...I want to be LavaGirl!" I wonder how many parents and teachers used to think, "Yep, this boy is gay" (or at least turn out to be). How ironic, the whole point of this young boys is that stereotypes don't actually define you, yet people would've predicted me being homosexual based on the fact I liked "girly" things. I remember playing on the jungle gym and, like many other children, falling off the edge but unlike most children I wouldn't hurt myself- I'd just land and catch myself. I'd get a fright but I was always strong enough to make sure I fell "correctly" (a physical strength most boys hadn't accumulated at age 5 or so). After these scares I would retreat back to the safe haven of the doll house and I'd continue to be happy and unknowing as the only "dad" in the house filled with "moms".
Looking back I often wonder if people thought this was a phase or result of a feministic upbringing. I now know it was nothing except a young boy who had a unique mindset. A mindset that didn't allow him to see the difference between pretending to be a hero or heroine. Staring at pictures in my mom's scrapbook, it's so clear that I didn't even know the word "Gender" and, to be honest, I am so glad that's how I was. I have always been the handsomest fairy and the prettiest elf; the most gruesome pirate and most "lady like" princess. I was born to dress up. I was born to let my imagination run wild with the ponies over the rainbows and sail with notorious Blackbeard on the seven seas. As I think more and more into my whole childhood I can clearly see how this didn't damped the way people saw me or how they bought gifts for my birthdays. I was a child- not a little boy who wore pink dresses and dirty t-shirts. A child who wasn't defined by the sex life had given him or the gender that people assigned to him. I was a child who didn't care enough about how people saw him to change how he acted- wait let me rephrase that- a teenager who DOESN'T care enough about what people think to change who I am and, more importantly, who I'm going to be. Yeah. I like that sentence.
[The next chapter will be released at a later stage as our young hero...heroine? Ugh, who cares... as our lead character discovers who they are and what I am today]
YOU ARE READING
Princess Charming
Short StoryThe tale of a boy who cares not for gender norms and wears his rugby jersey just as proudly as his friend's pink princess dress.
