 It's a very exciting day--the lineup for BottleRock Napa Valley has been announced! Three day tickets are already sold out and one-day tickets go on sale on 1/12/2023 at noon.
When my husband and I went to BottleRock Napa in 2017, we were thrilled to see the number of children in attendance. While we didn't have kids of our own yet, we knew that we would want to start building our family soon. It was fun to imagine one day returning to BottleRock Napa with kids of our own. Many people are surprised to learn just how family-friendly music festivals are. In fact, we took our son when he was one year old to Coachella and wrote a post about it called, "Take Your Baby: Music Festivals." At Coachella, other parents were happy to see our baby and told us that we inspired them to bring their own children to music festivals in the future. Now, with our three-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, we are planning to head to BottleRock Napa for a single day. Because the atmosphere of BottleRock is more laidback, relaxed and spread out, it is the perfect first music festival for little ones. If you are contemplating taking your children to BottleRock, here is some important information to know:
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 Shortly before my son turned four, he decided that he wanted to wear dresses. He had seen his sister wearing dresses for two years and asked to wear a dress like her. So I pulled out a larger sized dress from the garage and put it on him. He wore it for an hour or two and then asked to take it off. A few months later, he and his sister went to a Frozen themed birthday party and were requesting to watch the movie whenever they got screen time. My son asked to wear a dress so he and his sister could be Anna and Elsa. The two of them ran around in their dresses singing “Let It Go” for a good chunk of the morning. When it was time to go to school, he asked to take the dress with him so he could be Elsa with his friends. When he came home, he told me that his teacher wouldn’t let him wear the dress. That was my first glimpse into the fact that society hasn’t come as far as I had hoped in challenging traditional gender stereotypes. My second glimpse took place last night at my parents’ house. My mom was talking about which dress she was going to wear to a party and my son said he wants to wear a dress too. My mom quickly responded with, “You can’t wear a dress. Boys don’t wear dresses,” knowing that that’s not what we believe in our family and not what we’re teaching our children. Thems were fightin’ words and I had to protect my son. One of my core values and goals as a parent is to think critically about what I teach my children, not simply do things the way they’ve always been done, especially with beliefs and practices that do more harm than good. My mom and I eventually hugged it out and I saw this as the beginning of a much longer conversation, a topic that will be revisited. I know that these deeply ingrained gender norms, toxic masculinity and fears of the feminine will take a lot of time and effort to dismantle. But the work needs to start somewhere.  5 Reasons Why I “Let” My Son Wear a Dress Last year, after doing a bunch of fun stuff with our son that many people discouraged us from doing, I decided to start a series called “Take Your Baby” that debunks commonly held misconceptions about what activities parents shouldn't do and places parents shouldn’t go with their babies. I firmly believe that parents shouldn't feel forced to relinquish their interests and passions when we have babies, because giving up parts of your identity can only lead to resentment. Instead, parents should try to find ways to introduce their baby to their world as much as possible.
My last article, Take Your Baby: European Dining, focused on Michelin-starred restaurants, afternoon tea in London and the Parisian Grand Tasting. This time, I want to talk about music festivals, like Coachella and Bottlerock Napa. With many of these music festivals rescheduled for the fall, there is still time for parents with tickets to decide whether or not to take their little ones. |
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AuthorChristina is a Los Angeles-based writer, photographer and marketing maven. |
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