To think putting a baby boy in pink is a little odd?

[Reachout]

Hi, this post isn't to point fingers, I just genuinely want to know if I'm the only one who thinks like this.

A friend of mine is putting her newborn baby boy in his sisters old sleepsuites etc and says it's just newborn clothing, why does it matter.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't even think of putting a boy in girls things, and I don't just mean 'pink', I mean properly girly.

AIBU? I can't see why you'd do it, and she isn't strapped for cash by any stretch of the imagination. It just doesn't sit right with me.

He also enjoys wearing her tutus and fancy dress costumes, such as tinkerbell, around the house. DH and me see no problem with it, as long as he's happy and having fun.

I'm one of these weirdos who actually buys some boy's clothes and pyjamas for my DD. She has a lot of 'boy' pyjamas because she suits the colours. And boys' bottoms are great for her as she's got chubby thighs so the leggings that you get with the vast majority of girls' clothes just feel too tight. She's 16mo. She doesn't care. And if people mistake her for a boy while we're out and ask 'his' name, I take a second to decide on my favourite unpopular name and watch the person's face when they're thinking of something nice to say about it. She's often been 'Athelstan' or 'Boris'.

So the only gendered products people own are gifts? Why can't you dress your DD in pink or your DS in blue because you might just like it?

Why is it a big deal? From both sides, it's crazy. Seriously. The amount of threads you see on this subject. So you dressed your DS in pink. What you want. A medal? Well done you for being so controversial and edgy. I can't believe this is a topic of conversation anymore.

People are answering the OP, you know, the one who started the thread then buggered off? She said it's weird, people are saying it isn't. Nobody asked for a medal. What a strange thing to say.

If you're getting wound up by it, step away. You don't have to post about such a non issue.

You sound quite passive aggressive there whisk

To be fair whisk you seem rather wound up about it yourself.
And I don't think it's a big deal at all, a total non issue in fact but like others have said it seems to be something that's only ever done on mumsnet. I work with babies every day. See hundreds of them in the course of a year and I've yet to see this dressing a boy in pink sleep suits phenomenon.

I'm not wound up, I'm bemused at why someone has stated twice that it's a non issue but keeps arguing with people who disagree with the OP. Not such a non issue then is it?

Not getting how I was PA either, Milk.

Fascinating how the pro-gendered clothes opinions go so quickly from 'It's just weird to use the wrong colour' to 'OMG, I'm so sophisticated and over this, I just have an aesthetic preference for pink. Except when it comes to my son.' Reminds me an awful lot of the responses to girls' sport campaigns, equal rights legislation, indeed anything which raises gender issues. Scoffing that's ridiculous to haven't-we-all-got-past-this-I'm-so-blasé in about six seconds.

"So the only gendered products people own are gifts? Why can't you dress your DD in pink or your DS in blue because you might just like it?"

No, of course not, I'm just suggesting that it's entirely possible to not be big into colour-coded babywear and still end up with quite a lot of it. Also I suspect the type of person who only dresses their DD in pink because they "just like it" ("it's normal!") are unlikely to pass on those clothes to a DS, as presumably they'd want to dress them in blue because they "just like it".

Obviously it's not a big deal if that's what you want to do, and some strongly gendered clothes are perfectly lovely, it's when it's presented as The One True Normal Order Of Things And How Normal People Who Live In The Normal Real World With Other Normal Real People Do It that I feel like sticking DS in a ballerina costume.

Haha, Korean, you're not alone.

DS has been Edith and Doris, Gudrun and Ermintrude.

No, Whisk doesn't sound wound up or aggressive, to me, at all!
The OP did ask the question, and people are replying.

I often dressed my DS (as mentioned way, way back in the thread) in his sister's pink cast-offs. Just because you haven't personally seen it, Sharon, do you think everyone is just making it up?

(though what would I know, my DS2 came home from nursery the other day with a butterfly painted on his face and a pink hair clip and I was not immediately UP IN ARMS at this TERRIBLE GIRLIFICATION OF MY MANLY TODDLER. Luckily, his penis had already fallen off from drinking out of a pink sippy cup earlier that day.)

This comes up a lot on MN. I wonder why...

OP, in the real world outside of MN, YANBU. Society at large considers that girls have a lower status than boys, so dressing a boy in anything related to a girl is considered ridiculous.

But on MN and in an ideal world, YABU. Boys or girls should be able to wear what the hell they want to.

Somewhere there's a thread where the OP's 4 year old DS wanted sparkly shoes for school. The amount of different ways posters managed to dress up "don't buy them for him, he's a boy and they're for girls" was interesting and very insightful.

It's handed down clothing, lots of people do this.

On holiday my ds had to wear my dd's pink tshirt with a horse on and her flowery knickers due to many spillages on his own clothes!

You're absolutely right: you can buy blue clothes for boys and pink clothes for girls (and vice versa) but BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM not because they are "specified" for girls or boys.

Dh has a lovely pink shirt which I think he looks great in. Still all man to me!

It doesn't need to be pink though.

We don't even have that many pink hand-me-downs from DDs. A bit of girly embroidery on blue jeans or a Charlie and Lola T-shirt is enough to signal that DS is, in fact, a girl.

Those saying you never see it in real life, how do you know? Some of those babies you see being pushed in a pram down the street in a pink baby grow might actually be boys! Or do you stop and ask the sex of every baby you meet? I've actually seen/known quite a few babies being dressed in the hand me downs of an older sibling of the opposite sex, including a boy in a pink, floral baby grow at one of the baby groups I go to. I don't think anyone was particularly bothered by it.

And FWIW I probably wouldn't put a boy in his sister's old clothes (I have 2 DD's so not been in the situation), but that's because I'm a shopaholic and like buying new clothes. In fact, embarrassingly I gave a lot of DD's old clothes to charity and bought new for DD2. It doesn't bother me what anyone else chooses to dress their children in though!

Thank you Beautiful and anyone else I've missed.
I just don't like it, and I certainly can see why you'd let a child wear girls clothes at home etc but going out/taking photos? No way! How silly.

Yes, I don't find girls wearing boys clothes as bad. Simple reason being is boys clothing is more dull and not 'out there' or overly girly like what I was suggesting.

As I said originally, it isn't the pink that's my issue, it's the patterns/sheer girlyness.

Why silly? I'm sure you don't really subscribe to the idea that girls are inferior to boys.

Who cares? If the mother isn't bothered and the baby definitely doesn't care, then what does it natter?

Is it somehow disturbing the "balance" that boys should be serious and tomboys and girls should be beautiful and sparkly?

There seems to be less and less "gender neutral" available these days. I tried to find a non-pink baby girl congratulations card recently, without success. The only cards available were pink "baby girl", blue "baby boy" and yellow / beige "your new arrival" presumably for when you want to buy a card before you know the gender. I went with one of those in the end but it's not what I wanted.

"Some of those babies you see being pushed in a pram down the street in a pink baby grow might actually be boys!"

THESE BABIES SHOULD BE FORCED TO WEAR FALSE MOUSTACHES TO CLEARLY INDICATE THEIR GENDER. OR TIES.

Reachout, how do you explain the fact that we apparently all survived the 70s/early 80s going out in public and having photos taken in clothes that didn't clearly colour-code or otherwise indicate our gender? Or were those decades just "silly"?

Also a bit :( to hear that you think that appropriate boy's clothing is "more dull" and "less out there".

Then go the fuck back to 1923 where you belong

My husband wears pink shirts. He wore a pink tie to our wedding.

Should I be worried or concerned by this?

I wear trousers. If I had been born 100 years earlier this would have been scandalous. I venture out the house in them.

I also like cars, dinosaurs, guitars, mountains and space.

Whats wrong with me? Can you diagnose?

I think its acceptable to take photos and leave the house with a boy dressed in girly stuff in 2015.

"There seems to be less and less "gender neutral" available these days."

Totally agree. I was genuinely shocked on my first pregnancy when I went to buy baby stuff and was presented with wall to wall (Usually) Blue Stuff For Boys And Then The Pink Version For Girls. As per previous posts, that just wasn't my experience of baby and child stuff in my own childhood - obviously everything wasn't completely unisex but it was waaaaaaaaaaay less rigidly gender-divided than it is now.

A friend of mine remembers trying to buy a swaddling blanket for his first child recently and could not understand why the staff member asked him "boy or girl?" - eventually figured out that they meant "pink or blue?"

(I suggested he should have asked them was he supposed to swaddle the baby's genitals....).