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No...no. Not any of my kids. Bu 5 they had strong preferences, all of them. Its normal for them to...to me its a little odd if they don't. My only daughter had strong preferences by 5. My son had sensory preferences by 5 (not style but comfort). So did my step kids and foster kids.
Lol.. my kids also have their preferences (7 and under) however, I buy the clothes and to be honest, my budget, my thoughts on what they should be wearing and practicality for occasion like school accounts for 90-95% of my purchase decision making and perhaps 5-10% is given to their preferences. My girly daughter was Frozen crazy over the last few years. Yes I bought A LOT of frozen clothes but still in the style I thought appropriate within my budget. My son has been paw patrol crazy so the same. My kids get to choose what to wear within the wardrobe that I have provided. I'm also not one of those that don't care what the child wears to leave the house. So if my child is wearing mismatched crazy clothes at home, no biggie... We do that a lot at home for fun.
Going out, you change to something of your choice that looks okay. This is how I was brought up. My mother stressed that rightly or wrongly you are judged by how unkept you or your children look and as a black family, the stereotypes unfortunate as they are, are things you should be aware of as these judgement can sometimes be manifested by how you are perceived and treated. The clothes don't have to be expensive or anything but they have to be clean and somewhat put together.
Yes, in a few years, there will have more of say on what clothes we buy perhaps 50% but I still get to weigh in and then when they are teenagers perhaps they get 75%.
Like this morning for church, one of my girls wore a pinafore dress with pink ling sleeve top inside and a rainbow tights and black Mary Jane flat shoes. Other one wore green jeans and a Manchester united football club long sleeve top and red sneakers. Both of them chose these attires from their wardrobes.
On that topic, how come when a 5 year old boy is caught twirling around in a slip he found in the laundry basket he gets yelled at? Caught twice he's threatened with military school? But in the same day (60 years ago) little girls running around with gun & holster was like, "sooo cute."
If a child doesn't want to be a girlie girl or a manly boy, you can't change them. That's their make up.
You might get a Tom-boy to wear dresses now and then, or get a boy to go hunting/fishing or out working in the garage with dad, but I think it's best to just let them be who they are and who they are comfortable as.
Both of my children choose what clothes they were going to wear each day, well before the age of five. If there were things in the drawers or closet that they did not like they were never worn.
Luckily, they were pretty easy going about what they wore but they definitely had strong ideas about what they liked even at age 3 and 4.
One problem with parents insisting that young girls wear dresses or fancy clothes or fancy shoes to school is that it can make it difficult to really "be a kid". I still remember how annoyed the 4K and 5K teachers would be when the mom would send a note with their child "Please do not allow Jenny to do any art projects today or to go outside for recess because I do not want her to get her new dress dirty." If you want your child to do kindergarten activities send them in kindergarten appropriate clothes.
BTW, my daughter often wore dresses to 4K and 5K (her choice) but I certainly did not mind if they got dirty. They is why we had a washing machine.
I have two daughters and both are VERY girlie; however, if one of them was more tomboy'ish it wouldn't bovver me at all. I would let them express themselves however they wish!
Did your cousin marry-down? His wife sounds like she's from a social class beneath yours. The lower one goes on the Social Totem Pole, the more exaggerated gender issues become, and the more importance is attached to them. Same with IQ: dumb people obsess over "manhood" and "femininity", while people at the top are more androgynous.
But why is everybody beating around the bush, here? I think it's always been assumed, in less-than-ascendant social strata, that being a tomboy will lead to lesbianism. The same people who obsess over gender-specific behavior, tend to obsess over sexual preference. In your cousin-in-law's tiny brain, "encouraging" her daughter to be a "girly-girl" will prevent her growing into a - well - a - um... you know...
In reality, it seems that making children uncomfortable with their gender expression (or lack of it), tends to push them off the Bisexual Spectrum (where most people remain), and into full-blown same-gender preference. Calling a little boy "sissy" is the best way to be SURE he won't want girls, when he gets older. Making a boy hate his own "femininity" seems to make "feminine" qualities repulsive to him, while making "masculine" qualities, in others, attractive to him. Making a girl hate her own "masculine" traits, may cause her to be repulsed by "masculinity" in men, and attracted to the "femininity" of women. That's how self-hate seems to work.
And while it's far harder to push a girl off the Bisexual Spectrum, FORCING her to priss around in bows and dresses, when all she wants is to play on the beach, might just do the trick. She may come to detest femininity, and the 'female role'.
This must be a very American sentiment. I didn't grow up on the US and being tomboyish wasn't seen a precursor to lesbianism. My mum was so tomboyish that she apparently only played wth boys as a little girl and could out climb, out run and was allegedly stronger than a lot of them😁 she was born in the mid 40s. She went on to marry her high school sweetheart, my dad and has children. As an adult, she's as ladylike as could be. I have a really large extended family with over 70 1st cousins from both sides. Growing up there were more than a good sample size for tomboyish, middle of the road as well as girly girls and none was seen as anything but just us being little girls. In fact , being a tomboy was almost a source of pride that you could compete with the boys and sometimes come out on top
On that topic, how come when a 5 year old boy is caught twirling around in a slip he found in the laundry basket he gets yelled at? Caught twice he's threatened with military school? But in the same day (60 years ago) little girls running around with gun & holster was like, "sooo cute."
That depends on where you are. Boys in the daycares I worked at were allowed to play with any girls clothing, but by 5, most were peer-pressured into not dressing up in girly clothing. Between 18 months and 3 many little boys liked to play dress up in princess things and many of the parents were fine with that. Some dads, however, were not. And many of the boys would tend to shun the unusual preferences.
Yep, my son did play makeup and sparkly dress up for quite a while (and his slightly older sister and her friends greatly encouraged it) It scared the devil out of my hub, he was convinced it would turn the boy gay. Of course he was, and still is, upset that my daughter is not a girly girl. He worried about it a lot.
Me, I didn't much care. Even if they both had turned out to be not hetero I still wouldn't have cared, but fortunately for their dad both of them turned out to grow up straight, haha.
I don't label it "tomboy," for one. I simply call it "doing their own thing," and I'm perfectly fine with that.
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If you want your child to do kindergarten activities send them in kindergarten appropriate clothes. 
