Dear Editor,

I have so enjoyed all the letters you have been publishing in your estimable paper concerning the petticoating of boys. To sum it up, it would seem that your lady writers use petticoat discipline, both sissy wear and actual wearing of petticoats, to augment corporal discipline to bring unruly and objectionable boys, and even youths, to heel. Its purpose is to control, to subdue, to train, to inculcate manners opposite to those already in the boy. In other words, to try to turn a boisterous, rude boy into a dainty and well-mannered miss.

If I were writing about just another case of such petticoating, my letter would be redundant, but I write because I think the experience I have with my son is different. Some mothers who wrote do hint that they had wanted a daughter, and had been disappointed when a son came along, and that they petticoated their son for that reason, having to apply corporal punishment and other stern measures to get their boy to co-operate.

I confess that I too petticoated my son to take the place of the daughter who did not materialise, and because I lost my husband shortly after the birth of my son. I pondered the situation for a few years, then when the longing for a daughter did not decrease, I made the decision to have my son become my darling daughter. My closest friends helped me that Paul was far too lovely a child to be wasted in nasty trousers, and as he was fair of complexion, and small of stature for his age, I turned him into a cute little girl.

He is fourteen years old now, and yet when dressed up in his pretties, he looks just like a darling little six year old girl, and he has adapted to that status and role. I was so charmed when I saw him leaning out of the window recently. In leaning, his short little girl frock not quite covering his bottom, showing his little petticoat and sweet little lace-frilled rhumba panties.

Yes, I am truly the mother of a boy-girl, and I have never had to use corporal punishment once in all that time. Never has he rebelled, but has sweetly acqiesed to petticoating. It is not that he does not know that he is a boy, but he considers my wishes first. What pleasure we have discussing all his dainty clothes: what undies he shall wear, whether he needs a new frock. Can he have a new dolly, and so on. Mindful of his status as a little six year old miss, he has a suitably early bedtime, wears adorable little nighties, and often sleeps with me in my bed. Like any six year old, he likes to help about the house, folding his own undies and even the nappies which he wears to bed. I am so lucky to have such a sweet little boy-girl.

'Proud Mother'

Plenty of the letters in Peter Farrer's Edwardian correspondence collections show that there are boys who do not need to be forced into petticoats (which is usually necessary at first), but are already very sweet and girlish, and understand at once the loveliness of frilly undies and soft pretty frocks, and prefer playing with dolls than with boys' things.

In this case petticoating is not a punishment, but the effect is the same, and the boy will be a very well behaved and obedient child, and an absolutely adorable maid for some lucky girl who appreciates him.
Susan