AIBU to buy my son a dress for his 3rd Birthday

[thebadwife]

Just that really, I have always tried to dress my son in the most practical clothes for the activities of the day. The colour has never been important, which when was younger led to him being assumed to be a girl as often as he was a boy. Sometimes he wore leggings but mostly standard trousers, t-shirts and jumpers nothing particularly exciting, experimental or political.

However I have just had a daughter and my friends and family have been very generous and given us some lovely clothes for her which have included a few dresses. My son has always commented positively when I wear dresses, but has been really jealous of these tiny dresses and has asked several times if he can wear them. I told him they were too small but I would buy him a dress for his birthday in May. I have mentioned it to a few people and they have looked at me like I am crazy.

So AIBU?

Right...so because he sometimes wears his sister's cast offs, you have inferred that I am wraping him up in a liberal, gender bending bubble and not giving him the skills to cope with real life?

O...K...

I am caitlin, thanks

I do hope you got pictures Captain

Ahhh i see Minou Yes sirree, he is one classy kid. He also had a penchant for wearing my nanas pearl necklace too.

Same question to Cheeky then. Is wearing a dress not real life?

If you could see our boys and spend time with them (and us) you'd most likely be very pleasantly surprised at just how normal we all are.

I do have a picture actually. DH wants to print it in the paper when he is 18!

He has gone to school for History Day as Cleopatra recently.

He also loves nerf, football,strategy war games and eyeliner.

So being liberal means getting girls out of pink and boys into it.

But why shouldn't lego make pink stuff targetted at girls? Girls like it. But it or don't buy it. What's the problem? My girls ave every set of lego friends going. Am I a bad mother for buying it? Would I be a better one if I bought a different type of lego or none at all? should i sell it and get them a gender neutral stick each to play withh

One reason Lego shouldn't make pink sets is because it means buying two lots.

Clever marketing.

I haven't seen the lego friends collection but a quick google brought up this.

I assume "girls" lego sets don't come with fire?

Surely that's a "boy" thing?

My daughter wears pink and wears Captain Hook outfits. She wears skirts and she wears jeans. She tends to choose the masculine characters to dress up as on school dress up days because they're "cooler".

Her friend B, a boy, often wears a tutu to parties. Sometimes over jeans, sometimes not.

They're 7. They're having fun.

Who gives a fuck?

I mean if the worse that happens is my child grows up to be transgender or likes cross-dressing or shock horror a lesbian, I'll be completely proud of myself of the job I've done as a parent.

minouminou that's just ridiculous and not at all helpful to the concept of colours just being colours and toys just being toys. Maybe everything should only come in beige. Pink lego sounds lovely.

Each to their own and all that...

I was answering from a marketing perspective, rather than gender/colour etc.
quite serious, though...I think a lot of this diversification of once neutral toys is to encourage people to buy two/new ones rather than handing toys down.

Daddy

actually, no. sticks are boys toys anyway, girls need wooden spoons!
DD has pink duplo. And pink dresses. And even a doll!
And I don't buy dresses for my sons.

Captinhindsight I haven't bought Lego for years but unless Lego is actually issuing boxes marked "boys'Lego" and "girls' Lego" your comment is ridiculous too. Lego is Lego.

There is nothing wrong with pink, what is wrong is the marketing and media, advertising showing it as solely for girls.

Also most of Lego friends range until recently was all about beauty etc after complaints they have broadened the range. It's still not ad much about building etc ad the regular Lego is.pink is fine, selling toys and marketing them in a way that reinforces gender stereotypes is not ok.

Look at the lettoysbetoys campaign.

He's 3... who cares what a 3 year-old wears.

Frankly the thing that I find most worrying is fathers who have issues with their sons having gold sparkly handbags or dressing up in girls clothes.

If I had a son and he wanted a dress then I would buy him one. Why not? Who cares what anyone else thinks? I doubt another 3 year-old would bully him about it, and if they did, then that speaks more about the other child's parents - why they let him/her bully, and what they have said to make the child so prescriptive about what is normal.

The only thing I would draw the line at was if it would be inappropriate on a girl - I don't like clothes that sexualise young children.

My brother often left the house in a tutu or princess dress as a young child. He and his wife do go to parties in dressing-up clothes on a regular basis, and I believe taxi drivers have been know to raise the odd eyebrow but frankly it's very harmless.

I only have a DD, and she is a complete pink princess and only really likes dolls - and the awful pink Friends Lego (whereas DH and I really like the Hobbit sets). It's not my choice of toys, but my parents didn't force me to play with dolls and I won't force her not to.

I was not a girly girl, and while I love the old-fashioned hand-smocked peter-pan collar type dresses, the pink frills are definitely not to my taste. The only time she will wear trousers is for dance classes, otherwise it's always a dress - she doesn't like things round her waist so won't wear skirts either. As a baby DD mainly wore blue as she looked hideous in pink. She also wore dungarees or trousers up until she was able to voice her opinions on what she wore. Fights over clothes are not a battle that is worth having.

So go ahead and buy him a dress - H&M have a wide range of cheap ones that cover a broad range. TK Maxx have amazing Tudor princess dresses that beat anything Disney has, lots of tutus and loads of sparkly nylon creations.

Sorry..not diversification...polarisation.

It's depressing to think that an ad like this would never be made these days.

My son was lucky as he had a twin sister so the dressing up box was full of clothes that they could both wear. I really cherish the stage of childhood where children just have things that they like and enjoy before the whole stereotyping pressure kicks in. They both had prams and dolls too (and footballs etc).

I would absolutely buy my son a dress at 3. I would be quite uncomfortable trying to explain to a 3 year old why he wasn't allowed to wear dresses.

So far I haven't seen anyone explain what their real objection is. A lot of posts say things like "some things are for boys and some things are for girls" or "it's just wrong" or "it goes against social norms" (all paraphrased). But none of these reasons explain anything.

Yes, a boy wearing a dress goes against current social norms. But so what? Why is that seen as something negative? If another child teases him for his clothing, the problem doesn't lie with the clothing but with the teasing (and that child should be taken to task for it). If, God forbid, an adult ridicules a little boy, then that adult has some serious issues that go far beyond fashion and his/her opinion shouldn't be taken seriously anyway.

For those who are appalled at the idea of a 3-year-old boy wearing a dress, are there any articles of clothing you would forbid a little girl to wear because they are meant only for boys? If not, why not?

As for the granny who knitted an outfit for a newborn with pink flowers on it, the parents' objections are simply absurd IMO. A newborn can't express a preference and doesn't care what he wears. What on earth is wrong with a baby boy wearing something decorated with pink flowers? All this "no son of mine will wear that" nonsense just reinforces rigid stereotypes.

a newborn can't express preference

true. but I can. And I don't need to explain why I think a dress on a boy is wrong.

if you think it's ok, I don't see why you care anyway that I think it's wrong.
do what you like and I do the the what I like.

No, of course you don't need or have to, Zing, but we're asking for your opinion, or your reason. You have an opinion, or you wouldn't be on here, and part of having a discussion like this is to explain yourself.

Caitlin17 Did you see my sarcastic quotation marks?

Jeeeeeez.

I see no harm in it at all. One of the most important things that you can do for your child is to show that you support them in who they are and not who you want them to be.

At a party recently a little girl was playing with a toy car and an elderly man went up to her and said 'why are you playing with boys toys?'

This sort if thing really annoys me. And why are some people saying the OP is trying to do an exercise in liberal parenting? She's merely trying to do something her son has requested.