Teacher asked who chose the pink bottle....

Gender conditioning can be intense. One of my sons was teased in P1 for having a Frozen lunchbag. 'That's a girls' film.' It just had Olaf on it, for pity's sake!

A friend of another son came into the kitchen from the garden one day and asked for a glass of water. I gave him a pink beaker without thinking anything of it, and he refused to touch it...

That's what worries me, really. You just wouldn't get that recoil, that reaction, from a girl. It's the notion which is somehow inculcated into boys that the 'feminine' is lesser/risible/pitiful, and must be rejected and repudiated.

But why would you deny them a choice over something as utterly harmless as a fancy dress costume or a hair bobble?! Nobody’s saying kids should have a choice over what time they go to bed or how many sweets they can eat or whether they put a seat belt on. I’m sure the OP tells her kids ‘no’ over the shit that actually matters, but the colour of a fucking hair band does not fall into that category because it’s inconsequential fluff.

When I was a little kid we had child size mugs with different animals on them and whenever my mum made me a cup of tea (another thing that makes Mumsnet collectively clutch its pearls, but nobody gave a toss about giving kids caffeine in 1980) she used to say ‘Fox cup or badger cup?’ Letting a kid choose their own hair bobble isn’t any more undisciplined than that. Jeez.

Surely OPs approach is best when it comes to not wanting to ‘intentionally trans children’, isn’t saying certain things are ‘only for boys’ or ‘only for girls’ part of that kind of ideology?

This transphobic site probably isn’t the best place to ask such a genuine and nice question, as I can see from some of the replies you’ve already got.

If you don’t like the comment talk to the the person who made it.
don’t just refer to as as jokey comment

To that extent all parents have an agenda—don’t they? Christian parents who raise their children to be Christian. Sporty parents who insist their children are sporty? Parents who went to Eton who insist on that for their sons? Why so implicitly censorious of a presumed “agenda” that lets the children choose their own interests regardless of the po faced mumsnet crowd?

I have twin niece and nephew—they started out as identical twin girls but one chose ftm transition in their late teens and could not be happier now 8 years later. Same parents. Same school. Same friends. Same sports. Each chose what they liked and how to live it. I approve this agenda.

Under what circumstances do they dress like that, is it a special 'dressing up' day for something? Other than that I'd have thought they'd wear uniform.

As an ex teacher it probably wouldn't cross my mind yo question it but then everyday I saw young lads, who would never have been allowed to at home, dressing up in everything sparkly in our dressing up area.
A local school has twin boys, couple if yrs older than yours, at the xmas party one came in camouflage top and cargo trousers and the otger a sparkly dress.he has worn stuff like this for a while, not always, and as far as I'm aware the kids are OK with it and nothing is said.. He loved asking staff if they liked how sparkly his dress was, he was do proud of it!
There will be questions but as long as they know they can but font have to. I see no issue personally.

My son’s primary school has 5 boys with long hair. It’s only a small school so most classes have one boy with long hair. I think increasingly it’s not such a big deal. Hair length and colour of a water bottle really have nothing to do with your sex.

I’m definitely in favour of children dressing in whatever dressing up clothes they want, long hair isn’t just for girls etc. it’s a form of self expression and it’s all healthy. But the 3 bears are definitely not side characters in Goldilocks and the three bears. They’re in the title.

All that aside, your twins are 5 now but as they grow up they’ll be more influenced by what other kids choose to do. As long as no one is pushing them either way and they’re happy and content that’s what matters. They well go different directions to each other which is also perfectly healthy and normal.

You’re missing the point of gender critical. It means the opposite entirely - that wearing pink or blue, for example, does not determine your sex.

My youngest does this at the moment. He has been insistent on having pink trainers which i vetoed but I do let him dress as a princess and pretend at home when he wants to 😅 His justification was princess dresses are just so beautiful but kings and princes aren’t. I don’t think to much about it.

I think it's fine to let the kids choose but considering the overwhelming gender bias in favour of male main characters in children's books, it does seem like a pretty big coincidence that they both wanted to be female characters. So I'd definitely be wondering if that choice had a stear from a parent with an agenda.

Caszkey, my dd at 5 loved to dress up as spiderman and the Hulk . Her favourite colour was green . She's 7 now and favourite colour is purple and wants to dress as hermione granger now . They're kids and change their favourite things all the time . My older Ds 17 has long hair , wears baggy jeans , converse and slipknot tshirts. Long hair isn't just for girls

OP you haven't done anything wrong, I think it's much healthier to let children follow their own interests instead of forcing them into meaningless gender stereotypes, there will be plenty of other people trying to do that as you can see from a few of the posts on here.

What a ridiculous post. what exactly is wrong with boys liking pink or fairy tale characters?

Women and girls went through years of abuse to be able to wear trousers (and even now that's not a universal right - some school still make girls wear skirts).

It wasn't them wearing the trousers that was wrong, it was the abuse. And I am grateful to them for enduring it so I can spend my life in jeans.

It seems to me that if there are boys and men willing to push the bar for the male half of society in the same way those brave women did, we should support that, and not be such cowards about it.

Answer the question honestly. If you feel the need to ask if it's a problem...?

If it's the boys' choice to have long hair and pink then so what. That's said, there's no point in being disgenuous, it's going to be a problem for some people which is a shame, and the boys may need to be made aware of this at some point.

Just thinking that no-one would make the slightest fuss if these were girls choosing to wear male superhero costumes etc. They'd likely just be described as 'tomboyish' and there might be a little teasing, but nothing major.

As long as you make it v clear that your boys are boys and that this is just part of growing up. May be a phase or an indicator of future sexuality, who knows. But tbh, I would be worried about them being taunted, but that's the double standard, isn't it?

When my youngest boy cried for a doll in a shop 20 odd yrs ago, we bought him it. Oh the looks we got. The horror on people's faces when he dropped it from pushchair(oh your wee girl dropped her doll) was hilarious when they looked at the wee bruiser in buggy.
Ps
He's now a great hulking hetro man

My kids of both sexes liked / like :
Rugby / cricket / cooking / painting their toenails / Physics / gaming /Art / glitter paint / sailing / flowers / fighting with swords / dolls / playing with cars / go karting / climbing trees / wearing trousers / wearing dresses /ballet & tap dancing etc / perfume … Why on Earth wouldn’t men and women enjoy the ruddy things they find enjoyable things without being judged for doing so ?

Some of the posters on this thread are making me feel like I’ve wandered back into Edwardian times