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Little Boys In 'Dresses': Historical Kids' Garb

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Peter Cushing was dressed as a girl by his mother for the first few years of his life and he turned out fine.
 
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Quite a few boys were dressed as girls in Cushing's generation. Clothing didn't really differentiate between boys and girls much at some times. Didn't stop them knowing what was what though. Even if pink was originally a boys' colour anyway - apparently.
 
Ravenstone said:
Quite a few boys were dressed as girls in Cushing's generation. Clothing didn't really differentiate between boys and girls much at some times. Didn't stop them knowing what was what though. Even if pink was originally a boys' colour anyway - apparently.

Yeah, but Cushing's mother did really want a daughter, and raised her son that way. I know I'm going back a bit for an example, but having an eccentric, even silly, background might not be the worst thing in the world.
 
Young boys being dressed in female clothing was fairly common many years ago.
Back in the days when everybody was poor, kids would wear the cast off clothes of their older brothers and sisters. For boys who only had sisters, they would have to wear their sister's clothes until they were considered old enough to wear trousers.
My Dad has a whole load of books about life in Victorian times. In the books, there are some photos of young lads playing in the street, wearing dresses.
 
My dad (born 1928) was the last born, two older sisters. He wore their dresses until he was five.

Bearing in mind this was a very rural family, I wondered if this was a remnant of the old custom of dressing all children alike, in dresses (facilitating nappy changing) until the boys were 'breeched' and put into trousers.
 
My dad (born 1928) was the last born, two older sisters. He wore their dresses until he was five.

Bearing in mind this was a very rural family, I wondered if this was a remnant of the old custom of dressing all children alike, in dresses (facilitating nappy changing) until the boys were 'breeched' and put into trousers.
It was common among the poor. If a boy only had older sisters, he got their hand-me-downs.
 
My dad born in 1920 wore dresses as a toddler and he was the first born. We have a photo to prove it, I laughed when I first saw it but granny told me it was the 'done thing' in those days. The family were rural but not desperately poor, not rich either come to that mind you!

Sollywos x
 
The earliest photos of my father as a toddler (b. 1923; southern Appalachia; two older sisters) show him dressed in a dress (or maybe a smock). I've seen even earlier family photos in which very young boys were similarly dressed. Long ago I asked my late grandparents about it, and they told me it was common to clothe very young boys like this until they were mature enough to wear pants.

This always made sense to me in the context of modest means and no endless supply of ready-to-wear toddler clothing (much of which was home-sewn in those days). Pants are fitted, hence recurrently obsolete as children grow, and toddlers are growing pretty rapidly.
 
My dad (born 1928) was the last born, two older sisters. He wore their dresses until he was five.

Bearing in mind this was a very rural family, I wondered if this was a remnant of the old custom of dressing all children alike, in dresses (facilitating nappy changing) until the boys were 'breeched' and put into trousers.

I've read that this a was common practice from the early modern period and into the 19thC, possibly early 20th, infant boys, up until around five - like your dad, would wear dresses and might even have long hair as well.
 
I've read that this a was common practice from the early modern period and into the 19thC, possibly early 20th, infant boys, up until around five - like your dad, would wear dresses and might even have long hair as well.

I think a lot of it might be down to practicality. No all in one babygros in those days, or easily washable fabrics, and washday might be one, long arduous Monday every week. If you've got a little lad in nappies (those awful big towelling ones that took ages to dry), then you'd want to make nappy changing as quick and easy and with as little mess as possible. Dresses are far easier to whip up for a nappy change than trousers, which inevitably get soggy.

You'd put your boy into trousers when you knew he was reliably potty trained and not likely to have too many accidents, and could cope with the more complicated fastenings in time.

That's my guess.
 
It was the done thing to dress boys in dresses during the Victorian period. I have a photo of an ancestor in one. Also take a look at this.

Little Franklin Delano Roosevelt sits primly on a stool, his white skirt spread smoothly over his lap, his hands clasping a hat trimmed with a marabou feather. Shoulder-length hair and patent leather party shoes complete the ensemble.
We find the look unsettling today, yet social convention of 1884, when FDR was photographed at age 2 1/2, dictated that boys wore dresses until age 6 or 7, also the time of their first haircut. Franklin's outfit was considered gender-neutral.

https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...ways-blue-for-boys-and-pink-for-girls/237299/
 
Here is a photo of FDR

17f893d4729f36f2e05e00af75a3b53e.jpg
 
There was a lot of talk of 'dress boys like girls so the boys won't get stolen by the fairies', but I'm still not sure how true any of that was. I'm sure people believed that this might be the case, but I'm firmly on the side of 'dresses are more practical for nappy changing.'

Also the long hair? Have you ever tried to get a small child to sit still to have its hair cut? Easier to let it grow until it's old enough to threaten with having its ears cut off if it moves...
 
There was a lot of talk of 'dress boys like girls so the boys won't get stolen by the fairies', but I'm still not sure how true any of that was. I'm sure people believed that this might be the case, but I'm firmly on the side of 'dresses are more practical for nappy changing.'

Also the long hair? Have you ever tried to get a small child to sit still to have its hair cut? Easier to let it grow until it's old enough to threaten with having its ears cut off if it moves...

There might be a variety of reasons, some more rational, some less, as with many traditions. You can't unravel them all. ;)
People of the time wouldn't question the practice, any more than we'd currently question buying little soccer strips for baby boys and princess dresses for baby girls.
 
I know my Mother used to do fringes like that on me when I was small and dress me up like a ruddy doll but I mean...!!!
 
Blimey .. Mothers dressing their Son's as girls has been touted by serial killers as an influence on their later behaviour. It's a relief he got into acting instead.
It was actually pretty common back in the day. My family has a photo of my Dad when he was 2, looking like a little girl. I think Nana (grandma) wanted a girl, but my Dad arrived instead. He wasn't a serial killer.
 
It was actually pretty common back in the day. My family has a photo of my Dad when he was 2, looking like a little girl. I think Nana (grandma) wanted a girl, but my Dad arrived instead. He wasn't a serial killer.

In small town and rural America it was common through the 19th century and into the early 20th century to clothe little boys in "dresses" (frocks) until they were old enough to use pants. Folk art portraits of young kids from the 18th and early 19th centuries often show infant boys dressed similarly to girls.

I have a family photo of my father circa 1925 or 1926 sporting a girl-style "page boy" hair style and wearing a lacy-trimmed white "dress." He had two older sisters, and that may have had something to do with the available sartorial options, but still ...

In the old days there wasn't a huge supply of diversely-sized clothing for rapidly growing toddlers like there is today. It was also the case that clothing purchases weren't treated as casual transient trappings in those days.
 
Here's William Henry Pratt (aka Boris Karloff) as a schoolboy, age 10 ...

Karloff-age10.jpg

... and here's the eventual Boris at age three and a half ...

karloff-age3&aHalf.jpg
 
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Peter Cushing's mother dressed him as a girl because she really wanted a daughter, though.
 
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Peter Cushing's mother dressed him as a girl because she really wanted a daughter, though. ...

That may have been the motivation for emphasizing the infant / toddler cross-dressing, but it was the contemporary convention that allowed the mother to indulge herself in virtual wish fulfillment without fear of ridicule.

A similar case of mother's wish fulfillment applies to this angelic cutie ...

QT2BP4pa.jpg

... whose mother would "twin" him with a sister via girlish stylings up to around age 5. As a famous adult he emphatically projected the persona of a "man's man." By the time he was an old man and deceased people would wonder whether the persona was a lifelong reaction to his earliest years.

Any guesses as to who he was?
 
In small town and rural America it was common through the 19th century and into the early 20th century to clothe little boys in "dresses" (frocks) until they were old enough to use pants. Folk art portraits of young kids from the 18th and early 19th centuries often show infant boys dressed similarly to girls.

I have a family photo of my father circa 1925 or 1926 sporting a girl-style "page boy" hair style and wearing a lacy-trimmed white "dress." He had two older sisters, and that may have had something to do with the available sartorial options, but still ...

In the old days there wasn't a huge supply of diversely-sized clothing for rapidly growing toddlers like there is today. It was also the case that clothing purchases weren't treated as casual transient trappings in those days.

Just had a quick google as I'm sure I've read that it was common throughout the western world - not just the US. From what I've read it was done for two reasons - firstly children's gender was not such a big deal before the age of 7. Also more practically this was the time before zippers and easy to use buttons.

Boys would be kept in dresses as it was easier to toilet train them and also they needed to learn the dexterity to operate trouser clasps. Also according to the article, the practice died when better fabrics and detergents were created.

Apparently, when boys got big enough to be dressed in trousers it was called "breeching"

https://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/boys-dress/

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/20/breeching-boys/
 
...Boys would be kept in dresses as it was easier to toilet train them and also they needed to learn the dexterity to operate trouser clasps...

As a toddler, my dad - born 1920 - was dressed in girls clothes for this reason. Also, dresses are more straightforward to make at home than trousers, and it's a bit easier to build some room for growth into them. He also had an older sister, so there were her old clothes to hand.

All about economy of usage, as well as expenditure.
 
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