My son is 2. He's obsessed with trains, cars, trucks, diggers and running at the speed of light into things, climbing trees, you know the usual.
He is also just as obsessed with glitter, dancing, swirling, singing, sparkly, pretty, colourful, dolls, literally just as much as the usual boy stuff. Nothing has ever been particularly encouraged one way or the other, he has never been pushed towards cars or glitter, and some days he favours one or the other. But he does what he likes and he likes what he does. (Which usually brings meltdowns when getting dressed in the morning if an outfit isn't colourful enough).
He's been wearing a purple tuelle tutu skirt for the last two days. Literally every waking moment. He was dressed for bed last night and then undressed himself and went and put the tutu back on. He wanted to wear it again today.
He put it on with some grey leggings underneath (that had nuts and bolts on), a t shirt, some chelsea boots and a navy blue wooly hoodie.
Nursery are great with this stuff so no problems there. We got to playgroup afterwards and comments from everybody there were like "Oh whats her name?" and when I told them and said He's 2, they would say "Oh, well good for him, I just assumed because of the girls skirt that it was a girl" (He otherwise looks like a boy, short hair ect), "You do whatever you want theres nothing wrong with wearing a girls skirt", that kind of thing, generally making quite a big deal of it.
Afterwards we went to the farm with his friend, Where there were more comments asking what her name was (I know an easy mistake and not what got to me in the slightest) but the reaction when I said "He is ..."
One woman even looked at him and said "Oh, well your little friend and your little sister, you're surrounded by girls is that why you're wearing girls clothes?" and another woman saying "You wear that girls skirt, my son liked things like that but everyone skitted at him"
I mean I know people are just rude sometimes but why make a huge point of it being girls? Why can't people just say "oh thats a nice skirt" or say nothing at all? His friend is the same age and a girl, and I'm pretty sure had she been wearing it nobody would have said "oh what a lovely girls skirt you have on"
It made me feel so cruel for letting him go out with it on, but what message is it giving to society by telling him not to? Ive never looked at a young girl with a football shirt on and said "what a lovely boys shirt you're wearing".
Why is it such an atrocity in this day and age to comment on anything at all that a woman or girl shouldn't do or have, but boys are just as equally stereotyped from infancy about what they can and can't do or like. Why can't people just smile or look the other way? Why does it have to be such a big thing. And now I've ranted on AIBU like it is a big thing but I just don't know why people have to put outdated ideas into tiny heads like that?