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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that my DS should be able to wear pink without being mistaken for a girl?

74 replies

Tigerinmysoup · 23/09/2011 16:07

My DS is 21 months. We went to a toddler group today and no less than two adults referred to him as being a girl. We've been going to this group for quite a while, so I'm a bit miffed anyway, but it's because he was wearing a pink t-shirt. It has happened before when he's worn it. Yes it's pink, but it has a great big green dinosaur on the front. He was also wearing tracksuit bottoms and boy-shoes.

I don't get it. He is fairly big for his age and although he has blonde curly hair, it's in a boy's style. No-one has ever said that they think he's a girl at any other time than when he's wearing pink. Over the summer he wore a pink tank-top and on several occasions strangers thought he was a girl. How many little girls wear pink tank-tops FFS?

Before anyone asks, no I am not particularly sensitive or bothered about strangers thinking that he's a girl. I just wonder why girls seem to have the monopoly on pink? AIBU to think that it's just another colour and that people are a bit thick if they assume pink=girl?

My DH takes great satisfaction in this as it proves his view that boys 'shouldn't wear pink'.

OP posts:

troisgarcons · 24/09/2011 11:35

Pink is the new black according to my teenaged boys!

TheControversialJessie · 24/09/2011 11:43

Sometimes passers-by assume my children are boys. Sometimes they assume they are girls.

However, it doesn't matter to me or them yet, because they're toddlers.

When they're older, it will be a different matter. For example, if they were twenty-year-olds on the pull in a nightclub, I imagine it would be very important to them that people could tell what sex they were!

Proudnscary · 24/09/2011 11:44

Why don't you get him a pink tee shirt with the words 'YES I'M WEARING PINK... WHAT U GONNA DO ABOUT IT MOTHERFUCKER?' emblazoned on it?

DoMeDon · 24/09/2011 11:44

YABU to assume people are a bit thick - nasty. Same goes back your way- are you a bot thick to not realise some people will see pink and think girl? iI's not about thick, it's not about much really. People make mistakes, have opinions different from yours, etc.

"We've been going to this group for quite a while, so I'm a bit miffed anyway, but it's because he was wearing a pink t-shirt" - you and your DC are not the centre of the universe. Doubt they even remember you - everyone is wrapped up in their own lives.

DD was called a boy in summer (wearing a flowery summer dress) - I replied saying 'yes, she blah blah', woman said 'Oh is it a girl, she looks like a boy doesn't she?' I thought that was quite rude. When she is in a navy t-shirt and jeans, I don't even give it a second thought.

ChippingIn · 24/09/2011 11:48

LOL - boy shoes, dinosaur , boy hairstyle, tracksuit bottoms , pink tank top .... and it's other people who are thick?

You have made many false assumptions - why are yours any less thick?

onagar · 24/09/2011 12:10

OP as others have pointed out. You used the word thick and then preceded to make just the same assumptions.

Also is being mistaken for a girl so bad?

TrillianAstra · 24/09/2011 12:31

At 21 months he looks like a small androgynous child, neither male nor female.

Our society uses pink as a label on small androgynous children to say "this one is female".

If you had a 21 month old girl who looked exactly the same and dressed her in a blue top people would assume she was male.

People have to make a guess, they can't call your child "it". So they use the best information they have available.

The question of whether it is right to have these gender-specific colour indicators is a good one, but in the society we live in people are going to assume a small child in pink is female.

What's so boyish about a dinosaur anyway?

FirstVix · 24/09/2011 12:54

At that age I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think many children become obviously boy/girl until after puberty really so we have to go on other cues.

I was a lot more miffed when I was about 12 and marched to my parent's table in a club for 'using the female toilets' . Now that can damage a girl's self-esteem!

MotherOfHobbit · 24/09/2011 14:45

I've had DS mistaken for a girl a few times but it doesn't bother me much.

What does annoy me is the people who get offended by children wearing the 'wrong' colour for their gender. DS had a pink cardigan when he was around eight months and I got a 'Do you want him to grow up queer' from someone

Iggi999 · 24/09/2011 14:57

My ds was referred to as a girl in the supermarket yesterday - he had on a blue coat with trucks, navy cords and black shoes. Sometimes people just guess wrong!
He also likes to wear pink - ime "boys" pink tops tend to be a different shade of pink, and if it's a polo shirt kind of thing doesn't look girly.

AfternoonDelight · 24/09/2011 15:22

i find it odd you complain about the colour stereotype yet mention there is a dinosaur which is a stereotypical boys character for a t shirt as an explanation of why they were wrong to guess he was a girl lol

babies and small kids look the same. the point of the pink=girls, blue=boys is to make it more clear.

BertieBotts · 24/09/2011 15:27

I saw that dinosaur top and almost bought it for DS.

TBH DS gets mistaken for a girl all the time even when he's wearing blue and green. I think some people just find it hard to tell. I just correct them in a cheerful tone which (hopefully) implies I'm not offended, and we get on with our days.

Although when a friend's DS was wearing pink the other day for some reason I kept saying "she" without thinking about it when referring to him. It was really embarrassing! I don't know whether it was the pink or what.

IsItMeOr · 24/09/2011 15:38

My DS is beautiful with blonde curls and a mum who is disinclined to dress him entirely in blue, black, brown, grey and beige. Therefore he has occasionally be referred to as a girl.

As he's only 2.6yo, I don't really care. My thoughts at the time were usually along the lines of, I guess it's time to get his hair cut if that bothers me.

YABU to call people thick.

ScarletLady01 · 24/09/2011 16:00

My DD is 9mo and gets mistaken for a boy all the time. But then I generally dress her in blue and boys clothes. I gave up finding decent trousers for her in the girl's dept as they all have glittery shit all over them...so she has boy's trousers normally.

She does have a bright pink buggy though.

I'm not a really girly girl so I guess I dress DD in the same way. It doesn't really bother me that much because as pps have said, it's hard to tell and most people just go on clothes.

Whatmeworry · 24/09/2011 17:29

If you dress your boy in pink you will get this sort of treatment until he is 6 ft and plays in the England scrum. It may BU but YABU to think won't happen, so your call on whether you prefer being right and cross or prefer an easier life.

quirrelquarrel · 24/09/2011 17:33

Sorry, but by your reasoning, why say "boy shoes" and that his hair is like a boy's then...it's the same thing!

Of course pink should be unisex and we shouldn't have to distinguish clothes with the word 'unisex' but people know pink as a girl's colour, it always has been, so that's the connection that springs to mind. It's not so surprising. People are creatures of habit, etc etc.

Iggi999 · 24/09/2011 18:18

It isn't the case that pink has always been a girls' colour, depends how far you go back and in which culture.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 24/09/2011 18:24

YABU. If you flout convention, even in a tiny way, then be prepared for people to make assumptions depending on what the norm is. That doesn't mean you shouldn't dress him in pink or that it's correct to assume pink is for girls, of course it isn't, but most people will associate it as such. Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised at the reactions.

Same as the poster on the other thread who gave her child an unusual name and is now pissed off that people expect her to explain it. Do it by all means but be prepared for what will inevitably happen.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 24/09/2011 18:27

Actually, I remember being in Tesco when DD was about 14 months old. She was wearing a denim pinafore dress with a long sleeved blue vest underneath and pink socks. Tesco worker made a comment on my little boy so I, thinking not much of it said, oh she's a girl. He went off on one, no it isn't, he's wearing blue, that's not a girl. Pink socks, says I. No, it's a boy says he. Next thing he calls another assistant over and asks is this baby a boy or a girl. He just wouldn't let it drop.

I was pretty pissed off to say the least :o

BikeRunSki · 25/09/2011 19:07

All this is nothing compared to DS's hospital discharge notes after he was born.

They had him down as a girl. A few days later we went to register him and announced "Traditional Boy's Name". The registrar looked at her notes from the hospital and said "oh unusual name for a girl" . We said no, he's a boy (she believed us, we didn't have to take his nappy off). It the took me months to change his hospital records. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets called for a smear test when he is 18!

Bigglewinkle · 25/09/2011 23:16

I'm with FirstVix on this. No big deal at that age but worse when you're older. I was refused entry to a ladies toilet when I was 11 and travelling unaccompanied on BA flight, which stopped at somewhere like Abu Dhabi (can't remember exactly where). The toliet attendant wouldn't believe I was a girl (presumably because I wore jeans and had a bobbed hairstyle), so I had to cross my legs until we got back on the plane...

lazylula · 25/09/2011 23:37

Ds1 has beautiful curly hair and at 2, while wearing 'boy' clothes he was referred to as a girl alot. One mum at a tots group told her son off for hitting ds, saying 'You do not hit little girls', I didn't correct her incase she then told the dc it was ok as he was a boy

chipmonkey · 26/09/2011 00:20

Let him run around naked. Then there will be no doubt.

MarinaIvy · 26/09/2011 14:11

Tiger I applaud you for your non-gender-bigotry dress sense! (not so much the grammar - it's "fewer" in this instance). I've been trying to raise my wee one without wardrobe limitations. Sometimes people will mistake wee one's gender, sometimes not (increasingly not, now that the face is really shaping up), but my main thing is to be pointedly laid back if it's the wrong guess. Sometimes they'll even correct themselves, then see how not-bothered I am. I hope that leaves them learning a little.

What I got (from your post) as the real annoyance is that even people who already knew your son mistook him for a girl. It's bad enough if a total stranger were so blinkered, but when somebody sees pink and the stereotyping overrides their sense of "don't I know that child to be a boy?..." Yeah, that's a bit much.

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