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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be ? that a teacher told my dd (6yrs) to wear cycling shorts under her summer dress if she was going to be doing cartwheels?

400 replies

mulranno · 09/05/2013 17:07

?

OP posts:
MorphandChas · 09/05/2013 20:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Theas18 · 09/05/2013 20:02

I think it's time to adopt a summer uniform of shorts. Dd2 and several mates, wore boys Bermuda shorts in year 6. Smart enough and perfectly comfy and appropriate. Interestingly no one above year 5 wore dresses really (though 6yrs before whn the eldest was there, all the year 6gurks did!). The school did make the odd "girls shouldn't wear shorts ,only boys" noises but it came to nothing.

Or a skort? We have a lovely gym skort for secondary my neice in Spain has a skort as summer uniform (all be it bottle green!). Mind you she also has culottes for the winter (she's just 13) - puts paid to all that rolling up and general skirt related teenage shenanigans too.

Maybe do away with summer dresses (I loved them as a parent,so easy care). Ever seen a front row of nursery /reception kids in assembly sitting cross legged in dresses? All knickers on display!

LouiseSmith · 09/05/2013 20:06

I would rather have DD wear shorts under a dress. Children get up to all sorts and there not as conscious as we would be. I would worry who was watching if it was me

olgaga · 09/05/2013 20:06

No it wasn't bitchy. It was in response to the inappropriate comparison between what's appropriate for school wear and what's appropriate for swimming or gym.

If you follow that analogy, you would have to say it should be fine for children to go to school in swimsuits and leotards.

Appropriate dress means appropriate for the circumstances.

Even 6 year olds are entitled to their dignity, whether the OP or other parents think that's important or not.

I think the teacher was quite right in giving guidance to the DD when she clearly wasn't getting it at home.

ravenAK · 09/05/2013 20:10

It seems quite sensible to me. Shorts, or substantial old fashioned pants.

Dd1 has the world's tiniest bum (sadly, not an inherited trait) & pants do tend to gape somewhat. She does have some nice snug ones, but is the sort of child who would prefer not to be laughed at for showing her knickers anyway, so she chooses to wear cotton cycling shorts if she's wearing a summer frock.

She asked me to buy them for her - her best mate wears leggings, & we compromised on the shorts as I thought leggings would be too hot.

Dd2 could not give a monkey's. If people want to admire her pants, she thinks this is hilarious. So I just check she wears reasonably sturdy ones!

I must admit I've never thought much about it beyond ensuring that they're wearing something they are comfortable in & which covers the essentials...

squoosh · 09/05/2013 20:14

'I think the teacher was quite right in giving guidance to the DD when she clearly wasn't getting it at home'

Why don't you try and get a few more digs in about the OP's parenting. Oh please do, it's clearly your special talent.

toffeelolly · 09/05/2013 20:27

Wearing short's under dress's , whatever next.

WorraLiberty · 09/05/2013 20:47

Where is the OP anyway?

She started 2 threads about this and then didn't return?

HintofBream · 09/05/2013 20:53

Yes, teach 6 year olds modesty. Make them wear shorts. Hair is attractive to men, so make the kids cover that up too. While we are at it let's make it Burkas all round. That will sort the army of paedos out.

intheshed · 09/05/2013 20:57

This thread reminds me of the bloody awful massive navy blue knickers my mum used to make us wear under skirts and dresses at all times. Wearing two pairs of knickers on a stifling hot day is just not good for the nether regions!

LemonsLimes · 09/05/2013 20:58

But it isn't part of our culture to cover our hair, as it is to cover our pants.

intheshed · 09/05/2013 21:10

I don't think it is part of our culture to cover your pants when you are six.

Would you wear cycling shorts on a hot day?!

HintofBream · 09/05/2013 21:13

But, Lemon, t with this extra pants edict, we are teaching girls that they carry the responsibility for arousing men's lust, which is very much a part, and an undesirable part, of other cultures. Better surely to concentrate on educating the boys.

Blu · 09/05/2013 21:22

Most of the girls in DS's primary wore cotton cropped trousers in summer. The benefits of no uniform.

If a child WANTS to wear shorts under a dress, or her parents feel it best, then fin, but I think an adult drawing attention to it is a strong implication that it is WRONG if your pants are seen during cartwheels, and i think that is an outrageous message to give to a child,

DS has never bothered about girls knickers and I never heard any boy at his primary commenting or laughing.

But then most of the girls wore shorts in summer and jeans in winter. Just like the boys.

LemonsLimes · 09/05/2013 21:27

I wouldn't inflict me in cycling shorts on people on any day, not with my huge butt!

But it is part of our culture to cover our pants when we are six. We don't dress our sons and daughters in just underpants and a t shirt to go out. Obviously they wear as little as they want in our homes and friends' homes, but no one dresses their kids in just pants and t shirt to go to the supermarket do they? I don't see kids just in pants in the supermarket.

LaurieFairyCake · 09/05/2013 21:28

No, if a child wore non-sexy pants which actually covered their vulvas and bum and wasn't see through then boys would have nothing to look at.

But they don't and of course everyone comments on the pretty pink ribbons, slogans, Hello Kitty underwear because they are different

Boys pants cover everything and are mostly dull and uninteresting to look at. Added to which when they do handstands they're wearing shorts so you don't see their underwear.

What's all this about double pants Confused

That's exactly what boys are wearing when they wear pants and shorts.

The only extra for girls is a skirt which is completely A line and not touching their body as they stick out from the waist. And when they're hand standing they're just in their pants.

Boys are never in only their pants.

LemonsLimes · 09/05/2013 21:34

Of course these girls' school shorts would be another alternative.

www.next.co.uk/girls/schoolwear/school-uniform/5

thebody · 09/05/2013 21:35

I have never ever heard or seen any little girl with cycling shorts under a dress.

I am late 40s with 4 kids so seen decades of little girls doing handstands.

Wierd.

frogwatcher42 · 09/05/2013 21:42

'But it isn't part of our culture to cover our hair, as it is to cover our pants.'

I don't think it is our culture to cover young childrens' pants necessarily. Even my mother who is in her 60s seemed to run around with very little on as a child as I have seen photos of her in her knickers and no top on, on the beach in public.

Even worse there are photos of me in a park stark naked in the 70s, in a public paddling pool. I must have been at least 7. There is a particularly tasteful one of my sister bending over and me doing a handstand with nothing on!

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 09/05/2013 21:43

Its such a non issue.

My DD is 6 and has developed the lovely habit of taking her nappy or pants off in house and was trying to stand at window.

I just laughed and ushered her away.Am I too laid back?

frogwatcher42 · 09/05/2013 21:53

I dont think you are too laid back fanjo. It is each parents choice.

My dc play in the front yard in very little, and sometimes nothing on, running around under garden hoses. The eldest is over 10 (she doesnt strip off completely but will be in bra and knickers).

They are just children after all. They will get a sense of modesty when the time is right imo - probably as puberty hits. I see it in my eldest now where only a year ago she would go naked.

PoppyField · 09/05/2013 22:02

YANBU. The fact that this discussion even needs to be had makes me angry. How come we northern European liberals advocating shorts under skirts on top of pants, are agreeing with the Taliban on the subject and mechanism of female 'modesty'. Modesty is the aim here is it? Or just that it is the responsibility of every girl/woman to protect the wider world from thinking unclean sexual thoughts about her.

Like a previous poster says, what happens when the shorts are not enough to extinguish every possible dirty thought from any possible onlooker? Why not a second pair just to make sure? No, to really be sure we could just make sure they don't go outside at all. That would sort it. Lock up your daughters. No nasty thoughts now. Thank God we have cleansed our whole community with such an easily implemented and practical idea.

Yup, as always, we'll blame the girls. And the solution is to make the girls 'modest'. It's their 'modesty' we are protecting - not harming them at all - that's what we're doing, not making them ashamed, or making them responsible for being abused or responsible for the potential filthy thoughts of men over which they have absolutely no control.

Good grief. It is nothing and everything you ever wanted to know about the culture we live in. A misogynistic one.

shallweshop · 09/05/2013 22:03

Fucking ridiculous for a teacher to suggest this! My DD did start to keep her PE shorts on under her summer dress when she was in the infants as it seemed to be a bit of a trend amongst her peers. I told her not to as she was getting too hot but when I realised it was an issue I started buying her shorts style undies as a compromise.

Lovecat · 09/05/2013 22:10

Where is the OP?

And what Poppyfield said. Boils my piss, this talk of 'modesty' for children .

As a matter of interest, DD goes to a school where the uniform for girls and boys is strictly separate (used to be a girls-only school so the boys are a recent addition). Girls wear summer dresses.

A letter was sent home at Easter (when Summer uniform comes in) asking parents NOT to put leggings or shorts under their daughter's summer dresses, as it was inappropriate to cover children up in the hot weather. Thank God for commonsense.

LemonsLimes · 09/05/2013 22:10

But everyone has used examples of kids playing in pants in paddling pools, or on the beach or under the garden hose pipe. The OP is talking about the school playground. People don't send their 6 year olds to school in just pants do they?

It would be misogynistic if men and boys were seen on the playground in just their pants and only women and girls couldn't wear them, but that isn't the case. It's the same for everyone