Disney's Frozen captured the hearts of kids around the world. One such child is Zackary Buckley who loves dressing up as his favourite character, Queen Elsa.
But it seems not everyone is okay with a child dressing up as he pleases. The three-year-old was with his mum Haylee Bazen at a bus stop recently when a middle-aged woman approached them.
Shockingly, the first thing she asked Hayley was “Are you punishing your son by making him wear that?”
Haylee was horrified by what she had heard.
“If I saw someone on the street in an outfit I didn’t like or thought didn’t suit them I wouldn’t stop them and shame them – why ruin someone’s day?” she told The Sun.
Still angry when she got home that day, Haylee wrote a Facebook to the stranger.
“To the lady at the bus stop who felt the need to interrupt my conversation with my son,” she began.
“I am NOT sorry you didn’t like how he was dressed nor am I sorry that you didn’t like our discussion topic of who our favourite Disney Princess is (Snow White obviously).”
She then introduced her son, saying that he is free to be whoever he wants to be. “Today he was a Disney princess and YES I did send him to school like that,” she wrote.
“Why?? Because that’s what he wanted to wear, because he wanted to show his teachers and friends his Elsa dress, because he wanted to sing ‘let it go’ for show and tell, because he doesn’t understand the gender stereotypes YOU think he should conform to, but most importantly because he is awesome!”
As the letter continues, Haylee reveals that his Frozen dress isn’t Zackary’s the only ‘girly’ thing her boy owns.
“He plays with cars and dolls, princesses and pirates,” she wrote. “He rides his scooter or pushes his pram. He wears zombie face painting or lip stick and if he chooses to wear a dress he can!”
Finishing off her post, she asks the stranger to think next time before she speaks – and to say nothing, if she has nothing nice to say.
“Next time you see us, dressed as a princess or cowboy, keep your disapproving stares to yourself and unless you want to tell him how great he looks, keep your poisonous words to yourself too. You’re the one that should be embarrassed to leave the house, not us!”
Hear, hear. Letting boys and girls express themselves and their interests, regardless of what they may be, is the only way gender stereotypes are going to disappear.
You can read Haylee's full post below.
