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Parents of Tomboys-- how's it going for your girls?
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Anonymous
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My daughter is 5 years old and will start kindergarten this fall. She's bright, happy, easy as pie in every way, healthy....and really different from all of the kids around her (in pre-K). She doesn't like any of the things most of the girls in her class like: princesses, the color pink, dresses, sparkly things, dolls. She likes animals, books, the outdoors, dinosaurs, art, puzzles, science kits playing catch or frisbee or whiffle ball, and stuffed animals / animal figurines but not human-looking dolls. Unlike the girls, she doesn't play house. But unlike the boys, she is marginally interested in trucks and not at all interested in Batman. She is not rough-and-tumble like most of the boys in her class. And in her soccer class, she likes the drills but isn't interested in competing when they scrimmage.
In other words, she's smack in the middle between two groups of kids who have seemed to become more homogeneous as they've grown. Everyone likes her, and she likes everyone, but she spends as much time with the teachers as the kids. I just wonder, as school gets started, whether it will be harder for her to find a friend group than many other kids. Anyone else have a tomboy who's unlike the girls but not quite like the boys? Whom does she play with? We just met another tomboy in the neighborhood. I'm hoping they get put in the same kindergarten class because they both seem to see each other as water in the desert. Mothers of tomboys-- how are yours doing? |
Anonymous
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I have a daughter who had the same interests as yours when she was 5. Instead of worry about her socially, please consider that her cool and varied interests will really help her make all sorts of friends. I have to say that at no time did I refer to my daughter (or consder her to be) a "tomboy" because she was not interested in all things pink and frilly. And in fact, I remember very few of her girl friends were into playing dolls and wearing dresses.....I wonder, OP, if you have a narrow idea of what boys and girls should enjoy and BE like.
How is my daughter doing? My daughtrer is ten, very popular with both boys and girls - she plays with everyone, very pretty ("girly" to you probably), plays on the first soccer travel team, A- average in school.... |
Anonymous
I'm the OP: 1) thanks. 2) Every one of the girls in both preschools where she has been (we moved) wears dresses, likes pink, and enjoys princess and fairy books that she doesn't. Some of them are absolutely crazy for the stuff, others just like it. She was the only girl at preschool graduation not in a dress. There has not been one other kid in school with her who rejected ballet, dresses, and dolls. Not one. 3) I'm laughing at the idea of me having a narrow idea of what she should be. Actually laughing my ass off-- I'm an LGBT-rights lawyer and spend most of my time trying to convince other people not to impose gender stereotypes onto anyone. I have never tried to get my daughter to like anything that she doesn't-- be it princesses, dresses, sparkly things, fairies, whatever. Her friend had a "princess party" and I happily assented when my daughter declared that she was going to go dressed as a dragon (which she did). I guess that she thought that princesses and dragons go together and she knows for sure which one she doesn't want to be. So no, I am neither disappointed nor do I wish that she were like the others. In fact, there are parents who express jealousy of me because I don't have to buy Pepto-Bismol pink dress-up clothes for my kid. Personally, I wear dresses and skirts at work and "play clothes" and no makeup on weekends, so she sees me on a broad spectrum of stereotypically girly vs. not. I wouldn't change a thing about my daughter, except that she has often been lonely. Other kids I know have "best friends" in pre-k and often as not, when I pick her up she's been playing with a teacher or reading a book. And finally, of course I don't call my daughter a "tomboy" but it is a very descriptive word for the title of a thread, so that readers would know the subject. Personally I hate it when I see a thread titled "Help!! Need your opinion!!" So thanks, but you are way, way off base. Accepting mother of somewhat lonely kid here. THe issue isn't that her identity isn't lovely. It's that she's isolated and I'd love to know whether that will change. |
Anonymous
LOL. There's nothing to be concerned about as you already know. It sounds like she is already quite independent and that will probably be to her advantage as she gets older. Many of the most independent, confident, no nonsense women I know were only children or an only girl in their family and became successful in male dominated fields. |
Anonymous
I was a tomboy growing up, but my daughter is the very girly-girl ballet princess you describe (not my doing - I swear!). The only issue I had growing up was that when I started to like boys, they usually only saw me as another friend - but that changed once I got boobs! 
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Anonymous
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If she is really feeling isolated, maybe you should enourage her to be more open-minded about what she is willing to participate in. My daughter likes some of the so-called girl things you mention; she also likes many typical boy things like sports and dinosaurs and bugs. Most of her pre-k friends are similar (the girls are at least. the boys are more stereotypical in their interests). Thus, she has friends who are girls and friends who are boys. I don't think I could tell you things she has out and out rejected or refused to do. She has varied interests, which we support. We do not spend much time worried about what she doesn't like. We focus on what she does like, and she sees what she has in common with other children. their common interests bring them together. Are there truly no other kids she knows who like books, puzzles and playing catch? Why can't she do those things with other kids, while not wearing a dress and fairy wings?
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Anonymous
| Geez, OP. You're responsive tirade was a little uncalled for, imo. As if we're supp'd to know that you're a LGBT lawyer. I didn't see anything wrong with the first post and you jump all over her/him. Take a breath, will you? |
Anonymous
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Did other families at the preschool also have your same laid-back approach to gender? I think that a lot of the pink-craziness is parent-induced, or at least parent-abetted. We were out of the country when dd was 3, turning 4, and as a result we skipped much of the frenzy, because it wasn't prevalent where we were. Now we're in a low-key neighborhood school in the DC suburbs, and while lots of girls wear pink, or do ballet, or whatever, it isn't overbearing. I believe that the people around us have a lot to do with it.
Your dd sounds a lot like my dd. We did set up lots of one-on-one playdates during kindergarten, to try to help her build some friendships. I empathize with the frustration of seeing your dd lonely! Luckily, if she has made a friend in her grade already, she's in good shape. At least at our school, all the kindergarten classes had recess today, so they may get time to be together at school even if they're not in the same class. I'm guessing that specialized activities (like after-school science classes, available at our school) will be another way for girls like ours to make friends. |
Anonymous
For the record, we were overseas too for my daughter's first three years - in a place where we watched no commercials and didn't have any toy stores - but she still turned out girly-girl. While I agree that part of the "trend" is parent-induced, part is innate as well. As I said before, I was a tomboy and by no means pushed this stuff on my daughter (in fact, I hate ballet but my daughter loves it!) AND she had an older brother as her guide, yet she still turned out the way she did. |
Anonymous
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My "likes dresses but also likes robots and dragons" girl is a rising 3rd grader and is away for a week at Girl Scout camp. As in "no electricity and sleep under mosquito netting" Girl Scout camp. As in "mopping out latrines because there are no flush toilets" Girl Scout camp.
Hardly princess-like  and she loves it -- as do a whole lot of other girls.
Don't worry! Sign her up for the stuff she enjoys! |
Anonymous
| mother of a boy here-my son has been friends with several 'tomboy-ish" girls since pre-K (He is a 4th grader). Some only were pants but played with both boys and girls. Others were partial to pink but really only enjoyed the company of boys. Your daughter will find her way. |
Anonymous
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Your daughter's (creative) choice to go as a dragon to the princess party may be the CUTEST thing I've heard in awhile!!! Very, very sweet!!
My daughter is way too young to provide me with any advice here, but I will say that I was probably much like your daughter when I was her age. Family legend has it that I was quite dismissive and unappreciative of dolls that came my way as birthday gifts over the years, and I opted for pants over dresses time and time again. I was seriously into books and puzzles and stuffed animals -- no dolls or pink or purple. Nobody thought twice about it as far as I know, and I don't remember being lonely. Quite the opposite -- I think I always had lots of different kinds of friends -- girls, boys, different personalities all around -- and lots of different interests in common with them. Sure this was the 1970s (pre Disney's packaged Princesses) but it never felt like a big deal. And while I never turned into a super "girly girl" at any stage, I did fall hard for the Barbie crap in fifth grade or so -- probably because it was a way to play out social dynamics, which is something I love to this day.
I think the key for kids is to have at least one friend they can relate well to at every stage. They don't need to be friends with everyone or even to be particularly mainstream. The key is that they don't feel all alone. If your daughter can find common ground with lots of different types of classmates, she's doing GREAT and is likely building social skills that will help her well into her adult life. Enjoy!!
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Anonymous
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i was a tomboy and around age 16 i changed from water to wine.
now i'm the girly girl my mom always dreamed of but we're so far from each other.. SORRY MOM!!!! |