All recovered from Halloween yet? It was a cold, soggy one in these parts, and we're nursing a candy hangover here—my own, not my son's. As creative costumes go, I'm no maverick, but this dad is. This dad's got Halloween 'game' in spades.
Always content to dress up for the occasion, blogger Tom M. Burns has happily gone along with his daughter's past requests—from Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas & Ferb, to Wreck-It Ralph—but this year he only had himself to blame for introducing his seven-year-old to Star Wars.
Instantly, his daughter (cool kid) wanted to know whether she could go trick-or-treating as Han Solo.
And being the equally cool dad that he is, Burns didn't miss a beat, assuring her that "Yeah, why, of course, you could. That would be amazing. Why couldn't you be Han Solo?"
So far, so good feminist tale. Dad did his homework and found his girl a 'She' Han Solo costume. Fast-forward a bit, and you can imagine that Han would want Luke for her sidekick. Alas no, Han suggested Princess Leia.
Burns acknowledged that he'd dug himself a hole but at the risk of being seen as "hypocritical" after agreeing that a girl could be Han Solo, he wholeheartedly embraced dressing as Leia because "that's what dads do."
There is no doubt that fathers help paint the picture of how girls will see men (and themselves) as they grow up, and as far as I'm concerned this dad is priming a true Picasso. Something as simple as a Halloween costume served as a great lesson because he was willing to bend the gender 'rules' even if it meant he had to wear hair buns.
As Burns said best: "equality goes both ways. If I'm going to tell my daughter that she can do almost anything a man can do (excepting some very specific biological acts), then I need to show her that a man can do almost anything a woman can do, too... especially when it's something awesome like dressing up as a character from one of the best movies ever."
I'm just glad he didn't try to pull off the gold bikini cosplay.
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