The theory we all know by heart and as adults, some even strive to put it into practice because yes, we are convinced that equality is a fundamental race in which we continue running.
Doubts stalk us when it is our children who face without knowing prejudice, mockery, inequality or when we think they will face it and that it will make them suffer. What do we do then as parents and as individuals? Would you let your son go down the street dressed as a Disney princess?
The news comes because she, the child's mother, is one of the best known and respected singers internationally. Adele a few weeks ago he visited Disneyland Park in California in the company of his family. His partner, Simon Konecki and their son, Angelo. Angelo is three years old and she wanted to go to this park dressed in the costume of Princess Anna from the movie “Frozen” and from what you see in the photos, his mother and father had no qualms about his son being dressed as he wanted.
Thousands of children at that age enjoy dressing up as movie or story characters or comics or cartoons, it is healthy according to psychologists and educators who do it and in many houses there is a box with costumes, with fabrics, with clothes that do not they matter that they are broken or painted so that the imagination is at ease during game hours.
The nuances as always are what call my attention to the story and generate doubts about it.
She is not an anonymous mother but an international star, this serves to defend her decision and therefore her son from the most scathing criticism but also to the contrary, exposes it in an excessive way, in fact social networks were the first in positioning itself in favor of the event itself and celebrating it mostly. But if I were an anonymous mother, the pressure Angelo would feel would be perhaps closer and therefore more painful ... or maybe not.
Everything is neutralized by the child's age, three years. It is small, no problems, no prejudices, no conventions but What to do when they are seven or eight years old? How to face it as mothers and fathers?
How to get it right?
Respect for his decision, the assessment of the intensity and need of the son's desire on the part of the mother and father, the intention to protect a child from the pain that can cause him the prejudices of a society in which machismo follows Being a big problem. The factors and variables may far exceed a simple childhood decision when the age is increasing or perhaps not, I suppose there is also the adult's empathy to value it.
Obviously we don't talk about repressing anything or anyone, I do not misunderstand but I do consider the dichotomy in which they can be found, we can all find ourselves as parents, equality above all and all? Do my child's wishes even if they are punctual above their integration into the group? Do we talk about group pressure? Do we talk about integration and exclusion?
Adele like most of the fathers and mothers I know is raised always support everything you want to do or be your child. Yesterday she disguises herself as Anna to go to an amusement park and days before she was seen dressed as Spiderman at the New York airport, most normal for a boy or girl of this age.
What I have learned, the little I have learned, since I am a mother is that many things that we have ingrained and that make us respect each other as individuals, make us very afraid when it comes to our children. That we are there to support them is inevitable, that we don't mind seeing them suffer is impossible.
