When Boys Love Barbie

Editor's Note: This month, Teaching Tolerance launches a new series of lessons about Gender Expression for early grades. This week's featured lesson can be found here [2].

For two years I taught preschool to a diverse group of energetic children. Every morning one boy would enter the classroom, throw down his stuff, run over to the dress-up corner and slip into a shimmery polyester wedding gown.

His enthusiasm for the loveliness of this dress was unabashed. Wearing it made him happy. He wore it when building in the block area and during dramatic play. He wore it while reading books and eating breakfast. Sometimes he would playfully roll around on the table singing, "Hit me, baby. one more time." I once said to him, "OK Britney, time to get off the table," to which he ecstatically replied, "I'm Britney?"

None of the other children in the class seemed to give a second thought to his wardrobe choice, except, of course, to point out that they would like to wear the dress sometimes and that he really should share. Otherwise, it was a nonissue. We, his teachers, didn't make a big deal out of it either.

One year for Christmas, Toys R Us offered to donate a gift to every child in our class. Each student read through the wish list catalog and chose an item. This little boy circled a Barbie doll. It was all he wanted. He had asked his parents for one, but they said no. Knowing that his parents would have concerns, we gently tried to offer up other items, but he held firm. This was all he wanted.

What should we do?

We decided that we would put his order in exactly as he requested. The day the Barbie arrived in school, he was grinning from ear to ear. He ripped away the paper and gently removed Barbie from the cardboard box. He spent the rest of the day holding her, playing with her and loving her.

The next day when he came to school, he did not run in to get the wedding dress. He was not smiling his normally infectious smile. He was sad. "Mommy threw my Barbie in the garbage," he said.

He even wrote a song about it that went something like this: "I got Barbie. I love Barbie. Mommy threw Barbie away."

That day his mom scheduled a meeting with us to find out what prompted his teachers to order her son a Barbie doll. Our explanations were met with opposition. She didn't want her son growing up to be gay. Period. Why couldn't we get him an action figure instead? Barbie was unacceptable. What was wrong with us?

Eleven years have passed since this incident, but it is something that sticks with me, especially in light of some recent posts [3] that touch on similar issues (you can read them here [4] and here [5]. I'd like to think that a boy can play with a Barbie and wear a wedding dress nowadays without his parents flipping out.

Granted, it may be a lot to swallow, but isn't love and acceptance better than teaching shame?

Wellbrock is an early elementary teacher working with both deaf and hearing students in New York City.