The Need For Dresses
My 5 year old daughter loves to wear dresses. I don’t know exactly where it comes from since we don’t explicitly buy her dresses and make her a girly girl. I think it really was innate in her and she loves how it looks and makes her feel. She has to wear a dress 99% of the time, even to soccer. It is a core theme and style for her.
The other day as we were getting ready, I was trying to help her pick out her clothes because we were running late. She picked a dress that was very frilly and had lots of yarn-like strands. It’s very difficult to put on and make sure that it isn’t tangled. It’s also a pain for it to come out of the wash and to detangle it so that it is ready to wear. It was not deranged that morning…
When she put the dress on, it got caught in her car seat buckle as we were just getting to daycare. I was trying to remove the dress so that it would be easier to detangle it from the car seat buckle and she had a meltdown. She said she wanted a different dress and that she hated the one that she picked. I asked her why she hated it and she apparently just did. I asked her if she wanted to go to school without the dress because she usually wears shorts underneath it. She said she doesn’t like herself when she doesn’t wear a dress. She doesn’t like the way she looks without a dress.
It was a lot to take in since I was hoping it was more of the grumpiness talking instead of how she actually felt about herself because she should feel beautiful however she is dressed and doesn’t need a dress. She is enough the way that she is. I told her that and also said I would derange her dress from the car seat buckle and also make sure that the strands look straight. I asked her if we could walk to daycare while I derange it and she agreed.
Once I got to the entrance of the daycare, I had everything detangled. I asked again if she wanted to put the dress on and she said yes. Once I put the dress on over her shorts, I made sure she understood that a dress doesn’t define who she is and she can wear whatever she wants. She’s also enough just the way that she is. She seemed to put the tantrum behind her and knew what I was saying because I know deep down inside she already feels like she is enough (and has heard me say it countless times). The need for dresses is only surface level and even though my daughter still wears it every day, she knows she can switch it up if she wants to.
