AIBM to not let ds2 4 wear his Elsa dress out anymore due to twattish sniggering parents

[NellysKnickers]

Ds2s hero is Elsa. He loves her and Frozen. He also loves mud, dinosaurs, trains and his bike. He wore his Elsa dress to pick up ds1 from school today. I'm shocked by the amount of parents giggling and pointing, I expected a bit from kids who dont know any better but adults? ?? I'm torn between being upset and wanting to pinch them in the face ( obviously I would never do this in reality) Why is it that people think it's ok to laugh at someone a little bit different, Dh just says they are a bit thick!

How odd....Always shop at Asda....

Just hate shiny frilly dresses

I often think parents who let their boys wear dresses are watching, and waiting for people to react so they can be controversial and get angry with 'society'.

Not the OP. She's said until she's blue in the face that her son WANTS to wear the dress. She does not MAKE him wear it.

The child will be teased. And however much you rail against the societal prejudice and judgment it will happen.

IMO it's a parent's job to show and teach children that sometimes societal judgment is silly or plain unpleasant and wrong. And to love them and support them enough to know that idiots laughing and 'ripping the piss' out of them are the ones with the problem, not them themselves.

I absolutely loved DDs princess dresses phase and doing ballet and the shows that go with it. They like tons of things now and do football and cricket as well as dance.

What I absolutely want to do is bring them up to be women who are absolutely confident and revel in their femininity and that they are totally equal to men and who can do anything they set their minds to, and there is nothing that they can't do because "it's for boys".

I only wish all parents of sons would do the same vice versa and stop teaching them that boys are better than girls either directly by using "girlie", "like a girl" as negative adjectives or implying it by not allowing them to choose traditionally "girlie" things when they express a preference.

Good post Home.

only I was quoting directly from posters who said they personally found a boy in a dress 'revolting'. I thought it was pretty strong too!

Ah Jelly apologies.

I missed that one

But I don't see where 'feminism' translated into 'all the frivolous, frills and flounces, pouts and puckers, should be freely available to BOTH sexes.

Feminism is about that for me, and much more, for me. It's about choice. It says you can wear frills and furbelows and be frivolous and also be an empowered, intelligent, strong person. Whatever your gender of birth.

the parents are complete arseholes for laughing

but I think protecting my DS from negative energy is way more important than feeling "empowered" to wear a fucking princess dress TBH

I'd just tell him. sorry son, we live in a strange world where people laugh at little boys in dresses. lets just wear it at home . also 100% agree with whoever said "I often think parents who let their boys wear dresses are watching, and waiting for people to react so they can be controversial and get angry with 'society'"

YABVU. Frozen is such a diabolical load of old shit.

but I think protecting my DS from negative energy is way more important than feeling "empowered" to wear a fucking princess dress TBH

totally that^

And for what it's worth you should be able to wear whatever the hell you like whether you're a boy or a girl, man or woman but the sad fact is that others will tease, judge and comment and go on about it.

I would find a boy in a dress quite an odd sight too. And that's because it is according to societal norms.

I don't care two hoots about whether a boy wears a dress, but if I saw a boy wearing an Elsa dress out I would think it a bit strange. At home, ok, in public - I think you have to expect people to do a double take

And and and! I read somewhere that Elsa and Anna or Arna, however the Fuck you pronounce her name, are considered bad things for girls to look up to. Girls shouldn't want to be princessess etc etc. They are terrible role models, blah blah blah!

Are the people who hold that opinion the same people who think it's positively lovely to see boys wearing Elsa or Anna/Arna dresses and that it should be encouraged??

Give. Your. Head. A. Shake.

Gosh those cheap horrible dresses. That are actually quite expensive. Luckily for my daughter AND SON I've bought most of theirs from charity shops or car boots. They have a lovely collection of fairies witches princesses and ghost costumes that they both look fabulous in.

Mrs, speaking as someone who does not have conniptions/snigger and point at a little boy in a dress, I find the girls from Frozen to be pretty good role models. They are not 'saved' by princes; they work out their own family relationship and end up with mutual respect and love; they make their own decisions and choices.

I think the people who stare and laugh, and the posters on here giving dark warnings about how People Will Remember that little boy in the dress for generations to come, are much more sad than your 'sad fact'.

Also, for the umpteenth time, despite all the snarking about parents who want to make a point/attract attention, the OP does not 'encourage' her son to wear a dress – it's what he wants to wear.

My daughter wants to be naked :)

Why don't I let her? It isn't appropriate - simple. I'd be taking advantage of her innocence to let her.

Whether you think Elsa and Anna are good or bad role models is largely beside the point - they are designed to look attractive in their choice of clothing. Long, elaborate dresses in pastel colours are hardly first choice for a snow filled mountain but they are princesses, ergo they are pretty, ergo they wear beautiful dresses.

But ultimately the OP has the absolute right to make her own judgement about this, as do parents who shave their little boys' heads, pierce their ears and shave patterns into their heads, as do the parents who put makeup on their pre-schoolers, let them wear t shirts emblazoned with slogans that aren't applicable to their age and have high heels. I just have the right to dislike it.

For all the posters with their dire imprecations about how it is a mother's job to protect her children from teasing and abuse by making them conform in public: I was teased a lot as a kid. I was teased because I "talked funny", because I used "big words", because I wore glasses. Should my mum have protected me from "negative energy" by taking my glasses off? By telling me to stop talking? To stop reading ("It's ok to read the Junior Science Encyclopedia at home, dear, in private, but we don't talk about it outside because we want to make sure that people don't laugh at you")? To pretend to be something I wasn't?

The whole "oh yeah, it'd be lovely if people were allowed to be different, but get a grip, we need to live in the REAL WORLD and accept that this is how things are, we have to make sure they conform" is, as I said above, fantastically depressing. If my sons want to wear Frozen fancy dress in public then I'm not going to stop them. Not because I'm spoiling for a fight or want to show how amazingly right-on I am but because it's harmless and I don't want to give them the message that anything girly or different is shameful for little boys. They frankly get enough of that from the rest of the world.

Home, I made the role models point in response to another poster.

I find your use of the words 'distasteful' and 'revolting' to refer to a pre-school child pretty distasteful and revolting in themselves. Much more so than the sight of said child.

There is a massive difference between public nudity and wearing clothes that you don't think are appropriate, and, I think, a difference between adult public nudity and children's public nudity

Generally I don't let my kids be naked because they'd be cold, not due to some sense of propriety/"abusing their innocence" (which, ugh, sorry, does sound a bit like "they don't know how sexy they are"). They can peg around in the nip at home with the heating on as much as they like.

Also, come to think of it, pretty sure the older child wouldn't want to be naked in public (has developed a sense of privacy all by himself), and the younger one isn't potty trained so might wee everywhere. Plus, if warm enough, sunburn. But yeah, "it's just not appropriate" would be a good bit down the list.

Mrs, speaking as someone who does not have conniptions/snigger and point at a little boy in a dress, I find the girls from Frozen to be pretty good role models. They are not 'saved' by princes; they work out their own family relationship and end up with mutual respect and love; they make their own decisions and choices.

Agreed.

I think the people who stare and laugh, and the posters on here giving dark warnings about how People Will Remember that little boy in the dress for generations to come, are much more sad than your 'sad fact'.

Agreed also!

If that's all they've got to remember then that is a bit sad. And I know the op's ds WANTS to wear the dress, fine! but if she thinks people aren't going to stop and or do a double take then she's deluding herself.

And If she was that bothered and so sure so people were laughing at him maliciously why didn't she challenge them??

I know I would do a double take if I saw a boy round here in a dress of any sort.

She doesn't think people aren't going to stop and/or do a double take. She just didn't quite expect to see parents –adults, FFS – 'giggling and pointing'.

it's not ok to laught at a 4 year old full stop. And I cannot believe that in this day and age there are parents who think it is ok to snigger at a little boy wearing a dress.

Mind you why am I surprised when I get told off for dressing my son in pink tshirts!

I have challenged these people before.

As demonstrated here, there argument gets no further than "but boys shouldn't wear dresses".

I have argued with children, adults, the elderly. They are downright mean to the child's face about them wearing "their sisters clothes". Even in a swimming pool we got two particularly nasty kids taking the piss out of my two year old for wearing a girls swimsuit.

These people also do not accept the fact that the child they're taking the piss out of for wearing girls clothes is a girl. For some reason they decide by whatever stereotype they live by that the child is a boy, and they, and I are simply being difficult.

We are getting so far entrenched in pink and girly vs. tough macho boys that anything that blurs those lines is unacceptable.

No wonder we are going backwards to the days when boys do maths and science and girls English and history. No wonder there are still gender pay gaps and glass ceilings. Because people genuinely seem to believe that only girls should do x, and boys y.

The one lesson my "but what will people think" mother taught me was to not give a stuff what people think. Honestly she has lived her life (and me mine) so scared that people might judge she's missed out on so much.

Sorry op, but I'd inwardly snigger.