As some of you may know by now, I’ve been wearing skirts out in public much more frequently than I used to. Part of that is because I have been getting out of the house more since my young son started daycare. It’s my responsibility to bring him in the morning and pick him back up in the afternoon.
For a while, I didn’t wear skirts or anything gender-non-conforming because I was afraid of the reaction not for myself, but for my son. He and his classmates are certainly still too young to know or care, but I was more afraid of what his classmates’ parents may tell their children about “that kid’s dad who wears skirts”.
We live in a small, conservative town where word gets around quickly and the last thing I want is for him to have problems with bullying later on because of my choice of clothing. Unfortunately, I still consider this to be a possibility later on.
A couple of weeks ago, I just decided to do it anyway and see what happens. I wore a black denim skirt I have from Esprit which I chose specifically for the reason that I feel like it is one of the more subtle skirts in my collection.
It and a couple of other skirts are my go-tos for when I want to wear a skirt out in public, but for some reason, I am not feeling entirely confident. They are all dark, denim or canvas, and otherwise match the general aesthetic of most of what you find in the men’s department. You could say they are sort of “safety blanket” skirts.
But I digress.
When I got out of the car and carried my son into the daycare, I was anxious about other parents’ and even teachers’ reactions and how that would affect him. Well, like in most of my stories of wearing skirts in public, nothing happened.
I was treated exactly the same as always. No one commented, no one cared, and there was absolutely no reaction whatsoever. Well, other than one I had no idea I triggered, but I will write about that soon in another post.
The whole experience gave me a huge confidence boost, of course, and since then, I’ve been wearing skirts almost every day to the daycare.
I’ve also been wearing some that aren’t within my “safety blanket” selection, but I do have one condition for my choice of skirt going to the daycare: it has to have decent-sized pockets. There are just simply too many small things (such as pacifiers) I need to carry to not have pockets.
I still hope it doesn’t have any adverse effects on my son later on, especially given the recent disturbing political developments in the EU and France. As I mentioned above, word gets around here quickly, so in order for it to not affect my son, I would probably have to stop wearing them in public here entirely which is something I’m not willing to do. Because of that, however, I figure wearing skirts to the daycare probably doesn’t make any difference.
What would you do in this sort of situation? Would you continue to wear skirts when it might have a negative impact on your child or children? Let us know in the comments below!
My grandson is a freshman in H.S. and plays soccer for the school’s team. I am an armature photographer and was the “unofficial” team photographer, and was given access to the field to take pictures so everybody saw me. I wore my skirts to every game and to the years end awards ceremony. Not one parent or player ever said anything other than asking about the pictures I took. The truth is the kids were glad to see me there and taking pictures. I’m guessing that this generation is more excepting then previous ones. Which gives me hope for the future.
That is really great! I don’t think the kids are really the problem, but rather the parents. Although, I have to admit that my experiences thus far have been really good with my own generation, so it’s certainly a possibility that I’m just imagining it.
The sooner we set aside these fears about “oh what will others think” especially when what you are doing is harmless the better.
I understand the fear, believe me, but I also realize I am doing nothing illegal, immoral, or otherwise. A parent takes issue at me at a day care and somehow ends up having their child bully mine…well, this can happen with anything. For instance, my mother was a tennis player and regularly showed up at my school in various tennis outfits, and BOY OH BOY did I get picked on for that…but it had me learn very quickly how stupid it is to pick on someone for what they wear. My mom was hurting nobody, did not look like all the other mothers, didn’t blend in, and there was no harm in that.
Well the same should be seen when it comes to pop sporting a skirt. IF the women at that place took issue, then they would be the hypocrites.
I absolutely agree. Kids will find anything to use to bully a disliked kid. The fact that I’m American living in Germany might even be enough of an excuse to bully him if they already don’t like him. It’s really hard to say. I’m just hoping that my skirt wearing doesn’t contribute to that, but my experience so far has been really good (another post about an extremely positive experience I had that recently happened is going to be published soon).
You know, these denim skirts really look like denim shorts, and given how the skirts sometimes behave (they are not made of steel, they move together with you), it doesn’t feel like you’re any different than others. I believe that it is the colors of “bottom” that actually trigger the attention – wouldn’t you notice guy wearing red trousers? We of course activate neurons for both males and females, but obviously seeing girl in red bottom is less shocking than seeing boy in similarly coloured outfit.
I wouldn’t worry about the political developments in Europe – the discussion about what masculinity and feminity is will be present for sure (whatever we think about MGTOW movement, they also consider “social unwritten rules” as part of the male’s problem in our culture and I’m sure male-focused groups will remain and keep growing); the political battle seems to be more about “ausländer”. And given that a lot of them are coming from Islamic-based countries, which seem to be way more oppresive to both male and female about do’s and dont’s (and sometimes it’s not even the rules, it’s the mindset of people there), I don’t consider pendulum swinging to the right as the major threat for preventing male from wearing skirts.
They do look like denim shorts which is why I consider them to be my “safety blanket” skirts when going out in public. I agree that the colors of your clothes really do make a huge difference in how people perceive you. Your example with the red trousers is spot-on. That’s why all of my “safety blanket” skirts are also darker in colors, much like what you find a lot for men wearing with pants or shorts.
And you certainly have a good point about the big topic being foreigners from Islamic countries. So far, I haven’t heard much discussion from the political far right in Europe about anything related to gender. I’m just worried that they’ll take up the discourse from the far right in the US where gender has been a big topic for a while now. It’s so bad in parts of the US, that Canada’s government has officially classified some states (i.e. Florida) as being actively hostile towards anyone in the LGBTQ+ community and has issued an advisory that they avoid traveling to those states. While men in skirts certainly aren’t part of that community, the danger is that they might be perceived as being part of it because of the judgmental nature of those hostile to the community.
But a separate post about that is in the works 😉