I asked the Facebook Community to share with us what challenges and stereotypes their sons face. My own concerns are echoed in their comments. A Cliff Notes version would read something like about allowing boys to feel and express their emotions, play with dolls and enjoy fancy things like dress up and nail polish, balancing violent/weapon play, and doing away with phrases such as “He’s all boy” or “Boys will be boys”.

My hope is as we continue to move into a space that involves advocating for childhood for both boys and girls, we can support parents raising boys in a culture that doesn’t really allow them a boyhood. Whereas we’ve talked for years about girls being sexualized and stereotyped since birth, I think equally so our very little boys are rushed into a quasi-manhood they aren’t ready for.

Here are some quotes direct from our parents:  

“Personally, I’d like to see the end of “boys will be boys.” No, gender is not an excuse for inappropriate behavior. It shouldn’t be reason to encourage such behavior either. I think a much better saying is, “Boys will be men.” We need to think about who we are raising in regards to both genders. We are not raising perpetual 8 year olds. We are raising men and women.”  -Michelle B

“I’ve got three boys each very different kids. My oldest loves his longer hair, despite the kids at school mocking it, luckily he has male family members with long hair to show him all the different ways to look. My middle is pretty rough and tough but he loves purses, babies and dress up. A typical kid experiencing the world. The baby is mostly happy go lucky but we get some comments for him wearing pink socks, or a pink swimsuit (his sister is the next youngest so we have lots of pink baby socks) I just wish my boys were allowed to be kids, like colours and activities without having genders assigned to them.”  -Crystal G

“The saying “He’s all boy” rubs me the wrong way. People always say it when my son is being super active/energetic or playing with sticks or something like that. No one ever says “he’s all boy” when he is carrying his beloved baby doll or tenderly wrapping her in a blanket. No one ever says he’s all boy when he is cooking me a pretend cake or when he drapes his sister’s purse over his shoulder. Does he suddenly become half boy/half girl when he does those things??! Why don’t we just say “He’s all kid!” or better yet just ask him what his baby’s name is or what flavor cake he’s making…*sigh*”  -Ruthann T

“Guns as toys. And violent play altogether. I recently looked for an action figure for a friend’s three year old son and couldn’t find anything without a gun. He got plenty of toy guns for his birthday, and the kids all ran around “killing” each other during the party. It was horrifying watching a kid put a shiny toy gun to my daughter’s head, yell “you’re dead!” and run away laughing. Kids, most often boys, are taught to play murder before they even know what death is. I worry that guns are so commonplace in our toys and entertainment that kids will stop being shocked when they encounter real ones.”  -Lisa Y

“I wish it was “okay” for a little boy to be masculine. There seems to be a pendulum swing from “no, you can’t like pink” to “you must like pink”. Our boys do need to be taught nurturing, it’s not just for girls, but just as we’ve started a movement for girls to be girly AND tough, it seems that we’re focusing on “sensitizing” our boys, and taking away their “tough”. It seems to me that boys have been stripped of their identity in an effort to groom them to be more sensitive, and the little boy who has no natural inclination to wear a pink tutu or play dolls, runs the risk of being labeled a caveman who grows up to beat his wife. (That’s a bit tongue-on-cheek.) There’s too much political correctness in childhood. Adults are projecting way too much on what should simply be child’s play.”  -Amanda J

“Boys get the “male role” installed on them beginning at a very young age. There are different phases presented throughout this male role installation. It starts with teaching boys that they are not who they think they are. They are not able to identify with certain emotions (i.e.; fear, sensitivity, etc.) and are made to realize that they are wrong for feeling what’s natural. Then they have no way to resolve the pain and hurt they face. This is where coping mechanisms enter the picture. It gets worse because then we start teaching boys that not only are they not supposed to do what’s natural (inherently true) but that they are ‘better than” other people. We teach them that they are superior to girls and gays and that girls and gays are “less than” boys. In doing this we introduce sexuality (i.e.; your gay, don’t be a girl) before boys even know what sexuality is.”  -Josh B

“What they need is the freedom to explore those interests, whether they are “gender-typical” or not. We have to get past the idea that there is only one way to be a boy.”  -Crystal Smith of Achilles Effect

and finally, I think this says it all…..

“We need a broader definition of boyhood.”  -Amanda B

Mentioned above, my friend and colleague Crystal Smith is a mother to two boys and the author of  “Achilles Effect: What Pop Culture is Teaching Young Boys About Masculinity”. It is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it. Especially if you are new to looking at the stereotypes our boys face, it will be a real eye-opener.

Here is a post Crystal just wrote about boys and the expectation to be “tough”….Click HERE.

This post by our friend Sarah Jay of The Mauve Dinosaur does a great job of explaining why we’re all in this, together….Click HERE.

I had some parents share their experiences with me on Facebook, and wanted to share them here.

“My daughter’s pre-school just repainted their rooms this weekend and in the two’s bathroom they had removed the Elmo potty pictures and put a princess (guessing) and Dora over one potty and spiderman and a dinosaur over the other. My daughter asked where’d Elmo go, and then was super excited about the dinosaur. I am worried she will be discouraged from using the toilet with the dinosaur because now it is for boys.” -Natalie

“ I picked up my 4 1/2 year old twin daughters from pre-school today & they were both carrying pink plastic firefighter helmets. Their teachers told me that they had had a visit from the local fire dept. & got to check out a firetruck. While I was buckling them in their seatbelts, I casually said, “Cool hats. You both chose pink ones?” The response I got was “Mom, we’re girls so we get pink hats. Th…e boys get black hats.” My heart sank but I mustered up an upbeat tone & said, “Well, you can always choose whichever color you like best. Some girls might like a black hat & some boys might like a pink hat. Its your choice.” One of my daughters said matter of factly, “A boy is not gonna want a pink hat.” I said, “Some boys might & thats perfectly ok. Everyone has his or her own choice, their own likes & dislikes and thats cool.”
Arrrgh, have you ever seen a real firefighter wearing a pink helmet? Would a firefighter in a pink helmet be taken as seriously or viewed to be as competent & experienced or be paid as well as a firefighter in a black helmet? Why the heck do they even make toy fire helmets in pink? Arent actual firefighter helmets either black, red or yellow? I guess I’ll never know whether the girls were given the pink hats or if they chose pink…but sure felt that the pinkification process was bearing down on us hard today.”  -Diane

And on the way to preschool:

“I’m writing you about is your choice of morning commercials. See, we don’t teach about dieting in our house or about when people are “fat” or “skinny”. We try to teach our daughter to respect everyone regardless of what they may look like. We teach her to love and respect her body, eat healthy foods to power her awesome brain, and exercise her strong muscles. We teach her to be proud of the body that she has and remind her of all the amazing things that she does and can do with her body. This morning on the way to her school, after listening to endless commercials about diet pills and filling shakes and ugly fat, she pinched whatever bit of extra she could find on her 4 year old, 30 lb body and said,”Mom, this makes me ugly??”. My stomach dropped. I wanted to cry for the ideas that had just invaded my daughter’s head. For the girl in her class I saw a few weeks ago when I volunteered who pinched her very own precious cheeks and said,”These are just too fat”. I know that your commercials are set to earn money for your show, I am not ignorant to the ways of advertising. But commercializing this constant need for perfection, to be pretty, to fit the norm… it’s doing a great disservice to our children and to ourselves. I pulled the car over in the school parking lot today and reminded my daughter how beautiful she is. How smart and funny and full of awesome. I made sure she understood that she is BEAUTIFUL because of her kindness and her gentle heart and her amazing sense of humor. I reminded her of all the outstanding things that her body is able to do. And I changed the radio station.”  -Stephanie

And around town:

The t-shirt I regret.

When Benny Boy was a baby, a friend gave him a t-shirt that read “Lock Up Your Daughters” with a little pad lock at the bottom. It is not something I would have ever bought for him, but I thanked the gift giver and remember feeling grateful neither of my children could read yet. I tucked the shirt in the far back corner of a drawer, meaning to donate it the next time I changed out Benny’s closet.

Months later Benny was sick and had gone through all of his clean clothes. I put the t-shirt on him as a last resort, hoping to get some of the wash done later that day. We weren’t leaving the house, so I rationalized with myself that I was covered in baby puke and sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. I’m fairly certain it was the only time he wore that shirt.

Fast forward to last night, I’m at the grocery store picking out produce and a family wheels up next to me. I smile  at the little girls in the cart. The dad and the mom are playfully arguing over whether or not they have ever purchased blackberries. Then I turned to say hi to the baby (we all know how much I love chubby babies) as I moved my cart out of their way and I noticed that he is wearing the “Lock Up Your Daughters” shirt. On someone else’s baby, it was so obvious to me why that shirt had always made me feel uneasy.

It promotes Rape Culture. I stood there horrified I had ever put that on my son. My beautiful son, who loves his mama and his big sis and whom I am trying to raise to be a man like his father: intelligent, kind, caring, respectful, and strong. The shirt sends the message that the boy will be out on the prowl, and your daughters are not safe around him as he looks for prey. Best lock them up. It sends the message that girls are responsible for preventing sexual assault, as opposed to, you know, boys being taught never to rape.

This shirt’s message as: If those girls don’t watch out, the fault is on them. They were fairly warned, their parents were told to lock them up. Don’t keep them under lock and key, they become fair game.

On a physical level, it is making a joke of sexual assault with the “boys will be boys” attitude. That in and of itself, the excusing of rape based on caddish behavior assumed to be natural to boys, is vile. On an emotional level, it is saying your daughter will be manipulated and used, just before the boy moves on to the next girl. What an awful message for both boys and girls to get.

It also assumes my son will be heterosexual. He is four right now, and I have no idea where his sexuality will fall. (I’m not really concerned about it.) I am concerned about him growing up in a culture that treats women like objects, and makes the act of rape entertainment. Music and music videos, tv and movies, and especially video games all have shown boys and men callously involved in various degrees of sexual assault on women. What’s more, these men and boys are never held accountable. I don’t want that message anywhere near my son. When he begins dating in his teenage years, we’ll talk to him about respecting his significant other, both emotionally and physically. We’ll instill in him the notion of being a gentleman, and doing things like speaking up against street harassment, or walking a friend home at night so she doesn’t have to walk across campus alone.

I really have no idea how difficult it is going to be to raise my son as a feminist (humanist) and to respect women, but I will do it. His father, uncles, and grandfather will lead by example. The men our family calls friends will lead by example. And I will own up, and make sure I never make a mistake like that t-shirt again.

Maybe he needs a new shirt. One that says “I will respect your daughters.”

Now that you’ve gotten the full story of where I’ve been, I’m really excited to tell you about where we’re going. I say “we”, because this isn’t just me. It is my giant community of parents and caring adults who elevate the conversation every day among their groups of friends and family. You all help me to get people thinking. As you know, once you see this, you can’t unsee it.

And so it goes with me. I see it now, all of it. Pigtail Pals is no longer going to be “Pigtail Pals”. It can’t be. It has to be more.  

I had my daughter first, then my son. I have spent all my life as a girl, so it was easy for me to see and become passionate about girls’ issues. I had read several books about issues with boys, but it didn’t click with me like things did with girls. Until last summer. My son Benny was three years old, and we were at the park having a big playdate celebrating his successful potty training. Not long after we had arrived, a boy who was not with our group came up to my small son, put a plastic toy gun to his head, directly to his temple, and said “Boom! I just blew your f*cking brains out.” The other boy was six.

Benny didn’t understand what had happened, but his big sister did. I stood there in shock while Amelia marched up and read this kid the riot act. I went up to the boy and demanded his gun from him. He had four more stuffed in his shorts and socks. I told him to get the hell away from my kids. I was really disturbed by that incident. A friend I was with asked the boy’s mom to leave with her son, and then my friends and I sat and talked about raising boys. I was pretty quiet during that conversation. I just remember thinking, “Is this how it is? With boys?” Later that week I was out buying Benny some more big boy underwear (we call them “spanky pants”) and I couldn’t find anything that didn’t have a steroid-ridden super hero on it, skulls, guitars, or footballs. My kid was three. Where were the kites and ice cream cones? Or zoo animals. Hippo spanky pants would be pretty cool.

You all know Benny pretty well from the stories I share on the blog and facebook. He is a sweet boy. He loves his mama, reading, art, cooking, Angry Birds, and wrestling with our dog. Mud seems to have a magnetic pull on him, and he loves working on building projects and using tools. He loves the color pink and having his toes painted. He doesn’t really understand sports yet, but he plays a mean game of tag. 

I started paying more attention to what was being marketed to him and what I was buying for him. I realized unless it came from Pigtail Pals, all of his clothes were shades of blue, gray, or green. When he turned four years old, his party guests brought him paints, an Angry Birds tee, a dinosaur water sprayer, and a sprinkler. I was relieved there were no toy weapons. The other boys his age that he is friends with are all equally sweet. Then I think about the boys in Amelia’s kinder class. A lot of them have lost the sweetness. Several of them have been in trouble for violence at school. One has stuck his hand up a little girl’s skirt. Several of them have sworn in class, including dropping the F-bomb. These boys are all six years old. Six years old, and acting like miniature ill-behaved men. Where was boyhood?

Benny is sleeping next to me on the couch right as this moment. His tiny chest moving up and down under his mint green shirt. The other day we were shopping for his grandma’s Mother’s Day gift, and he was very intent on finding her “dee mose breautifrul ting” in the shop. I always want him searching for and finding beauty. And love.

I get asked about boys a lot, and tried to make a shift by developing the Curious Crickets line. I made sure the Full of Awesome designs had a design that would also work for boys. But let’s be honest – that really isn’t enough. I really don’t have a lot of references for parents of boys asking for a group like what Pigtail Pals is for boys. My go-to answer is always Achilles Effect. I started to feel like I was so focused on Amelia and girlhood, I had ignored, maybe willfully ignored, Benny and his boyhood. I just kept thinking, I have time, he’s just a baby. The kid is now four, time is up. I realized I had to get over some of my own stereotypes about men and being a male. Not having ever been one, it took me being the mother to a boy for a couple of years to get it.

I got it.

Pigtail Pals is now going to be known as “Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies: Childhood Inspired”. I can’t only fight for one side of childhood. Aren’t I the one who always says, “there is no girl side or boy side to childhood, there is just childhood?”  Yes, I am. And I was starting to feel like a hypocrite. Because everything I’ve been talking about with girls ALSO impacts boys. Sexualization. Body Image. Gender Stereotypes. Color Washing. Violence.

So everything is changing.

Actually, that’s being a bit overly dramatic, but it feels like a big change to me. Absolutely nothing is going to change with the work we do for girls. All of that is still going to happen. We’re just going to expand our focus to boys. Everything we’ve done for girls, we’ll now do for boys. The look of the store is going to change, the header on the blog will change. ALL of the designs in the shop will remain. We’ll add boys to the conversation on facebook. Mr. Pigtail Pals is going to start blogging for us, and I want to add the voices of more dads/men.

Pigtail Pals will always have our roots in the girl empowerment community. Truly, that is who I am, a champion of girls. But I am also the mother to a son. I need to act like it. Now I will fight for both of my children.

It is the right time to change. Here’s the new look, and I hope you stay with me as we continue on this journey towards a healthier childhood for our children. Our children have a right to chidhood. They’ll be teens soon enough, there’s no need to rush them there. Today they are our little boys and girls. 

Tomorrow I’m going to release a new line of designs that show boys and girls playing together. When’s the last time you saw that on a t-shirt?

But for today, I’d like to introduce Pigtail Pals & Ballcap Buddies.

Here’s the FULL story about Pigtail Pals. I promise, no matter how long you’ve been following me, you don’t know this story. Later today I’m going to tell you where we are going, but to understand everything, you need to know where we’ve been.

You all know the story of how I got the idea for Pigtail Pals…. during a baby playdate a friend was challenging my stance on Disney Princesses, and I retorted with something about not teaching my daughter to wish on a star and wait for a prince, but rather wanting her to have the know-how to build a rocket ship and get to that star for herself. I said something about not being able to find anything like that on a tee for a little girl. Hello A Ha! moment! I scooped up the baby, ran out of the house and raced home to fill two notebooks with ideas….yadda yadda yadda, you know the rest. Or do you?

In 2006 my daughter, the Original Pigtail Pal Amelia, was just a baby and I was already feeling overwhelmed from what I saw girlhood had become.  I contacted an old artist friend of mine who had also just had a baby girl, and told her my ideas and asked if she’d work with me. This was in October of 2006, the holidays quickly came and ushered us into 2007. While I waited for my artist to send artwork to me, I researched children’s boutiques and online marketplaces and apparel production. I have just a little experience in retail, and zero experience and design and textiles. I do have a senior thesis on Psycho-sexual Homicide: Early Childhood Frontal Lobe Injury and Dyphasic Personality Disorder, if anyone is interested. Needless to say, I had a lot to learn.

In July 2007 I was over the moon to discover I was pregnant with our second child. It had taken us over a year to get pregnant with Amelia, and thousands of dollars in infertility treatments. Ol’ Benny Boy came along on the first try. Since I thought achieving a second pregnancy would take a lot longer than it did, I was a little nervous about the idea of having a 22 month old and a newborn. No turning back now. Then I threw up for the next six months. My artist became pregnant with her second, and 2007 seemed to go by in a blur, and my artwork still wasn’t ready. 

Benjamin arrived in March after a hellacious delivery. Thankful to have my healthy boy, but traumatized from his birth, I told my artist I needed some time to heal and adjust to being a mom of two small kids. My beloved Grandma Sally died two days after his birth, and it was a very difficult time. I knew starting a business would take a ton of time, and I really wanted to enjoy Ben’s first year and help Amelia adjust to being a big sis. I didn’t want to half-ass motherhood, and as a perfectionist, I wanted to do my business right. To be completely honest, I think I needed to find myself as a mom. Having one kid was a cinch for me. Two kids was a whole nother ballgame.

During 2008 I read a ton of trade magazines, and spent a lot of time doing informal interviews with friends and friends of friends, trying to determine what was going on with girlhood. By this point I had read every book out there on sexualization and girl esteem and several on body image. I felt like I was in the center of a hurricane, and I was feeling scared for my girl. For the record, I was also really enjoying being a mom to my two cubs.

By fall of 2008 I still did not have my artwork from my friend. During a talk with my dad, I said that if I was a real company, I would have fired her. He sat there with his eyebrows raised, looking out over the top of his glasses. Ahhh, right. I had lost too much time to production and still had no usable art. We’d completely blown a presidential election season with two women in prominent positions. Kind of a big ship for a girl-empowerment company to let sail away. I fired her, and she never spoke to me again. So here I was two years later, no artwork, no company, and now, no artist. Oy vey.

A few weeks later my mom was down for a visit and was sitting at the table with Amelia in her lap, drawing. Something clicked in my head, and I asked her to draw an astronaut. A girl astronaut. The drawings she did that afternooon are what you now know as the Redefine Girly line, my original 12 designs. By May 2009, I was ready to rock and roll. Pigtail Pals officially launched on a Tuesday morning, and I was off and running. Orders were coming in, and the response was amazing. The corner of our dining room became my office, and that is where I’m sitting right this moment, with Benny playing underneath the dining room table.

I learned an important lesson from all of that: Chasing a dream is like holding on to a giant balloon. The people who are holding you down need to be cut loose, otherwise you’ll never be able to reach the heights to which you are headed.

2009 passed with me sending out orders, often with Benny in a baby sling and Amelia by the hand with a tote bag of orders in my teeth as I made my way into the post office. I was traveling around southern Wisconsin every weekend doing trunk shows. It was exhausting and I didn’t really enjoy being away from my family, but is was a great opportunity to get out in front of the public and really develop my brand. Kind of like a giant focus group. I wasn’t expecting the tears, hugs, and handshakes from people who time and again said, “Thank you so much for what you are doing for our girls.” My best friend told me to get on twitter and start a blog, so I listened to her because she is very smart. I didn’t know how to do either, and both are like learning a new language. But I learned because it meant more access to more people, and the ability to tell more people my story. The more people I talked to, the more I realized this was an issue a lot deeper than offering a different kind of t-shirt design for girls. It was almost like a wave of mini-feminism developing, as people were continuing to realize girlhood had become something that was not very healthy for our girls. I understood I was sitting on the pulse of something that ran very deep. I’ve said this before, but I truly feel as though my generation of parents will come to see the sexualization and commercialization of childhood as the children’s rights issue of our time.

2010 rolled around, and the company turned 1 year old. I had received great support from the blogging community and the girl empowerment community. My own blog was well received, and the shirts were still popular, but by this time the economy had crashed, and my business was feeling it. I was starting to wonder if I’d make it. A good friend of mine used to be a buyer at a national department store, and she is married to a marketing executive. They became my dream team, and the three of us spent many nights at their kitchen counter discussing Pigtail Pals and it’s potential. Her husband told me I was sitting on top of a genius idea, but I was three years ahead of the market, and would need to be patient. Turns out, he was right. I went to a childrens buyer market twice in Chicago that year, and tanked both times. The buyers wanted me to put the designs on pink shirts and add rhinestones and glitter. I refused, saying that I had talked with thousands of parents, and this isn’t what they wanted from my company. The buyers would turn and walk out of my showroom. It was a learning experience, but it felt a lot like a punch in the gut.

In October 2010 I did not get a single order in the shop. Not one. It sucked. I had start up costs to pay off. I didn’t know what to do and didn’t think I could wait out the economy, but I knew I didn’t want to give up. I decided to go outside on a gorgeous Indian Summer day and plant 84 tulip bulbs with my kids. I told myself I would wait out the winter, and when these bulbs bloomed I would make my decision. When I stopped focusing on sales and focused on my writing for the blog, I wrote some really amazing stuff. Ms. Magazine picked up a couple of my posts, and others were shared far and wide by my amazing group of colleagues. Lots of people were talking about Pigtail Pals, and our mission to Redefine Girly. The facebook community was also taking off, so I really focused on turning that into a learning place for parents. I decided to invest time that winter into developing my relationship with my social media community. That paid off, too. The facebook page is now over 10,000 people strong, which makes Pigtail Pals one of the largest girl empowerment groups in the world under the big orgs like Girl Scouts and Girls on the Run, etc. Not too shabby for a mom working out of her dining room. Sales during the Christmas/Holiday season were nice, and things were looking up.

2011 was under way, and the business was going well. I had introduced two more lines, Whimsy Bees and Curious Crickets, plus added school supplies, bags, stickers, and hats to the shop. I was getting fabulous feedback from customers, the blog was doing great, and I had strong relationships with both my circle of colleagues and my social media groups supporting the company. But I was just breaking even every month, which meant I was paying the bills for the business, but not bringing in any money for the family. My husband Jason and I had invested everything we could into the business, my parents had given me a start up loan, but with two small kids and Jason having to start his career over after getting out of the Navy, we were strapped. There were several months we had less than $10.00 in our checking account the week before payday. I cried more than once in the grocery store, realizing I didn’t have enough money for food, I could only buy diapers for Ben. I was feeling like a failure even though at this point the business was doing well, I wasn’t earning any money for my family. With my husband’s work schedule and how busy I was managing the business, a part time job wasn’t going to work. I thought about taking in childcare, but I was usually working until 3-4am and I was barely making it through my days. I was also crazy busy with my little kids. Playdates and preschool beckoned. I was teaching swim lessons in the mornings, but that was just too hectic. By summertime I was exhausted, and was existing on three, maybe four hours of sleep a night for months and months on end. My body was about to have a little Come To Jesus Meeting With Me.

I had started donating plasma as a last ditch effort to make everything work. It was an extra $200 a month for the family, the kids loved the child watch, and I got to lay on a chair and read. I used the time to read books to review on the blog, and things were fine. I felt a lot of stress lift off of me. But I was still getting no sleep, and it is very hard to be creative or write well when your brain feels like a pretzel. Once, driving home from a playdate, I fell asleep while driving and went through a red light. My kids were in the car. This was not okay. Later that week, I was walking to my car after donating plasma, and the bandage slipped off my arm. You know, the one holding my vein closed. Blood started running in rivers down my arm and off my finger tips. I remember standing there, not realizing for several seconds it was my own blood. I remember thinking “God that’s a mess.” I was able to walk back into the facility and ask for help, my arm over my head and blood everywhere. I realized as I pulled into the garage later that night I had to make changes. Immediately.  A week later, my dog died in my arms from cancer. When it rains, it pours.

It was July 2011 and I felt done. I asked Jason how he felt about me selling my wedding dress in order to make it for one more month in business. He said okay, he supported me and what I was doing, but that he really didn’t think we could keep this up. I started crying because I hate to fail, and because I thought about all of the emails from parents that had taken the time to thank me, to tell me I had changed the way they looked at their girls. I was also failing them. Most new businesses don’t make it, and I felt like I was headed to the start-up graveyard. I had been told all along the first three years were the hardest, and that is absolutely true.

August 2011 was when everything changed. At the beginning of the month I wrote a post you might have read called “Waking Up Full of Awesome”. It was an odd post for my blog, because it didn’t really have to do with sexualization or gender stereotypes. I caught a photo of Amelia when she struck this funny pose before breakfast, right after I had finished reading some research about how abysmal body image is for teen girls, and I was pissed off. So I wrote down what I was feeling and hit “Publish”. I was expecting maybe 80-100 people to read it. I don’t really know how that post went global. To date, that post has had nearly 600,000 views. During that same time, I got a tweet from my friend about a shirt at JC Penney. I was just about to close my computer for the night because the next day was my last day of summer before Amelia started kindergarten. I just wanted to sleep. And then I saw the shirt. You know the one, “I’m to pretty to do homework, so my brother does it for me.” I immediately called out JC Penney on facebook, wrote a blog post, blasted twitter, and started designing a counter-campaign tee. I was angry. I was so epically tired of this crap being peddled to our girls. I went to bed at 5am. The following afternoon, a writer from Yahoo Shine contacted me and wanted the story. From there, Pigtail Pals had back-to-back viral events. Full of Awesome and Pretty’s Got Nothing To Do With It tees were shown on Yahoo and FOX News and selling by the thousands. At one point, my stack of orders was as tall as my can of Diet Coke. My facebook page jumped 8,000 people in 48 hours. I could barely keep up with the blog comments. A girlfriend (waves to Erin!) practically lived at my house for five weeks as we pumped out orders all over the globe. Facebook comments and emails came in by the hundreds. More girlfriends came over to wash my dishes or write out address labels or make post office runs. They brought me groceries. I don’t remember seeing my husband during those weeks, but I imagine he was around because the children were cared for. I had to get off the phone with a tv producer and said I needed to watch my little girl walk into kindergarten for the very first time. A newspaper called on our way home from dropping off our girl at school. A magazine called during dinner. BOOM. Several nights I fell asleep face down on the table while packaging orders. The kids would find me in the morning, and crawl around the boxes of hundreds of tees to get to the kitchen to find some juice. A book publisher called wanting me to write a book. A second publisher called, wanting a second book. This was what I had worked for. Blood, sweat, and tears. This was my ship coming in. You better believe I wasn’t letting this one pass me up. I busted my butt to get all of those orders out and take every single interview offered.

One day while walking the kids home from school, a neighbor approached me. I wasn’t really familiar with her, just waves across the street and passing hellos. She said her husband was in the Army, serving in Korea. A friend had sent a blog post to a friend in Japan, who had sent it to her husband in Korea, and he had forwarded to her. She wanted to know if Amelia was the girl from “Waking Up Full of Awesome”. My story had literally gone around the world, and the lady that lived directly across the street from me came over to introduce herself to the Full of Awesome family. Oh. My. God.

2011 ended with a book offer from Chicago Review Press (so excited!!), amazing sales, more tv and radio interviews than I could count, and an army of parents solidly in place supporting Pigtail Pals. I had shipped to all 50 states dozens of times over and to 15 countries. I was proud of myself, and of what I had created. My family had definitely sacrificed, but we hadn’t been pulled apart. My kids were happy and knew they were loved. I had never strayed from my mission to Redefine Girly and fight for the right to a girlhood, and I had made charitable donations and paid my bills along the way. I’m sure there were easier ways to do all of this, but this is my story. 

2012 is now our third year in business. In addition to my mom, I brought on two artists to help with our designs. My graphic and web designer Jenn is a rock star. I love the company who does my printing. I love my customers. I have great support from fellow bloggers. I love my book editor, and she loves me when I send her finished chapters. I love my circle of colleagues and professionals, who I also get to call my friends. I have amazing friends from my personal life that have always been there for me. None of this has been easy. All of it has been worth it.

I wanted to tell you all of that, so you could know Pigtail Pals in every detail. Because in a few hours, I’m changing. Everything.

This question was asked during a dicussion about body image on the Pigtail Pals facebook page.  Marci and I both felt that the answer really needed to be its own post.

The following is by Marci Warhaft-Nadler, of Fit vs Fiction, and it is so thorough I really don’t have anything to add. Just picture my head nodding in agreement as you read. What Marci and I really want you to take away from this is that You can’t lose weight in order to like yourself; you need to like yourself in order to lose weight.

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“What do I do when my child needs to lose weight?”

I get this question a lot.

 Weight is a tough issue for all of us, and when it comes to kids we need to be extremely careful with how we handle it. When a parent asks me what they can say to their child to help them lose weight, my answer is, “NOTHING. Say Nothing.” Research tells us that talking about and focusing on weight with our kids will not have the desired effect we’re looking for and can actually make the situation worse.

While there’s nothing we should be saying to help our kids get healthy, there IS a whole lot we could be doing.

First and foremost, KEEP THINGS POSITIVE and keep the focus on HEALTH instead of WEIGHT. Our goal as parents should be to have healthy kids, not necessarily skinny ones. It’s so important that your child understand that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and that they need to be proud of who they are.

Time magazine recently published an article saying,” Losing weight does not help obese girls love themselves.” It explained how overweight children can feel stigmatized by the media and society and how that stigmatization leads to low self-esteem. Being overweight becomes a part of WHO they are. Even if these kids lose the extra weight, the feelings of shame are still there and can last a very long time. That’s why it’s crucial that we teach our kids to tune out negative messages and help them appreciate and respect themselves, as they are. The fact is: You can’t lose weight in order to like yourself; you need to like yourself in order to lose weight. It’s when we like ourselves that we believe we deserve to feel strong and healthy and that will motivate us to eat well and exercise.

1) Make it a family affair:

The last thing you want to do is single out one kid with “special” food or portion sizes at meals. Instead, why not change the way the entire family eats? The goal is to be eating healthier foods in healthier portions and everyone can benefit from that! Remember, you’re not putting your child on a diet, just making some changes as to how and what you all eat.

2) Keep food talk POSITIVE, it’s not about the foods you take out and all about the foods you bring in:

We all get into a sort of comfort zone, where we seem to pick up the same types of food  week after week, so try some different! Try out a new exotic looking fruit you’ve always seen at the store but never thought of actually buying, or maybe buy those Kale chips your friends have been raving about. (That happened to me and they were actually quite tasty!)

3) Menu plan and shop TOGETHER:

Look for new, healthy recipes that you can shop for and cook together. Cooking food from scratch can give your child a new kind of respect for it and pride around it. Feel free to get creative, by coming up with theme nights! How about” Japanese night” or even “Breakfast for dinner”? PJs at the dinner table are a must, for that one. The idea is that eating healthy isn’t a punishment, just one important part of honouring our bodies.

4)  Get active; TOGETHER!

When it comes to weight, we tend to put a lot of focus on the food we’re taking in and not enough on the energy we’re putting out. Exercise has an incredible amount of benefits and will definitely help to keep weight down while building strong bones and muscles. If your child is interested in group activities and sports, SIGN THEM UP! Joining a team, will increase their self-esteem and will make it easier for them to stick with it, since being part of a team means that other people depend on you.

If team sports or sports in general is not your kid’s thing, there are tons of other ways to be active. I personally love to go to the park in my neighbourhood and make up obstacle courses for my kids to do. I’ll say something like,” Run up the slide, do 5 jumping jacks, slide down the other side, run to the bench , step on and off it 5 times, do a crazy dance then run to the basketball net and back!”

Feel free to make comments about how your body FEELS. Instead of saying things like,” Our jeans are going to be so much looser!” Try saying,” Doesn’t it feel great to be using our bodies this way? We’re going to be able to run faster and play longer if we keep this up!”

The key is that they’ll be having too much fun to even realize they’re exercising! An added perk: By coming up with the courses and demonstrating them, you’ll be getting a workout in too!

Another simple idea is to go for a walk after dinner. Instead of turning on the TV and chilling on the couch for the night, go for a walk through your neighbourhood or even drive to a new neighbourhood, and then walk around and explore; the couch will be there when you get back.

5) Support their hobbies:

Is your child an aspiring artist, musician or actor? Take an interest in whatever interests them and be as supportive as you can. When they’re doing something they love and feel a sense of accomplishment from it, there will be less pressure put on what they look like. It’s a great opportunity to build confidence and self-esteem.

6)  Don’t let them see you worry.

If YOU make their weight a big deal, they’ll make their weight a big deal and that won’t help anyone.

7)  Just do what you do best: LOVE YOUR CHILD.

Feeling loved, respected and appreciated by you, will help them learn how to love, respect and appreciate themselves.

*Self-worth should not be measured in pounds!

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Marci Warhaft-Nadler is a certified fitness instructor and body image consultant. After overcoming her own body image and eating disorder issues, Marci created her Fit vs Fiction program to tear down the dangerous myths related to beauty and fitness and empower kids with the self-esteem they need to tune out negative messages and be proud of who they are instead of judging themselves for who they think they’re not. 

Self-worth should not be measured in pounds!

www.fitvsfiction.com

www.fitvsfiction.wordpress.com

Dear Boy and Girls,

It was not so long ago, that I was a girl. I ran in the woods and played soccer and sailed and had dolls. I loved playing restaurant and school. But I loved pretending to be a spy even more. When I was little, like you are today, I had the freedom to be who I wanted to be.

I’m not so sure you have the same freedoms today, although technically we should be about 27 years more advanced than we were in 1985. It confuses me as to why we are moving backwards. Everywhere I look, I see messages called stereotypes that tell you how to be a boy and how to be a girl. These messages are unfair, and to be honest with you, there isn’t a lot of truth behind them. I see them in your toys and your clothes and your media, like the tv and movies. The problem is, your grown ups aren’t always aware of that. Sometimes grown ups believe these messages, and they think there is only one way to be a boy, and only one way to be a girl. Sometimes growns ups don’t even know how to think outside of these strereotypes, or they don’t consider questioning them. Sometimes grown ups are scared by these stereotypes, especially when kids try to break them down. I’m so glad that every day there seems to be kids like you that know better, and love art and cars and dolls and sports and mud and sparkles and all the colors of the rainbow.

Sometimes, grown ups take these stereotype messages too far. Sometimes, grown ups use these stereotypes to teach hate. Sometimes the grown ups will say their reasons are because of their religion. A man from North Carolina did last week, when he was advocating for his church congregation to ”beat the gay” out of their children who he feels stray too far out of the rigid gender roles he sets forth. Gender roles means only certain things for boys to do and certain things for girls, and you can’t break the rules. This man was saying that if a boy is acting too much like a girl, his parents should beat him. Or if a girl gets too dirty playing sports, she needs to quickly go inside and get clean and pretty and sweet smelling again.  When this man talked about physically hurting children, it made my stomach sick like I was going to throw up. I’m not sure why the people sat there and listened to him. If I had been there, I would have stood up and said very loudly how out of line he was, and then walked out with my family. An important person to me taught me a long time ago that when you hear or see hate, you be not silent.

You need to be careful when you hear hateful words from people.  There is never a time when it is okay for a grown up to hit, punch, or break the bones of a child. But this man from North Carolina said it was okay, because he thought his religion said so. Only small men tell people to hurt others. Even smaller men try to take away the rights of others. There isn’t any right way to be a kid, and I don’t think people should put limits on you, especially when you are playing and discovering. I don’t ever think an adult should ever physically hurt you.

What I really think is that adults need to get a little braver, and take a stand when they hear hateful words or see hateful actions. I read the story about the man from North Carolina, but I didn’t read anything about people getting up and leaving. They were not being careful about the words from a hateful man. They were wrong to have thought so highly of him. They certainly were not being brave.

A very little boy doesn’t put on a dress because he is gay, he puts on a dress because he is playing. He does not need to be punched. We need to give our sons the space to be human.

A young girl does not ”butch it up” on the soccer field because she is gay, she is dirty and sweaty because she is an athlete. She does not need a beating. It is not our daughter’s responsibility to be pretty and sweet smelling for the world.

A young boy’s love of art or enjoyment caring for a doll or beloved stuffed animal is not a result of his “limp wrist” and implied impending gayness, he loves these because at a young age he sees beauty and loves creating things and caring for things. My guess is, this boy will grow up to be five times the man that this fella from North Carolina claims to be. Real men do not hurt children.

A young girl who wears shorty short hair or loves bugs or dinosaurs or sports is not necessarily gay, she simply finds things interesting that lay outside of the sparkling pink box she is maybe being told to stay in. My guess is, this girl will grow up to be a smart student who loves science and has all kinds of friends because she knows there is no right way to be — you just be you. You do how you do.

Girly girls and tomboys and geeky girls and sporty boys and princess boys and nerdy boys and and and ……. It doesn’t really matter to me what kind of kid your are. Maybe you’re a mix of all kinds. I think grown ups should just get back to calling you “children”, and get out of your way as you explore our world and discover all that you can be in it.

Now go outside and play.

Love,

Melissa (mom to Ben and Amelia)

 

My son Ben, in a hot pink mask and riding a unicorn.

                                                                                           

My girl Amelia, digging worms up from the garden.

“Oh no, not that skirt. Horizontal stripes will make you look fatter,” Grandmother shopping next to me says to a little girl, slapping the girl’s hand away from a really cute tiered skirt. The little girl shrinks. My mouth and Amelia’s mouth fall open in shock.

I want to climb on top of the rack of clothing, and scream at this woman, telling her how cruel and damaging Fat Talk is to girls, especially when Fat Talk comes from the people this girl should be able to trust the most. I want to screech out the stats running through my head — percentages of little girls who hate their bodies and diet and have low self-esteem. I want to grab her and shake her and tell her what awful messages she is planting in this girl’s head. I also kind of want to hug her, and tell her to stop projecting her body hate onto this young child.

Not wanting to get kicked out of Target, and not being a crazy person, I didn’t. But I really, really wanted to.

Instead I picked up the exact same skirt, and held it up for Amelia. I’m not trying to be an ass, I just can’t let the grandmother’s words be the last thing the other girl hears in that moment.

“Hey Smalls, look at this! How awesome are these stripes!? Wouldn’t they look so fun and colorful while you run and spin? How fun!” I say. 

“I’d say it is full of awesome,” 6yo Amelia offers while waving to the little girl.

When I stood back from it, I realized that these feelings are rooted in their childhoods, so I started to do some research about what kind of influences start so young, and are so powerful, that these young women, who have so much to offer, cannot see it.

This brought me to the princess culture, and to Peggy Orenstein’s fabulous book, “Cinderella Ate My Daughter.” Her book highlighted what the problem was, and motivated me to provide a guide that could help parents begin to know HOW to deal with the problem, in the hopes that these young women would feel more in control of their lives earlier in their lives.