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A neighbor dad tells how his daughter used to insist on wearing two different shoes to daycare each morning. “I finally just started slipping her the right and the left shoe from two different pairs, so at least they fit properly,” he says. When my daughter was three she took to wearing her bathing suit over her clothes, with rain boots to clinch the look. All I could do was smooth out the wrinkles and let her strut.

Gender makes no difference. Even though experts say gender identification usually starts manifesting itself at around three, it’s true that there are girly girls and manly boys well before that, as well as vice versa. Still no three-year-old boy in the world will say no to a cape and a pair of boots, no matter how butch he is. If he begs to wear his sister’s tutu, let him; because a tot in a costume is a happy, non-screaming tot.

Besides, the entire world smiles upon the toddler in drag. It’s one of the more charming character traits of the toddler/preschool set; their insistence on wearing their own fashion creations as they go about their normal day. I think it must have something to do with getting public validation that yes, in fact, they are the center of the universe. My daughter wore a velvet and tulle princess dress every day for months, reveling in the fact that everyone from the clerk in the store to the bum on the street commented favorably upon it. And who can blame them, really? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be at the age where nobody casts a negative glance at your green hula skirt or red cowboy hat?