Man Confronts A Teacher Who Put His Grandson In A Dress Twice
The boy's mom felt as though the teacher didn't take her concerns seriously.
sirtravelalot via Shutterstock / angychan0982 and Gabrielle Scarlett via Canva Playing dress-up is not only fun for kids, but it's also been proven to have many benefits for kids' social and emotional growth. However, a video of a concerned grandfather confronting his grandson’s daycare teacher about how she chose to dress the child may cause some educators to think twice before making dress-up a regular occurence in the classroom.
The grandfather paid a visit to his grandson's preschool after learning the 2-year-old was "parading around in a dress."
In 2018, Kayla Burton and her girlfriend dropped Burton's son, Zach, off at Bethany Early Childhood Center in Kansas. After saying their goodbyes for the day, however, Burton's girlfriend reportedly turned around to see the 2-year-old suddenly wearing a dress.
“She came back into the classroom and took off the dress saying, ‘We don’t do this’ in front of the teacher,” Burton told Yahoo Lifestyle at the time. “I am a lesbian, but I don’t push my son in any direction."
Despite making her feelings about the situation clear, when Burton returned to the school to pick up her son, he was once again wearing a dress.
“I pulled his teacher aside and explained that I don’t condone my son wearing a dress at school,” Burton explained. “She just laughed and said, ‘He’s only two!’”
Burton called the boy's grandfather to the school for backup.
In the video, the boy's grandfather, Malcolm, is recording as he asks the boy's teacher to discuss his grandson wearing a dress at school. She advised him to talk to the director of the school at first.
The upset granddad asked the teacher, “Is she the one that was in charge of the kids while my grandson…”
The woman interrupted him and advised that she was in charge but was unable to speak with him because he was not on the list of authorized contacts for the child.
“I’m coming down here because we don’t do the transgender and all that. We don’t do that,” Bedford stated. “And I don’t appreciate you encouraging him to put on no dress for the second day,” Bedford told her before promising that the situation was not going away and expressing his willingness to go “further” with it.
Once again, the teacher directed him to talk to her superior and he declined by saying he wanted to talk to her.
The pair continued to go back and forth before the video ended with him refusing to take the matter up the chain and letting her know she was accountable for her own actions.
The mother explained that she was concerned about her son being discriminated against.
According to Yahoo Lifestyle, Burton said she was most upset that the teacher dismissed her concerns by both letting her son wear the dress a second time. She also claimed she was ever told why her son changed into the dress, leading her to fear he was being discriminated against as the only Black student in the class.
However, both the mother and grandmother voiced concerns about influencing the boy's gender identity, leading people on Reddit to ask, “Why is everyone making this a gay/trans thing?"
"Seems like a lot of people assumed the teacher put him in a dress and told him he was a girl," someone wrote when the video of the interaction was posted on Reddit.
While the circumstances surrounding why the boy was in a dress is unknown, it's probable that the young students were simply playing dress up, which Dr. Karen Aronian, a longtime schoolteacher, college professor and the founder of Aronian Education Design explained to Healthline "is an ideal way for young children to work on so many early childhood development skills."
In a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle, the school claimed that "We encourage our children to play in a Christ-centered atmosphere that we hope will allow them to gain confidence and learn to interact with others in a positive way."
Ultimately, however, Yahoo Lifestyle reported that Burton chose to remove her son from the school.
"Whatever he decides to do or wear in the future is his decision,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle, which we can only hope is the case.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle and entertainment and news, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.