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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU - Nursery

331 replies

sk505 · 29/08/2017 18:36

My daughter is 16months and goes to nursery twice a week.
In our religion, girls' nappies are not changed by boys and girls must be dressed with dignity. nursery are aware of this.
Today, I went to fetch her and she was running around in just a nappy. No clothes at all. This was extremely upsetting as I know male members of staff walk through and around the nursery. I'm not making any personal comments or any judgements, but it is against our religion. It transpires that her clothes were all clean. Her spare clothes were available and she has been well behaved. No one knows why she was without clothes for over an hour.
AIBU to cause a storm over this,?

OP posts:
NotIdiotProof · 30/08/2017 06:35

OP is free to be modest all she wants. She isn't and shouldn't be free to impose misogyny on her child.

Many women would choose FGM for their children because they feel that is best for them, is that ok with you too because it is all on the same spectrum.

Notreallyarsed · 30/08/2017 06:43

Not I've repeatedly said as long as it causes no harm, you're being deliberately obtuse. Covering a baby's torso and upper legs cannot be compared to a gross assault which does cause enormous physical and mental harm. It's an utterly ridiculous comparison, and frankly proof that you have no other arguments. What gives you the right to decide how someone else dresses their child? Why are your beliefs so much more valid than anyone else's? They're not, is the answer. So you can compare me to white supremacists and supporters of FGM all you like, you're talking shite and you know it. How a parent dresses their child is none of your business as long as they are well cared for, fed and clean.
There is no reason to be offensive or rude when disagreeing with someone, or to belittle them and tell them they're ridiculous. To then dress that up as liberalism is utterly hilarious.
You disagree with OP, fine. Nobody said we all had to agree. But comparing someone who defends freedom to practice a peaceful faith to white supremacy and FGM is beyond ridiculous, and extremely offensive. You don't combat misogyny by attacking women, you combat misogyny by defending freedom of choice for women AS LONG AS IT DOES NO HARM, whether you agree with those choices or not.
I put it in capitals since you conveniently seem to have missed it in all my previous posts, along with the one about discrimination against male gynae doctors

NotIdiotProof · 30/08/2017 06:46

To then dress that up as liberalism is utterly hilarious

Sorry where have I done that?

You say this causes no harm. I disagree. Coming from this sort of background myself, I think this sort of mentality causes major harm.

So no, I'm not "talking shite" and no I don't "know it".

Notreallyarsed · 30/08/2017 07:04

How does how you dress your child cause harm? On here there are always threads about being gender neutral, parents determined their kids won't wear pink/blue/ have long/short hair. How is this different?

NotIdiotProof · 30/08/2017 07:06

It isn't different notreally, but this isn't a thread about that.

How you dress might seem quite trivial and indeed in isolation it is, but in this case and many others it's symptomatic of a general attitude of misogyny that is extremely harmful.

People have the right to believe what they want. That's a perk of living in a democratic society. One of the other perks is that people are free to critique such beliefs. Thank goodness, or I would still be living the nightmare I was raised in.

JassyRadlett · 30/08/2017 07:22

How does how you dress your child cause harm?

It doesn't, in isolation. The same as there is nothing inherently wrong with the colour pink.

However the beliefs that sit behind the 'rules' or choices (whether it is telling boys that pink is only for girls, and colour coding all the traditionally 'female' toys in pink, or deciding that a baby must be 'modest' and covered up) can be harmful.

My view of this thread is that however distasteful and harmfully misogynistic the OP's religion appears to me based on the information she has provided, the nursery agreed to go along with it and therefore needs to explain to her why it didn't. I don't think she should kick up a 'storm', and I think the nursery was probably BU to accept her child in the first place with the restrictions she has described, but it did and it needs to respond to why it didn't meet OP's expectations.

I can think that at the same time as thinking (and saying) her expectations are thoroughly unreasonable.

goldensyrupisshit · 30/08/2017 07:25

Taking religion out of the equation,
I would be removing my child from this supposedly fantastic 1-1 private nursery who cannot tell me a) Why my child was undressed, b) Who undressed her, yet they can tell you she was undressed for an hour Hmm very fishy if you ask me. Now if you have issues with male members of staff and you are already paying extortionate fee ( imagine for a 1-1 nursery they'd be astronomical) why don't you just hire a nanny ?

Notreallyarsed · 30/08/2017 07:30

Critique is not the same as attacking, you can disagree firmly without resorting to ridicule or nastiness.

NotIdiotProof · 30/08/2017 07:39

Where have I been nasty or ridiculed?

notanotherNC · 30/08/2017 07:39

I wish people would stop pushing their crazy religious beliefs onto their tiny children. Let her be a baby!!! I hate people indoctrinating children into ANY faith. They are all as batshit as the each other. Can she not go swimming for example? Or play on the beach? Poor thing :(

Farahilda · 30/08/2017 07:54

If OP is not going to disclose the religion, we can't t really comment on it.

There are enough MNetters from enough different backgrounds, that I think we can be pretty secure in ruling out any of the major ones.

Places do have to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate protected characteristics, which include religious observance (which can take the form of attire)

If OP has a well-founded religious belief which the school has accepted as such, then this is a matter of discrimination. The school should have lived up to its undertakings. It should be prolifically apologetic,a md be setting systems to ensure that this cannot happen again, nor can any other breaches occur.

00100001 · 30/08/2017 08:00

What religion is the OP talking about? Confused

Tumbleweed101 · 30/08/2017 08:09

Our nursery will do what we can to accommodate parental requests. I'm guessing someone was working in the room who was unaware of the request in this instance. Sometimes if I cover a room at short notice I don't know all the requests so we have a handover sheet that we can refer to. Maybe that is something your nursery needs to have in place.

Nursery is a messy place and we often undress babies to nappies for painting and other messy play. If you don't want this for your daughter make sure you have plenty of spare clothes in her bag and are willing to let them get stained with paint etc. Did she have plenty of spare clothes? They may have taken them off simply because they knew her clothes would get mucky and there would be nothing to change in to?

Talk to the nursery and remind them. No need to make a complaint at this point. Also, in reality while they will do their best to comply with no male changing your daughter there may be times in a busy nursery the man is the only one available to deal with a wetting incident later on unless you'd want her distressed and waiting for a female to be free to help her.

wheredoesallthetimego · 30/08/2017 08:11

It's not going to be a proper religion is it - will be Scientology or JW or something like that.

Farahilda · 30/08/2017 08:16

"Did she have plenty of spare clothes?"

Yes, it says in the opening post that her clothes were clean and there were plenty of spares.

If a nursery accepts a protected characteristic (manifestation of a religion) it has to support it. Being busy is no more an excuse for that than it would be to feed a pork pie to a vegetarian child - actually, less so because being vegetarian (unless Buddhist) isn't covered by equalities laws.

tillytown · 30/08/2017 08:26

I used to know a Mormon family that had similar rules, their poor daughters weren't allowed to do anything without someone telling them they were disrespecting themselves or being inappropriate. They were very extreme.
Anyway, the nursery can't discriminate against their male staff members, so maybe get a nanny?

pp2017 · 30/08/2017 08:30

@Notreallyarsed
I'm honestly shocked at some of the responses people are posting to what was a simple case of a mother asking if she was being unreasonable to be upset that her nursery didn't follow her wishes 😳

@NotIdiotProof
This is not a "mummy forum"

Oh really? I must have misread the name of the site and the thread.......

HerRoyalFattyness · 30/08/2017 08:38

pp2017
It isn't a mummy forum.
It's for everyone, mum dad, step parent, grandparent, childless people (either through choice or not)
There's a whole range of people on here. Not all of them mummy's. So no it's not a mummy forum.
Even the name of the site doesn't claim to be a mummy forum. It's mumsnet. Not "mummy's-net"

AnnMeredithPerkins · 30/08/2017 08:43

Covering a baby's torso and upper legs cannot be compared to a gross assault which does cause enormous physical and mental harm.

What about the mental harm caused by the child growing up if she happens to show her upper legs or torso and then feels guilt about It, or god forbid she show me her upper legs (in shorts) and is assaulted and then blames herself because she was not modestly covered? Thats damage caused by this belief. We have all read about shame etc and it starts somewhere

However without knowing what the op religion is, and the more she refuses to say it's hard to comment sensibly. We can't say you're as mad as a box of frogs op as we might be offending her and her religion

But I to would like to know how you commute from Cambridgeshire to London for a nursery?

Barbie222 · 30/08/2017 08:49

Fair enough, if the nursery have agreed to the clothing request, no question they should honour it.

But it worries me that some people feel that's an end of the matter, because it clearly isn't as far as a majority here are concerned.

PancakesAteTheChildren · 30/08/2017 09:03

As far as I know, most religions were formed before the internet exosted. Therefore I struggle to understand how a religion can ban the use of it.

Except maybe the Amish who don't use technology at all.

mowgeli · 30/08/2017 09:05

Wheredoesallthetimego I know nothing about Scientology and very very little about jehovas witnesses despite coming from a background where my husband was raised as a JW and so were his siblings. My nieces dress more humbly then other girls sure, but I am fairly sure that it is applicable that they wear a t shirt and shorts at nursery. Your comment is rude and flippant.

mowgeli · 30/08/2017 09:07

And it doesn't matter if you're a Mum mummy Mumma mamma mom mommy mother father pappa daddy etc you know what they previous poster was trying to relay. That this is a place for support and comments like that really don't help do they??

M2R2 · 30/08/2017 09:53

Ladies chill.
First I don't see the link between the question op is asking and her religious (she is not asking if we agree with her way of raising her dd).
Second i wonder if the response would be the same if child was a boy. (Op did mention that rule is not only for girls)
I would be really 😤 if i ask nursery to do something and they ignore it.
And what make me really worried is that no one know why. Op mentioned its a 1:1 ratio so how on earth they missed her getting changed? Who did change her?
A full investigation is indeed needed and i wouldn't take my baby to this nursery again.

NotIdiotProof · 30/08/2017 09:59

Ladies chill.