Jen Anderson Shattuck’s three-and-a-half-year-old son likes trucks, jigsaw puzzles and eating plums. He also likes wearing sparkly tutus. He wears them on the train, to church and in the sandbox… and his mother isn’t going to let anyone stop him from doing just that.
On Aug. 24, Shattuck wrote a powerful Facebook post defending her son Roo’s choice to wear tutus. She was compelled to share her post after a stranger approached her and her son in the park a day earlier and confronted them about Roo’s attire.
My three-and-a-half-year-old son likes to play trucks. He likes to do jigsaw puzzles. He likes to eat plums. And he...
Posted by Jen Anderson Shattuck on Wednesday, August 24, 2016
“He wasn't curious. He didn't want answers,” Shattuck writes in the post. “He wanted to make sure we both knew that what my son was doing---what I was ALLOWING him to do---was wrong.”
She describes how the man proceeded to take photos of her son without her consent and threatened them.
“’Now everyone will know," he said. "You'll see,’” she wrote.
Shattuck said she called the police and reported the man’s behaviour but her son is still shook up from the incident.
“He (Roo) wants to know: ‘Is the man coming back? The bad man? Is he going to shout more unkind things about my skirt? Is he going to take more pictures?’” she wrote.
The Massachusetts mom went on to say that she will not be intimidated by the altercation and she will continue to love and support her son and his tutus.
“The world may not love my son for who he is, but I do,” Shattuck wrote. “I was put on this earth to make sure he knows it.”
Her touching post has struck a nerve with her online audience, attracting more than 45,000 likes and being shared more than 43,000 times. Shattuck has even inspired a new online movement where people share photos of themselves wearing tutus with the hashtag #TutusForRoos to show their support for Roo.
I was incredibly moved by my buddy Jen Anderson Shattuck's story about how her son was bullied by a grown man for...
Posted by Tim Atkins on Friday, August 26, 2016
Created by Chris Rose. Thank you, Chris! #TutusForRoo
Posted by Jen Anderson Shattuck on Saturday, August 27, 2016
Shattuck took to Facebook again to thank everyone for their encouragement and kind messages. She wrote that she and her son are continuing to go about their daily routine and that they haven’t been approached by anyone about his tutus since.
"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your kindness (and for the many photos you have sent of your dress-, skirt-, and tutu-loving offspring, who are adorable.),” she wrote. “Roo may not always want to dress this way, but we hope that he'll remember that, when he did, he was loved.”
