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.

all fairy outfits aren't 'customary' for girls...nothing that has been around for less than 30 years can count as customary.

fashionable maybe...but not customary.

Why would anyone want to educate kids about gender stereotyping? Except to say ignore it as much as possible and be yourself?

I mean how would the conversation go?

Society has preconceived ideas about what boys should wear and be interested in. This doesn't involve considering individuals personal tastes or interests but involves treating everyone as if they are average. Clearly it is ridiculous to suppress your genuine tastes and interests in order to conform...so I am telling you that you aren't conforming because....erm...why am I telling you this?

Ridiculous. My son is almost 9 and when his younger sisters friend comes to stay, they all play dolls, and will also happily spend the evening watching Barbie fashion princess or my little pony with them. I have no idea at the moment if he will grow up to be gay, a cross dresser or have a sex change, but if he does happen to grow up as any of the above three, I'm quite sure no amount of playing with guns, wearing dark coloured clothes with tractors on, or dinosaurs would have changed him in the slightest.

My DS has 4 DSs and is growing up in a house full of pink, sparkles, glitter etc, but he has never shown any interest in the girls dressing up clothes or dolls etc despite having free reign over anything in the playroom. DD2 on the other hand, never dresses up in princess /fairy clothes and would much rather be a pirate or something similar. I don't know why, but it seems 'acceptable' for a girl to dress in anything but not a boy? I probably would feel uncomfortable if DS dressed like a girl but again, can't really explain why

Crikey, I have hairy legs (am not a man though). Should I not wear a skirt? Didn't realise it was laughable...

You're friend's a knobber.

And that's that.

I apologise everyone, I have been inflicting my hairy legs on loads of people this last few weeks. I should obviously be deeply ashamed of myself.

Totally normal behaviour

I am living in the modern world, so if I had a 30 year old son tottering about in high heels and a mini I wouldn't give a crap either.

(Though the bugger would probably have better legs than me)

Oh yeah and your friend is a dick.

Dump her and get a new one.

murder, winter is coming you need to keep warm. put the razor away

lol salmon its not that bad don't need to dump her

ghostspirit - I would very concerned about keeping that friendship, that person sounds a bit toxic from your comments. I wouldn't want someone who wanted to shame my child around - at the very least she needs firmly pulled up. Dressing up is normal, and simply dressing up does not make a person trans. Being trans is normal and has nothing to do with dressing up.

Allforone - what good will come from telling him it's something normally girls' do? Do you think it's good to shame a child, or any person, for doing something harmless that they enjoy?

And gendering children's clothes is very recent, previously all children would just wear the same clothes - dresses. Easier to change and clean up (other than the giant frilly ones the rich wore, those much have been a nightmare). Clothes haven't been the same since time began, clothes have changed with everything else in history - just look at the paintings of the times. Used to be all men were in skirts.

Maybe it would all be more relaxed if gender were treated as a spectrum rather than such firm, unbending categories that people should be treated as "laughing stocks" for trying to bend. Would make things a lot friendlier and safer (seeing as trans* women have one of the highest murder risks).

MurderofGoths I'm also deeply ashamed of flaunting my hairy legs this summer as well as hairy armpits (sometimes!)

Allforone why does it actually matter if boys wear one thing and girls wear another. If I have a little boy in the future I'd be happy to let him wear whatever he wants (within season) it's HIS body.

In any case, I'm not sure boys dressing up in frocks is necessarily linked to playing at being a girl. When my DS was about 3 he liked to dress up in his older sister's princess dresses. One day I said 'Oh DS you look like a lovely princess' and he looked very unimpressed and said 'No. Me prince.' and off he stomped in a shimmer of pink satin.

this 'fear' of girly clothes/things making boys gay stems from two things: homophobia and transphobia.
That's it really.

Oh and it's not about 'liberalisation' or political correctness. It's about not being a cunt.

"what good will come from telling him it's something normally girls' do? Do you think it's good to shame a child, or any person, for doing something harmless that they enjoy?"

This.

Nothing can 'make' anyone Gay, people are what they are

ghost don't worry about it, your mate is nuts. Be glad you're his mum not her! I have a DS who has liked dressing up in "girls" clothes since he could walk. He never "grew out" of it, and even though he is considerably older than your son still likes to put himself together a nice "girly" outfit from time to time. I never thought of stopping him because (a) it doesn't matter! (b) stopping him from doing it is more likely to cause harm than not. He's a happy, well- adjusted boy who's into all sorts of typical "boy things" too.

As for people who say this is a MN phenomenon that never happens in the real world, thè truth is you just don't see it - my DS never goes out in public dressed in girls clothes, so you'd never know if you weren't family.

sorry to say but your friend sounds like a small-minded bigot. And a misinformed one at that!

let the poor child play however he wants.

My 6 year old son walked better in heels than I do!

omg im so worried now. my son just got given a sack full of clothes from one of the mums at the school and now my 3 year old daughter is wearing his shorts and trainers...

its nice to see that most people are happy for their children to play as they want to :)

I see grown men dressed as women all the time on the tube, on the street. And I never bat an eyelid, its their personal choice to wear whatever the fuck they want. Don't let your friend or society peer pressure your son in to wearing what they deem as 'normal' for a boy. My 3 yr old son spends most of his time at home wearing pants on his head. I'm not going to start giving him anxiety about what other people might think by telling him not to.

Even if he doesn't grow out of it, he can dress his body as he likes.