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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

412 replies

thebadwife · 19/03/2014 12:14

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?

OP posts:
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TheBody · 20/03/2014 09:52

Writer Grin my dh would say exactly the same. good luck with the baby, very exciting.

Fecklessdizzy · 20/03/2014 09:56

Sheesh.

It's not a bubble of total tolerance round here by a long shot but no-one's going to get worked up over some tiny child wearing a bit of sparkly dressing-up tat aimed at the opposite sex!

I wouldn't get him an actual bog-standard dress though, OP, as you'll get all sorts of chuntering from passing adults along the lines you've seen on here and some clown will probably remember and give him a hard time when he's older.

Caitlin17 · 20/03/2014 09:59

writerwannabe your grandmother's knitting sounds lovely. Setting all this thread aside it would be a terrible shame not to use it. After all you get ties with flower patterns.

princessdesert · 20/03/2014 10:14

My most rough tough and loud son loves to wear pink and I buy him pink clothes.
He has pink polos , jeans, converse ,socks shirts , and a pink dress up raffia hulu skirt.
I wouldn't personally go as far as a dress just but if will makes your son happy ,I think why not ?
You could always get him a middle eastern thobe or a tunic like a shepherds.

TheBody · 20/03/2014 10:18

yes I agree a toddler in a tutu so what.

however to actually buy a dress for a boy for his birthday is fairly unusual? no?

flipchart · 20/03/2014 10:21

however to actually buy a dress for a boy for his birthday is fairly unusual? no?

Not on MN apparently! It appears that most mums with sons would nip down to Primark or wherever and pick up a frock because 'it's what he wanted'

Writerwannabe83 · 20/03/2014 10:27

Caitlin your grandmother's knitting sounds lovely. Setting all this thread aside it would be a terrible shame not to use it. After all you get ties with flower patterns.

All the stuff is lovely - she's even knitted him little shorts Smile He has full on, knitted, matching ensembles Grin

However - even I draw the line when it comes to him wearing pink flowers Grin

icanmakeyouicecream · 20/03/2014 10:31

I would for dressing up. Not sure my OH would be so happy about it though.

woodrunner · 20/03/2014 10:32

You're not crazy at all. Buy him a dress. DS1 lived in a cast off fairy dress of lavender and pink tulle with gold laced wings when he was 3. Why not?

DS1 would be gutted if I mentioned this now. He is knee deep in rugby mud with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes as he listens to 80s house music. But tbh if he were still wearing fairy dresses I wouldn't give a stuff. I'd just make sure he kept up with the martial arts to fend off idiots who thought it made him a target.

Delphiniumsblue · 20/03/2014 10:59

I find MN doesn't match up with RL at all. I am visiting twin toddlers this afternoon and I can guarantee that the boy will be dressed very differently from the girl and no one will have to ask which is which.
I have never seen a 3 year old boy at a party, nursery, park, shops etc in a 'normal' dress. However they dress up in anything. I do a workshop for junior age children and there will always be a boy who wants to try on a Victorian bonnet but it doesn't mean they want to wear dresses or skirts in normal life.
You would have to explain away wearing a dress.

TheBody · 20/03/2014 11:03

yes agree never ever seen a boy out and about in a girls dress, not dressing up, but in a girls dress, never heard of it or seen it.

it would be considered odd.

Fecklessdizzy · 20/03/2014 11:14

When he's a lot older and can understand the social ramifications of his choices then it'll be up to him what he wears but it sounds as if he just wants a bit of his sister's glitz at the moment so I wouldn't get too wound up by it - get him a tractor and a tutu for his birthday!

Weird though, isn't it ... A centuary and a bit ago all this sort of mud was being stirred up by a few women wanting to wear trousers - and here we all are as bifurcated as you like and society hasn't crumbled ... Grin

lynniep · 20/03/2014 11:21

I havent waded through the thread I'm afraid.
My youngest DS2 is 4, and loves dressing up. He favours what are traditionally known as 'girls toys' (he has about 8 disney princesses and barbies) and will only wear leggings (this started when he refused to change out of pj bottoms about 2 years ago - and its may cause some trouble when he starts school!)

He had a phase a while back of wanting to wear my dresses 'because they are so beautiful mummy' and at the moment (well for the last couple of months) his most favourite thing is mermaids. I made him a mermaid tail which he flops about the house in. He has a hairband with wool 'rapunzel hair' which he also loves wearing.

I did feel a bit uncomfortable when he wanted to leave the house wearing one of my dresses if I'm honest (with his big walking boots LOL). But I am an adult. I am conditioned to see boys dressed as boys and girls dressed as girls (even as someone who dresses her son in stripey leggings every day)

But everyone knows that he loves dressing up, and it makes him so happy. They are little for such a short time and once he starts school, he will spend the week looking exactly like every other little boy in his class. He is already aware that there is a distinction 'I like girls stuff don't I mummy?' and at some point that awareness is probably going to stop him wearing/playing with exactly what he wants to wear/play with. Well it might. He has quite a strong personality so I'm not positive that he will conform ;)

If he wants a dress for his birthday, buy him a dress x

TallyGrenshall · 20/03/2014 11:24

I wish DS would ask for a dress. It would stop him nicking my skirts.

He has also worn my maxi dress over the road to my parents house as well. I had to follow behind like a sodding lady in waiting, trying to keep it off the floor

This was not in any book Hmm Grin

Delphiniumsblue · 20/03/2014 11:26

I did feel a bit uncomfortable when he wanted to leave the house wearing one of my dresses if I'm honest (with his big walking boots LOL).

I think that anyone would be happy with this, it is quite different from going to a shop and buying him a dress. The first needs no explanation but the second does.

minouminou · 20/03/2014 11:27

Why do you feel it needs an explanation, though?

Genuine Q, not rhetorical.

LackaDAISYcal · 20/03/2014 11:31

Just a few of my DS in his "I'm a girl" phase...make up was courtesy of his big sis!

He wore them out to the shops a few times. No one batted an eye lid, but then they probably thought he was a girl.

AIBU to buy my son a dress for his 3rd Birthday
AIBU to buy my son a dress for his 3rd Birthday
AIBU to buy my son a dress for his 3rd Birthday
BadgerB · 20/03/2014 11:36

I have in front of me right now an old black & white photo of my DS1, aged about 6, wearing a nurse's outfit bought for his sister (she hated it). In his teens he wore his hair in long ringlets, nail varnish and sometimes eyeshadow. Now approaching middle age he is married with two daughters and a perfectly boring family man who works in computers.

minouminou · 20/03/2014 11:36

My DS has been out and about in his dresses, both the frou-frou types and his more understated ones.
Generally it's when he's wearing one at home, sees a chum outside and runs out to play.
I'm sure lots of people have privately thought this and that, but DS is happy, popular and confident. He likes to be free.

Who, exactly, is he harming?

minouminou · 20/03/2014 11:38

Ha ha, Badger.

Was he a bit grungy?

TheBody · 20/03/2014 11:39

there is a world of difference between dressing up and a parent actually buying a dress for a boy.

the first is playing but the second is just a bit strange, certainly for me and really any parent I ever knew.

still each to their own.

Caitlin17 · 20/03/2014 11:46

Lacksadaisy there was a recent thread about a little girl of 6 who preferred wearing boy's swimming shorts with no top. The general view was it was fine but a large number of posters thought a bikini top on a girl child was grossly inappropriate and overly sexualised.

minouminou · 20/03/2014 11:51

As long as you really feel "each to their own" then we're all fair and square.

You've read anecdotes/testimony (as it were) and seen pics now so you can see it does happen. Admittedly there are probably some environments that are more tolerant, and some personalities that can pull it off.

minouminou · 20/03/2014 11:55

What do you think about the bikini tops, Caitlyn?

blahblahblah2014 · 20/03/2014 12:10

He's 3 - he doesn't know what he wants! It's your job as a parent to educate him that dressing up in frocks and tutu's etc will make him look ridiculous and is not appropiate! If any of my boys dressed up in a dress they'd be laughed at no end, by myself and anyone else I know IRL. Only on MN do you get this kind of crap. Earth to MN, come in MN - Go on OP, start pushing girly things on you DS, be sure to update us in a few years on how he's "bullied" and "confused" etc - Can we please just accept that certain things are for boys and certain things are for girls - But if you want to allow your innocent unknowing DS make a laughing stock of himself go ahead, but i feel it's your JOB to educate him and protect him and advise him how the world works, unless you want to use him to change the social conditionings of society, which is not fair as he is too young to make that decision himself! If you want to be all pro-crossdressing, go ahead, WITH YOURSELF NOT YOU DS!

MN - Get a grip

Going to get a coffee, i'm expecting a flaming but I am sick of seeing these threads! It's ridiculous

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