No son, you are not allowed to dress in drag for Halloween

This blog post by a mother about her five year old son who dressed up as Daphne from Scooby Doo is all over my Facebook news feed. Everyone loves her. The adoring comments have included "Thank God that there are mothers who are not afraid to let a child express individuality!" and "What a great mom!".

Besides the photo of the child, the thing that jumped out to me in this article was the following statement: "Halloween is the time of year that you can be whatever it is that you want to be".

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. He's five. Parents can set boundaries on what is and what is not appropriate. Actually, let me re-state that. Parents should set boundaries on what is and what is not appropriate.

Does this rise to the level of being inappropriate? To each his own, but I think so. If my son asked to dress in drag for Halloween, I would say no. Plain and simple. The list of costumes I would deem inappropriate is a long one, and dressing in drag is certainly on that list.

And it's not because I think it's going to turn him gay, or because I would be ashamed or wouldn't love him. I just don't think that it is appropriate for a 4 or 5 year old to dress up in drag. That's it.