To buy my DS a dress?

[Isthereanyusernamesleft]

I've one DS, he is my first & last (traumatic birth).

He's only 10 weeks so is still quite neutral I.E you can't necessarily tell he's a boy yet!

I think dresses are lovely & as I don't follow this gender society crap of girls wear dresses & pink & boys wear blue & trousers.....I don't see the issue in putting my DS in a dress.

However, everyone else thinks it's wrong!

Is it??

OP, what makes you think this is a good idea?

You could adopt a little girl in future if you don't want to give birth again and you want somebody to dress up, there's plenty of kids who need a loving home. A lot of PC people will not tell you this, but nothing good can come out of what you are considering. You are doing this for yourself, not for the best interests of your boy..... the only person who is going to run up to you in public and tell you how sweet your boy looks in dresses is the village nutter. The rest of the time you are going to be correcting people, including your own relatives, who think he is a girl; or worrying that people think you are bonkers for dressing him up.

If he wants to dress up as a girl when he is older then let him. I assume your parents loved you enough to not take you out in a top hat and tails when you were a baby, so why inflict this sort of thing on their Grandchild?

Lovely put Ossie.

All this deliberately dressing boys in pink/dresses/fairy emblems and girls in blue/tractor emblems is just painfully contrived...and it's basically just a certain type of parent using their little child as a walking hoarding board, displaying the parent's (not the child's) societal credentials.

It's like parents deliberately dressing their 3 year old in grungy, faded tour t-shirts from 'cool' bands to demonstrate how 'edgy' they still are, despite now being Mums and Dads.

Yawn...

MaQueen - haha so true, that's really cringe!

Ossie yes because social workers are really going to say "oh yes please adopt a little girl so you can dress her up". Have you got any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

MaQueen so women can drive tractors, but girls can't wear them? How does that make any sense? And why am I allowed to wear blue but not my DD? And why can't she wear a car print since she likes cars (and could say VROOM at 10 months)?

Basically you seem to be saying that parents must dress their children according to how you/the supermarkets/God ordains, and parents' taste and children's interests are irrelevant.

Yanbu. Please do. As long as dresses aren't the only thing you put him in I think it's great. I put my 6 month old boy in pink babygrows and babygrows with flowers on but ony occasionally because I don't want to just do it to be different but I do think stereotypes should be challenged.

I haven't put him in dresses as yet because I didn't like dresses on my dd's at this age therefor there aren't any.

MaQueen I think you're my hero!

Actually, back in the 18th and 19th centuries little girls wore blue and little boys wore pink. This is because pink is a derivative of red, and red was considered too harsh/strong a colour for girls to wear.

Little girls wore blue because that was deemed softer, with its connotations of 'Heaven' and the sky (note the Virgin Mary traditionally wears blue in religious art).

But I digress...

...to wear tractors/to not drive tractors really isn't the question here. Neither we, or our children live in individual ivory (or blue, or pink) towers. We live in a society where gender issues are recognised along broadly similar lines for the vast majority of people - just like the 1001 other societal norms', which though often unspoken, nevertheless smooths your path through life.

Verbal badinage and clever soundbite-babble isn't going to stop 95% of the population looking like this if they see a 6 year old boy in a frock.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your child are the tools to become successfully socially integrated - to ensure that other people respond positively to them.

And I suppose in an ideal, Mumsnetty World, everyone would respond positively to a 6 year old lad in a frock. But in the real world they won't.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your child are the tools to become successfully socially integrated - to ensure that other people respond positively to them.

What a depressing thought. I hope to bring my children up to be happy, secure, confident, kind and caring adults. To be themselves and to be comfortable with who they are. Not to conform and deny their tastes or beliefs so society accepts them.

Fortunately noto most parents manage to raise happy, secure and confident children who integrate pretty successfully into society.

Only very few parents (fortunately) decide to use their children as an on-going social experiment.

To be themselves and to be comfortable with who they are.

I'd be totally with you I'd OP's DS was ASKING to wear a dress. But putting a 10 weeks old baby boy in a dress is surely going to gain unwanted judgement and confusion. Its just odd.

Thanks navy.

Bog standard common sense is treated with much derision and suspicion on MN, and I fully expect to be royally flamed for my temerity like I give a shit

This thread just keeps on giving. I love it!

Exactly Miss. If a 6 year old boy spontaneously chooses a dress to wear - fair enough.

But deliberately sticking your 10 week old boy in a frock says waaaaaaay more about you than it does about society.

There's the 'edgy' parent, sashaying along proudly with baby Thomas in his primrose pinafore, eager to instruct the lesser evolved among us on the evils of stereotypes...and really, the lesser evolved couldn't give a shit, and just want the edgy parent to move their bleddy buggy out of the way.

No one actually cares about your message. They're not bothered about your stance. Trust me, you really, really are not changing the world with a pale pink cardigan (age 3-6 months) from Next.

It's like teens demonstrating their rebelliousness and wild angst, through the medium of a £4.99 packet of green hair dye from Superdrug.

Yeah, wow...you're really dicing with the Devil

They do? The world is full of people who are miserable because they put too much emphasis on others opinions of them.

And my children are not social experiments. They are themselves and they are wonderful. Even the one who isn't born yet.

Yeah, well I know that in Mumsnet World (as opposed to the real world) everyone should strive to become unique beings, challenging societal norms and gracefully gliding through life in a haze of self confident mystique - while the lesser evolved look on in wonder and awe.

Yeah, right, whatever.

But deliberately sticking your 10 week old boy in a frock says waaaaaaay more about you than it does about society.

Of course it does! But who gives a crap? Where what you like. Dress your child in what they like. When they are old enough to choose, let them choose what they like. Why do any of you care so much what other people choose to dress their children in? That's the weird bit - that you are so invested in how others parent.

Also, I'm loving the way Buster is still unable to form a cohesive argument and so has just become a cheerleader

Oops, that's embarrassing wear obviously...

OP:

No.

That's me notomatoes I'm just the dribbler in the corner cheering on the others! Tbh I've put enough into this thread, I'm more than happy to see what others have to say. My argument was very clear, it's just you chose to not understand it as, of course, you must be right.

Haha MaQueen - you should write! You're articulate wit has me in stitches 😁

Dress him in whatever you want, parents choose their child's attire and some more than others treat their child as a living doll.

If I saw you and your baby I would probably ask how old she was because of conventional norms which equally would paint me as a moron if I asked whether the baby was a boy or girl while wearing a dress.

Part of me would think you were bonkers while another part would think what does it matter.

I do however agree with PPs that you would be ill advised to take any photographs and especially not to allow anyone to post them on social media as once your DS reaches school age some of your "friends" may have found the whole thing quite amusing and choose to show their DCs how you dressed your DS, my Facebook constantly reminds me of pictures I posted years ago. You may find it gets picked up on in years to come and becomes something to bully him with.