OPEN DEARLY

Description

I'm Estella please call me Ellie. I'm eighteen. I live in Kamakura Japan. I'm forever single. I love cats. Fluent in Japanese. I'm awkward. I LOVE traveling. I have "big dreams". I'd like to live in New York City. I don't know what I want to do with life but somehow I'll figure it out.
My instagram estellastovall

Links

Caption

I translated the article. Please excuse any mistakes, it was done in quite a hurry.

My 5-year old boy likes to wear dresses. In Berlin Kreuzberg that was enough to start conversations with other parents. Is that sensible or ridiculous? ‘Neither!’ I still want to shout at them. But unfortunately they can’t hear me anymore. Because by now I live in a little town in southern Germany. Not even a hundred thousand inhabitants, very traditional, very religious. Here my son’s preferences aren’t only a topic for the parents, they’re common talk.

Yes, I’m one of those fathers who try to raise their children equal. I’m not one of those academical dads that while studying keep blathering on about gender equality and as soon as there is a child fall back into the cuddly cliché role images: He self-actualizes in his job, she takes care of the rest.

With that, I have realized now, I am part of a minority that occasionally makes a fool out of itself. Out of conviction.

In my case it has to do with me not wanting to persuade my son not to wear dresses and skirts. Since he wasn’t making friends by doing that in Berlin, after due consideration I only had one choice. To square my shoulder for my little guy and put on a skirt myself. After all I can’t expect the same assertiveness of a preschool child than I do of an adult. Without a role model. So I am the role model now.

So back then in Berlin we already had skirt and dress days when the weather was tepid. Long skirts with elastic bands quite suit me, I think. Dresses are more difficult. The Berliners reacted hardly at all or positive. They are used to weird people. In my little town in southern Germany that’s a little different.

With all the stress while moving I forgot to tell the teachers at kindergarten to make sure my boy won’t be laughed at because of his preference. A short time later he didn’t dare to go to kindergarten in a skirt or dress. And asked me with big eyes: ‘Papa, when will you wear a skirt again?’.

Until this day I am grateful to that woman who kept staring at us in the pedestrian zone until she ran into a lamp post. My son was roaring with laughter. And the next day he took a dress out of the cupboard again. At first only for the weekend. Later for kindergarten as well.

And what’s the guy doing by now? He paints his fingernails. He think it looks pretty on me, too. He smiles when other boys (it’s almost always boys) want to make a fool out of him and says: ‘You just don’t dare to wear dresses and skirts because you’re fathers don’t dare to.’ That’s how much he has squared his shoulders by now. Thanks to dad in a skirt

(via aliciaaadanielle)

Post Info
Posted on Monday 17 September 2012.
8 months ago.
Filed under:
Notes: 76142
  1. uselessfineprint reblogged this from cup-c-a-k-e
  2. windowintomymind reblogged this from braveandblind
  3. miyara-kojima reblogged this from daynakon
  4. tsuki-leviathan reblogged this from imagineyourselfcomplexly
  5. eeveeweevee reblogged this from shoshtakovitch
  6. shoshtakovitch reblogged this from grimmywow-applejacks
  7. grimmywow-applejacks reblogged this from genderqueer
  8. fantasticarleigh reblogged this from cumberkitty
  9. imagineyourselfcomplexly reblogged this from tobecomeakindking
  10. spindizzily reblogged this from squeemu
  11. bulliedofdeath reblogged this from lgbtlaughs
  12. gnarlyasfuckkkk reblogged this from toobadshessixteen
  13. deansladyboner reblogged this from awinchestermotherfoca
  14. wrc-crf-feminism reblogged this from livinitwell
  15. take-my-card reblogged this from mistermay
  16. colour-me-endangered reblogged this from zohbugg
  17. idanceundertherain reblogged this from sorryidontdonailsimaninja
  18. bigdreams-smalltown reblogged this from lovely-4-a-moment
  19. sw33t-just1c3 reblogged this from genderqueer
  20. cthomrun reblogged this from hisblackdress
  21. peacemaker1331 reblogged this from shadesoflolita
  22. when-the-world-calls-for-help reblogged this from lgbtlaughs
  23. reykjawake reblogged this from anonamaton
  24. spiderbotontheweb reblogged this from charlieesuxx
  25. roppi-vongola reblogged this from yuesai
  26. serketface reblogged this from broughtbackcat
  27. yuesai reblogged this from broughtbackcat
  28. broughtbackcat reblogged this from canisidiosyncratica