AIBU to question a pool asking my four-year-old daughter to cover up?

I do not know what you mean - but I certainly couldn’t tell accurately gender between a long haired boy and long haired girl and a short haired girl and a short haired boy all dressed the same at aged 4.

I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen a 4 year old before…

Nothing to do with sexualising your child, it is just the usual dress code for a swimming pool in a leisure centre.

A swimsuit is what most girls would wear.

It is a pool, not the beach.

Why do you feel your 4yo needs to cover up?

You are confusing with that movie, what is it called "Children of the Damned" or something?

Sex discrimination is covered by law though. There’s a reason why developed breasts should be covered, there’s no reason why male nipples can be exposed and identical female nipples can’t (because in pre pubescent children they are identical).

But I wasn’t saying the club can’t enforce it, I was saying it’s wrong and illogical that they do and wondering why anyone thought it would be a reasonable policy.

I find it very hard to believe that this actually happened.

my view is that at 4 my dds would have noticed that they were the only girls in the pool without their tops covered, and would have been bothered by it.

Its ridiculous though, if OP put her child in trunks and said she was as boy, suddenly there's no problem, which is why using adults in your examples doesn't work the same way.

YANBU I think you should challenge the club policy at head office level.

In Germany this is also the case for adults now.

I don’t agree

and I speak as someone who my mum tried to bring me up to do what I wanted to do and ignore social expectations.

it gets you precisely fucking nowhere in life. Sure, we can all agree that it’s not fair that social expectations different by sex. But genuinely, being taught what they are and how to get around them is a damm sight more useful than pretending they don’t exist within your little bubble of a family and then running into them full tilt in the outside world.

i wanted to play football asa kid and I did so until the leagues had to be split because there was just too much physical difference between the (by then teens) girls and boys. I climbed trees and fell out of them on a regular basis.

but encouraging your female child to go topless on the basis that girls and boys should be the same is just asking to get them into a shit heap of trouble because

girls and boys are not the same
girls and boys are not expected to act the same and society generally deals out punishments one way or another to people who break the social rules.

i don’t blame my mum, she was genuinely trying to bring me up without the restrictions she felt she had, but it really did not do me any favours.

Then why not a 4-year-old boy?

Unless covered by law companies running facilities used by the public can enforce dress codes, clubs etc do it all the time?

You must be joking.

Why would they be joking?

What's different about a male and females top half at 4 years old?

I doubt anybody would find it offensive, they would find it hard not to pay attention to as it’s unconventional. And the pool reserves the right to say they don’t want to deal with that, just as much as a shop will put a notice up saying they don’t want sweaty ass men coming in without a top on in 35 degree heat. Nobody is sexualising them.

Yes, but isn't it better to just set some age (eight? seven? or even six) than police 4 yo in this case and something like18 month old in one recent thread?

Sorry how do you tell young girls and boys apart? Other than by their name or asking them? They do not look inherently different at all.

Or get an ECG for any operation

With improved nutrition girls are now starting puberty and periods etc at a younger and younger age. There’s regular threads on Mumsnet of various mums whose child is starting puberty in year 3/4.

the “problem” with setting an age is that it’s not actually an age thing. It’s a “at the point you develop breasts you should be covering them in public”

Unfortunately they do make them. Creepy.

Modesty can involve gaze, speech, behavior, sexual boundaries, and an inward sense of dignity and restraint.

A discrimination case? Are you saying the 4 year old has decided she is non-gender and told her mother to tell people that?

We do swim lessons at Nuffield and I’ve never seen a little girl with no top on. You can argue as to why it’s not the norm- but it 100% isn’t. In the same way you could say “why can’t adult females only wear shorts/ why isn’t that the norm? Regardless of physiology/ Why does it matter? Logically it doesn’t/ however it does

It’s absolutely not the same. I’m an adult and the most off putting part of going swimming is wrestling myself out of a clingy wet tight swimming costume (and putting it on, but it’s definitely worse when wet). I’d swim topless and in baggy swim shorts if it was in anyway socially acceptable.

Do you think 4 year old boys should cover their nipples too? And if not, what’s the difference? I’d have been inclined to say my daughter was a boy.

Why does a 4 yr old need a top for swimming girl or boy is irrelevant.
Doubt they even make bikinis for kids (at least I’d hope not) as that really is fucking weird! Should have told her to mind her business there’s no way that’s written in a pools/health centres policies.

At four, I don't see any more issue with a little girl being topless than a little boy.

No biggie in most of Europe.