This 'Star Wars' Halloween Costume Is Perfect

Time to move over, Bus Stop Dad. There's a new fabulously attired father in town, and he's going all out to make sure his daughter's Halloween costume is one that's, well, out of this world. This year, Tom Burns and his seven year old are dressing up as famed Star Wars duo Princess Leia and Han Solo, with a twist — his daughter is dressing up as Han Solo while Burns is going as Princess Leia.

As Burns writes for the Good Men Project, every year he lets his daughter pick out his Halloween costumes to go along with her own. This year, after watching the movie Star Wars for the first time, she immediately decided she wanted to dress up as Han Solo. It's a pretty in-demand costume (because he's awesome, duh), and it's one that's fairly simple to put together (there are plenty of tutorials online showing Star Wars fans how to make a Han Solo costume, including some pretty kick-ass versions for girls).

So Burns helped his daughter put together her stellar costume. But remember, when it comes to these two, Halloween is a team effort, and when his daughter turned to him and asked if he would be Princess Leia, he immediately agreed:

It would’ve been pretty hypocritical of me to say “Nope, a boy can’t be Princess Leia.” So, as quickly as I could, I said, “That would be FANTASTIC. I totally should be Leia.” And that’s exactly what I did. Because that’s what dads do.

And that is amazing. Because honestly? Who has time for gender norms? As Burns goes on to explain, "equality goes both ways," and while he wanted to teach his daughter that girls can be anything, he wanted to show that the opposite could be true as well.

The truth is that while it's becoming less unusual to see girls dressing up as male characters (which is awesome, I might add), there's still unfortunately a stigma attached to boys dressing up as female characters. Remember when a little boy dressed as Daphne from Scooby Doo back in 2010? Do you also remember how that one boy wearing an orange wig sparked a "national debate on gender identity [and] bullying?" The mother came under so much fire for "setting up her child for bullying" that the blog post she wrote in response has more than 47,000 comments on it. And yet, according to her, the only people who had problems with the costume were adults.

So kudos to parents like Burns for having the awareness to challenge that double standard. Also, even more kudos for his costume-making skills. He and his daughter turned out to be super adorable, of course.

Images: StarWars.com, Giphy