Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"As long as they are not ginger"

136 replies

Tiredbadger · 21/05/2015 15:09

I am currently expecting DC2.

I have just told my old boss the news and his first response was "I bet you want a boy" followed by "as long as they are not ginger." (Both DD and I have red hair).

AIBU to think this is so so rude and unprofessional, and even cruel to my DD?

OP posts:
ACSlater · 21/05/2015 21:33

One of the few things you can still make discriminatory comments about!

Just remember that most people are dickheads.

ACSlater · 21/05/2015 21:35

Oh and i'm a redhead. Anyone making a hilarious joke about it gets quite the round of fucks!

Koalafications · 21/05/2015 21:39

What a dick.

villainousbroodmare · 21/05/2015 21:53

I'm an Irish redhead, 7 months pregnant with my first baby (boy) and live between Ireland and South Africa.
I think that the word 'ginger' is hideous and very British, and the vicious prejudice against people with red hair is also very British. Why on earth does it exist? Is it a recent thing?
I was told this "joke" by an English acquaintance recently: "A woman goes into hospital to have her baby and it is swiftly whisked away as soon as it is born. The sombre-faced doctor asks the mother, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" 'The bad news,' she says. "Your baby is ginger," he replies, "but the good news is, it's dead."
In Ireland, continental Europe, North America and southern Africa, having red hair is a positive bonus. Attention-grabbing, distinctive, never-greying, colourful glorious hair.

SevenAteNine · 21/05/2015 22:01

Completely inappropriate. If you or your partner were black and he said he hoped the baby wasn't a nigger, he'd (rightly) lose his job. If it were me, I'd point that out to him.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 21/05/2015 22:12

Not only Is it disgusting. It should also be illegal. Call me dramatic if you so choose but if he said lets hope the baby is not black. He would be and very rightly too facing the law, so why is it okay to discriminate against hair colour. Makes me nuclear.
Red hair is gorgeous by the way,

YellowLemons · 21/05/2015 22:26

It is racist. It's a throwback to when it was culturally acceptable in the UK to hate Irish people. People with ginger hair were often Irish/of Irish extraction.

We've now moved on, thankfully, from having signs up that say "no dogs, no Irish, no blacks". But sadly we are stil meant to find it funny to bully people with ginger/red hair Confused

Squeegle · 21/05/2015 22:30

I'm a ginger (less so now I'm older), I don't mind the teasing so much - can be funny - but that comment is just rude and ignorant. Us gingers are special! He's just jealous, that's where it stems from - tosser

Stanky · 22/05/2015 06:11

People just shouldn't bully people because of the way they are born. No one can help the hair colour, skin colour or any aspect of their physical appearance. No one should have to change. I have seen many ginger people dye their hair blonde as a way of dealing with bullying. It's like acknowledging that the bullies were right, and you should change, when the opposite is true. I've never understood the bullies, I've just never understood the pleasure that they get in making other people feel like shit.

ArcheryAnnie · 22/05/2015 06:16

Put a pic of your boss up in the office next to a pic of Damien Lewis. Will speak for itself.

ShadowFire · 22/05/2015 06:52

YANBU.

I'd have been sorely tempted to tell him to fuck right off with his insensitive and bad mannered prejudices.

This seems to be just about the only thing where it's considered okay to bully and make fun of people for something about their physical appearance that they were born with.

catsrus · 22/05/2015 07:53

I grew up in England in the 50s and 60s - had never come across this kind of prejudice until I saw it mentioned on MN and was very Hmm - was then totally shocked to discover how real it is in some places.

Maybe because I grew up in the far North, with lots of Irish relatives, I mixed more in Celtic origin circles where there was no prejudice? Quite the opposite to be honest and my totally English, non Celtic dad, had a huge thing for red heads Grin

Gorgonzolacherry · 22/05/2015 08:02

You boss is a wanker. Red hair is beaut. Congrats x

Kittymum03 · 22/05/2015 08:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

flora717 · 22/05/2015 08:07

Lyingwitchattheplayground. Wow! How personal and assumptive of you. Were you there?
No.
You're wrong.

ShadowFire · 22/05/2015 08:27

That's an absolutely terrible "joke" villainous, I hope it didn't upset you too much.

I don't know why anyone would think a red head - especially a pregnant one - would be amused by the implication that it would be better to have been born dead than with red hair.

Usually red hair's beautiful too.

sparkysparkysparky · 22/05/2015 08:32

Archery Annie beat me to it!

Muppetme · 22/05/2015 08:32

Why would anyone who knows that you have ginger partner dare to tell you that it'd be terrible to have a ginger baby!Shock

HidingFromDD · 22/05/2015 08:39

I'm a natural redhead (same colour as MrsF's son) and didn't have any issues with this when I was growing up (now early 50's) so I think it started in the 80's. I do come from a family of redheads (6!) so it's possible I just wouldn't have noticed anyway. I think there's an element of how does the rest of the family view it. We were always told it was rare and exceptionally gorgeous (and did actually get stopped in the street a few times) which my mum could do without making any non-redheads in the family feel inferior!
I'm now turning blonde (instead of grey) an often get asked who dyes my hair. I think it's saved me a fortune in hairdressers bills.

Anyway, that was completely not answering the OP question, so my answer is no, YANBU and he's a knob!

ThursdayLast · 22/05/2015 08:52

The best way I dealt with that was to look blankly at the idiot who said it and ask

'Why?'

There isn't an answer that doesn't truly expose them for the bigot they are.

ThursdayLast · 22/05/2015 08:55

And at school when people used to shout things at me/tease me because of the colour of my hair - I would repeat it back to them but tpwith the colour of their hair. I mean. They're ridiculous things to say anyway, but accusing someone of having a 'brown minge' for example is pretty funny Grin

GirlsTimesThree · 22/05/2015 09:22

I have red hair and prayed that my children wouldn't inherit it. Not because I would feel differently about them, but because I had such a horrible time growing up with it.
Other kids would pull it, spit at me or tease me. As a teenager being called copper cunt, ginger minge or Duracell was humiliating. I was thrown down stairs, locked in the school toilets, had cups/buckets of water thrown at me - it was horrible and if having any other colour hair could spare my kids that, that's what I wanted. My parents just used to tell me it was because they were all jealous and to ignore it. Yeah, right..

Obviously, it changes as you get older - I now spend £££ trying to keep my hair the colour I was born with and get masses of compliments about it! I don't love it, but I don't hate it anymore either. It's just my hair.
Just last week a man at work said, 'I hope you don't mind, but I just wanted to tell you how beautiful your hair is. It's always looks gorgeous'.
Thre are children who don't get teased, but there is always an undercurrent of unpleasantness - even my kids, none of whom did inherit it, have heard it at school, such as the PP who witnessed the 'kick a ginger' incident.
Unfortunately, there are still a number of bigoted twats like your boss around. I wonder if he might have been one of the ones who made my life hell? I'm 51...

BlackeyedSusan · 22/05/2015 10:37

it is about time that it was afforded the same protection as being abused for being black or asian,

terrible time at school. some biggoted twats also think it is ok to make jokes about it.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/05/2015 10:50

flora... that's why I asked. You just posted that you left the park BECAUSE of these boys. You didn't add anything and I just wondered whether you'd taken them to task. It sounded as if you were 'bullied' out of the park.

I'm very happy to be wrong!

pudcat · 22/05/2015 11:00

I used to tell people (and still do) that you cannot get a natural red colour from a bottle. I was called all sorts of names as a child.