Express yourself.

Children have a natural ability to live fully self- expressed.

They're not yet burdened with the standards of society. They're not yet worried about what other people think. They have no fear of retribution. Its beautiful. 

And then that naturally ability is stolen. By mothers forcing their daughters to do ballet when they would rather be playing basketball. By fathers forcing their son to play football when he would rather be doing gymnastics. By parents forcing their kids to dress a certain way because WE think its cute. 

The childs opinion is never taken into account. 

I saw this meme on instagram a while ago

you're right. It's none of your business. Maybe that little boy loves spiderman? I bet that little boy was as happy as he could be in his spiderman shoes. Obviously these parents CHOSE to wear Jordans and allowed their son to CHOOSE to wear his spiderman shoes. 

Nothing wrong with that. 

It bothers me that our society is raising their children up to be followers. ( also to fall into the trap of consumerism, but thats another story.)

Its fun to dress your child up when they don't have a voice or haven't developed their own personal sense of style or taste. But once they can voice what they want to wear…shouldn't we let them? And where do we draw the line? 

This is my daughter a few years ago. In all her "dress yourself" glory. I had a work meeting and was taking her with me and this is the outfit she chose. I wasn't ashamed or embarrassed nor did i try to change her mind on the outfit. I was proud. She was proud. Thats all that matters.

With todays standards, everyone is expected to be visually appealing. The explosion of the micro fashion pages on instagram have pushed parents into consulting fashion magazines or trying to recreate the outfits of their favorite celebrities just to dress their child in the morning. The childs personality is set aside. The childs opinion is ignored. 

I admit, i got sucked into those pages. I found myself wanting to dress Jordyn like a little doll. I had loss  focus of how i was actually trying to raise my daughter. It wasn't until Jordyn said something about "not always having to have a bunch of accessories on" did i snap back to reality. Jordyn has always loved clothes and dressing up and i was taking that away from her. I was taking away a piece of her self expression. When i would ask her what she wanted to wear she started asking me what i thought she wanted or saying "whatever you think." I was NOT happy. So i stopped. I went back to allowing her to decide what she wants to wear. That happiness and joy that came from her being proud of making a decision on her own was back. 

For a while that meant boots and tutus….

I saw her confidence in her decision making rise. I was proud and yes, i was that mom with that kid in the tutu. 

As Jordyn has gotten older, she has developed her own sense of style. She is a self proclaimed tom-boy and says she is sometimes girly but sometimes not. The outfits she decides on are full expression of herself. She is bright and colorful and CONFIDENT in herself. 

As a result of allowing her to decide on her own what she wants to wear,  I started seeing her drift away from the ""whatever you want" mommy attitude. She is her own little person. 

She recently wanted to put color in her hair. ( probably a result of my niece getting ombre done in her hair.) but Jordyn is no regular. "i want to put color in my hair" child. When she says color. She means COLOR. Meaning blue. purple. pink. 

We had a conversation about hair dye and the damage it can do. As I've said before, i let Jordyn know the consequences of any decision she makes. Jordyn decided she definitely did not want to color damage her hair. but still wanted color.We looked on youtube and found Hair shadowing.

Needless to say, it made her happy. And isn't that the whole purpose of this parenting thing? to raise happy children? 

As she ages, I'm sure her ways of self expression will change. I will offer my advice and opinion when asked, but i will never dictate. My view on it is that all of these things are impermanent. The permanent things like tattoos and piercings well we will talk about it and again, she will know the consequences of these decisions and have to live permanently with whatever she decides. 

The point is to allow her to express herself through little things like her clothing,hair,makeup,music, art, room decor…etc so that when she is older and in situations good or bad where she needs to express herself she has the confidence to do so without hesitation. 

Xo, Jeanice