Life with Luigi: Confessions of a misfit mommy.

How long has this been going on? It may just be a phase.

I have been squiring Kindervader around off and on for the last six months or so. It was his Halloween costume and I thought the novelty had worn off until it began to be periodically ressurected.

Luigi is new. That started yesterday but today's addition of the contraption was new.

I really don't mind it. If he wants to be Luigi so what!

But I would like to spare him the Batman reputation as I think Bruce Wayne was a pretty good guy in and of himself.

There are a few things you could try.
I'm assuming he got this idea from a video game. You could try getting him to do something besides play the game, see if that helps.
You could try removing all the things he needs to make this contraption while he is sleeping or otherwise distracted, and see if "out of sight, out of mind" works.
You could try talking to him, letting him know that it is okay to dress like that when he is playing around the house, maybe occasionally down to the park, but not when he is out in public, like in school or when you take him to go shopping with you.
If nothing else, you may just need to be the bad guy and break him of this fixation by not allowing him to dress like that. Or wait it out.

Enjoy your little Luigi. He's got a vivid imagination, nothing wrong with that. My boys were exactly like that at Mo's age. I thought it was wonderful. They managed to grow up into wonderful, creative adults.

Well, boomerang, if Mo can be Luigi then you can be ........ ? (Fill in the space)

Enjoy yourselves!

So, t_s_arthur, I guessing you do see it as misfit behavoir?

He did get it from a video game but we have only played the game maybe for an hour over the last week - that is when we bought it. Truly it is not that he sits and plays it for any length of time. Honestly, I haven't even figured out the controls yet!

(He's never even seen Star Wars so I don't know where the whole Darth Vader thing came from.)

Having been a bit of a misfit myself I know that it can be hard on kids.

But I don't want to squelch is creativity either.

I'm inclined to Swimpyize here and enjoy little Luigi. (Thanks, Swimpy!)

But I do see kids look at him like he's a bit.... off....?

I have a teenage nephew who was allowed uncontrolled "expression" and he is really a misfit. I love him and "get" him but not too many people do. I can see how that hinders him in some ways. Adolescence is painful enough.

I am ....

Mario.
The Professor.
Diesel 10.
Mommy.

(mostly - I get to be others to).

I'm a tree I can bend, msolga.

It's not really that I see it as misfit behavior; that's the impression I got from reading your post. The others covered the non-misfit options very well, so I left my post alone.
If you feel this is unacceptable behavior, then fine. If you don't, that's fine too. Mo's bound to go through things like this at his age. I've offered some pointers if you want to slow or stop it, and msolga and swimpy offered advice to the other side, to nurture his creativity and encourage his imagination. My hat is off to them.
Take your pick. There's really no right or wrong here; the choice is yours.

Good morning, Mario!

You certainly can bend, boomer, er Mario ...!

Can I be (... thinking, thinking ...) Gino? I'd like that!

I appreciate your input, arthur. I hope I didn't sound otherwise.

The truth is I don't know if it is "acceptable". To me, it is fine but other people look at me and, more importantly, Mo, as if we've gone over the edge.

I'm an adult now and I can live in any kind of bubble I can devise. Mo is just getting started in life. I want to make his passage easy.

I know that things that happen now can come back and bite you on the ass. I'm fine with who I am now but I know my younger years could have been less angsty if I had fit in a little better.

I would say, cross that bridge when you come to it. If he is acting inappropriately in a given situation, deal with it then. If he's just being a kid, let it slide.

Not at all.

hard to deal with some things, but this behaviour and reactions might bother you more than it does mo

You know, it doesn't seem to bother him one bit. In fact, he seems to enjoy that it draws people towards him to talk.

His "promiscuous" behavior has been a concern of mine so perhaps that is why I am so sensitive to it.

Hmmmm.....

some behaviours are certainly worth being concerned about, but general oddity could be theraputic or cathartic

Swimpy, as always, has nailed it.

One of the kids in sozlet's preschool wears his Superman costume, um, constantly. I just automatically think of him as a blur of red and blue, can't even say when it started (she's been with him for two years). This preschool is absolutely stellar at identifying issues and dealing with them, and while I don't know anything specific, the general attitude is that it's a total non-issue.

Don't worry about it.

I'd go to school as a succession of characters in elementary school, stayed in character all day. It was usually for some reason -- did a magic show/ science show and developed a gypsy character and then brought her back at random times, there was some reason I was a boy and he'd come back at random times, etc. It was treated by the school and classmates as a sign of creativity, I got a lot of positive feedback about it. And kids would ASK me to make "Rosa" (the gypsy) come to school the next day, etc.

Sounds weird as I write, but was taken in stride at the time.

Yeah, leave Luigi alone! He'll grow out of it soon enough. 5 years old is the peak of the costume years, fyi.

Boomer--

And just how do you plan to convince Mo that conventionality is a virtue?

You can be a meanie or an admiring audience--creative kids don't give you any other choices.

Mo wants to be a costumed hero. Life might be easier if he wanted to be a math whiz or a track star, but he's into heroism.

At least you get to play, too.

OK, here I go putting my foot in it again....but this time I can really speak from experience.

Sure it's cute when parents/adults see little kids dressed up like luigi or whatever.

This isn't about what the grownups think, it's about how the other kids preceive him.

I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but if he grew up where I did, he'd be getting called queer, retard, dork and plenty of other names, and this would be by kids HIS age....the older ones would be calling him much more colorful things.

Don't you remember how incredibly cruel kids are? God, I can remember everyone hating a kid because they wore funny shoes.

I can name many kids from my school days that never lived down some random act of wearing the wrong type of scarf or having a different lunch.

It's all very fine teaching your kid that he's special and do his own thing and all that....but when he's sitting alone at the lunch table, or maybe even worse, as the lunch table reserved specifically for the retards, queers and dorks, you're not gonna be there.

He's going to wish he never heard of darth vadar or luigi.

Now I'll leave.

I know I'll get blasted for not understanding individuality and spirit and all that other stuff, but dammit, I just really feel for what he's gonna go through.

If he earns the reputation of a dweb, maybe he'll get invited to a couple of birthday parties, but that's only because someones mom thinks he's so cute. The birthday boy/girl will be thinking the childs equivilant of "Jesus Christ, I've got to invite friggin Darth Vader? Great."

The time for someone to show their individuality is AFTER he's accepted by his PEERS. But the first thing that happens when the teachers not around is survival of the fittest....a bloody pecking order is established, and once that's cemented into place, you have to work with what you've got.

God bless mo, he's gonna need it.