To think that my son wearing girls clothes is normal childs play he's 6

[ghostspirit]

my son wears my daughters clothes a lot. i think its normal childs play and that he will grow out of it at some point.

my friend thinks i should stop him from doing it and tell him its not normal. and thinks he will grow up as a cross dresser maybe even want a sex change. i said if that's what he chooses to do then that's his choice. i think she is over thinking over a 6 year old dressing up.

but he will learn that as he gets older. i feel he has the right to explore the world his way. its just dress up just play. should he not play with dolls? should a girl not play with a train set.

Do you know who does need educating? The knob ends who think a bit of fabric worn a slightly different way is all that important.

i dont think there is anything wrong with it. its just exploring

Goodness me!

I am actually surprised at the narrow minded views some people have.

What men and women choose to wear to identify their gender is purely a socially constructed concept, and culture is ever changing, learn to move with the times. It is so backwards and weak minded to care so much about something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I wonder if the people saying boys shouldn't wear girls clothes would also argue that women in oppressive patriarchal cultures should cover themselves from head to toe? Because saying little boys should not wear girls clothes is the same thing. It is the use of predetermined cultural norms to oppress someone else's freedom to express themselves.

Well that is my opinion anyway.

Your friend is being a prat. Childhood would be a better place if we framed our thinking in terms of 'normal' and 'not normal' - it's all play! Tell your friend: who wants to be normal? How boring is that? Enjoy your son!

(My son is doing this too and there are some difficult things about it. He is a boy-girl twin and ASD and I feel some of it comes over as trying to "steal" his sister's identity so I draw the line at him wearing her knickers and the dresses are dressing up clothes but he's allowed her old nighties. Has anyone actually gone out and bought girls clothes for their boy at his request?)

Fuck me how tragic that some poster would feel 'sick' if they saw a boy dressed up in 'girls' clothes :(

And as for clothes always being gendered, they haven't. Its simply something that has evolved and changed through the years. Historically men more more fancy dresses and robes, in more recent history pink was for boys and blue for girls and all babies wore dresses it wasn't until they were older that boys were put in different clothes to girls and then it was only shorts.

It's not about using our children to crusade fro change, its about letting them play and be who they want to be, hence why yes my eight year old likes pink and purple and fairies. He also likes Lego and cars and moshi monsters. Its not a big deal.

I think giving our children the message that they should change to 'fit in' and to avoid bring bullied is a problem tho. Its victim blaming and not all children can change, those that have ginger hair or wear glasses etc. We need tackle the bullies not make our children 'conform'.

Oh OP what a horrible thing for a "friend" to say about your child
Wearing girly clothing won't turn your son into anything.

An alarming amount of people are scared that if they don't stick to what they consider the true gender norms, their children will catch the dreaded gay, or want to have a sex change as a result Shows a disheartening lack of understanding of both homosexuality and trans* people, tbh.

doesnt she worry that little girls in jeans will turn into diesel dykes and be demanding a 'Strapodicktomy'?
or is it just boys that are not allowed to 'cross dress'?

Allforone, I think that maybe you should stop posting here, as computers, phones and tablets are all a but too technical for a woman to use. And I'd feel a little bit queasy if I saw any of the adult women I know flaunting their literacy in front if everyone like that. You'll be suggesting that women should be able to own property next, or keep custody of their children if their husbands leave them, or they flee domestic violence! What odd ideas some women get in their funny minds!

Girls clothes for girls and boys clothes for boys - it's worked since clothing began

Nope! Or at least, the definition of what is boy's clothes and what is girls clothes varies massively as you move through time, as does the degree of formal differentiation between the sexes. The history of fashion is actually quite interesting and changes massively - women wearing trousers was scandalous 100 years ago - they were men's clothes, and a woman wearing them was unnatural and wicked, and probably some sort of radical suffragette bent on destroying the social order. My gran remembers being sworn at in the street for wearing trousers - no decent, modest woman would ever do such a depraved thing as wear men's clothes, and 13 women were whipped in Sudan in 2009 for wearing trousers - trousers are men's clothes, always have been, and indecent for a woman to wear. How dare they think of subverting social norms, and wear what they felt like! Know your place!

High heels were a men's shoe in the ~1650's - particularly with a daring red heel - very Louboutin. Pink was a boy's colour before WWI, and boys were kept in dresses until they were 6-8 until the end of the Victorian period (if you look at children's portraiture in this period, you can see artists use 'masculine' props - swords, daggers, hats - to identify a child as male, because otherwise it's a sea of lace and ringlets). Three or four of the children in this portrait are male.

And then we've got kilts and sarongs and all the rest of it. At the end of the day, it's just some bloody fabric. It won't subvert the natural order if guys can have a breeze around their bits.

haha my friend rang me this morning and said hows Caroline meaning my son :P and asked but does he do it every day. i said it depends on his mood and if he can find something to wear hahaha

God, she has a real issue with it, ghost! I would love to know why she finds it so threatening.

i dont know what she finds threatening i think its funny though i just thought maybe gay is catching. my brother used to skip round the room and put head scarfs on and on occasions would put on womans clothes. as a young adult... and he is gay maybe he caught it from wearing womans clothes. i might ask him later.

wish i could put a pic up of my son its quite funny

"Maybe - I've honestly never seen it in "real life" though, and I would be disappointed if I had a son who wanted to run around in a dress."

I'll be disappointed if my daughter wants to run around in a dress - but only because some parents of boys think dressing like a girl is beneath them...coz you know boys are superior....or NOT.

We really have the thing backwards at the moment....men were better off in skirts and dresses due to the trousers / bits interference problem. I think it makes less difference to women tbh.

The whole trousers for 'real men' thing was about aspiring to be classy enough to ride a horse wasn't it?

Not sure that trousers are an advantage when driving a car....

wow better warn my partner that he might get bullied for his decision to wear a skirt (long leather kilt) when we get married... he doesn't care what anyone else thinks and neither should your children.

I love a man in a kilt! And I love Eddie Izzard too :)

When my son was 3, nursery had a fairy tale party and my son decided he wanted to wear his pink fairy dress (which he asked for and I bought him without a second thought). He wore it all the way to nursery and all through the party and only one person batted an eyelid. One of the other mothers dared to comment in front of everyone,"I'd be careful what you let him do because it looks like he's turning out to be gay" or some such guff. I was so angry. He was 3 years old.

Apologies if anyone has already linked to this - Eddie Izzard on The Project:

Ghost, your son sounds ace and I hope he can hold onto his individuality as he grows up.

Your friend is a tit, my nephew is 4 and plays with his little sisters toys, worn his sisters clothes, hes even seen his dad and 14 year old brother wearing his mums clothes.

Its just silly fun, nothing wrong with it, i would care less if i had a sons that wear their sisters clothes.

I was in my sons year one class this morning, they have a play area bit with dress up stuff including dresses and tunics etc, plenty of boys were trying them on, not an issue at all.

I can only think some people have lived a very sheltered life if they haven't seen a little boy playing dress up, it's perfectly normal in every pre school and reception class I have been in, my eldest son is 14 and lots of his little friends dressed up in fairy outfits etc when little. My eldest son may not dress up anymore but he does have a pink top and he has long hair, properly long and it's a non issue.

I don't know why i'm getting a backlashing, i said i think it's fine and is just kids dressing up and fun, I just pointed out that I think it's his right to be eductaded that fairy dresses etc are customary for girls - Why is it wrong for him to know that!

he probably all ready knows. probably why he hides down next to the sofa for a few mins before he lets anyone see