to wish that the mother of this child would sit down and do something less noisy and dangerous?

[Iris65]

P is lucky enough to have a performance parent for a mother. They are currently running up and down in the cafe chasing each other, screaming and tickling when caught while she narrates everything at a shout. P also has a dairy sensitivity, gluten sensitivity, peanut allergy, and is vegan. This caused some difficulty when choosing a snack but we are all now fully informed about the hazards and the ethics of choosing a snack in a well known coffee house chain.
P is also gender neutral which we heard all about when a passing elderly women commented on 'her lovely curly hair.' The elderly woman needed a sit down and a cup of tea afterwards while being patted on the arm by sympathetic bystanders.
My heart goes out to whichever poor soul will meet P and Mummy when they go back to school. If they are not homeschooled that is and we can only hope that is the case because there is no doubt they will need one to one attention.
Purple haired parent just glared at me from under her bandana after I glanced up when exploring, running child bumped into my table. Was she 'triggered' by my patriarchal expectations of drinking my coffe undisturbed or was their yin ynaged by my negativity?

My daughter didn't grow hair until she was 4 and I didn't put her in dresses unless it was a special occasion or very hot. When old ladies told me I had a handsome boy I just accepted it.

Slightly off on a tangent here, but I wonder what the linguistic warriors on this thread would have to say about the fact that the word "woman" comes from Old English wifmann which was, erm, grammaticaly male? (Child was of course neuter and so was maiden, similarly to the German das Mädchen)

Yeah but there's gender neutral in terms of providing a variety of choices of clothes and toys and there's gender neutral in terms of refusing to acknowledge that your child has a sex and that there is sexism.

For example; it's shit that toys and interests and clothes and all manner of things are gendered but you can't pretend that your children will only learn things about the world and how it actually is from you. So, if you take it to the extreme (and some of it would more accurately be called 'sex neutral parenting, many following the fad are confused about what the difference between sex and gender is IMO) teaching them that they don't have a sex rather than that they have a sex and that sexism exists and that many people will make assumptions about who they are based on their sex is bad parenting IMO as it doesn't give children any skills at all for negotiating the world outside the home.

I dressed my little ones in boy and girl clothes in order to save embarrassment of other people getting their gender wrong. People often thought my boys were girls because they had longish hair and my DTD was a boy because she didn't have hair for a while when they were toddlers anyway and they would get upset and to an extent this is a normal developmental stage anyway and not about sexism.

But I have always taught them about sexism (and racism and homophobia etc). What it is, what kinds of 'rules of gender' people might apply to them, common sexist attitudes, how to deal with it etc because actually we can't pretend sexism doesn't actually exist and they need to know how to negotiate the world around them. That is the whole point of raising children IMO, to equip them with life skills.

My kids have all had phases where they conformed to gender stereotyping (around 3-4) but I believe this was more to do with their emotional development and about discovering life outside themselves and learning to socialise in group contexts (where they first experience sexism in their everyday lives and learn about gender conformity and also want to fit in).

But now at 7 my twins are telling kids off for being sexist in school... the other kids clearly don't even know what the word means!

And kids are inquisitive... they want to know why some people have willies and some don't, what willies and vaginas are for, what boobs are, what they are for, how babies are made etc etc. If you refuse to even acknowledge a child is a he/she/boy/girl how do you even begin answering those questions?

So yeah, this 'gender neutral parenting' has become as annoying as 'attachment parenting' was a couple of years ago. Not because the spirit of it is annoying but because it has become this weird exaggerated 'movement' thing where people do 'methods' without ever really thinking about it. In reality obviously not applying gender stereotypes to your own kids and being a responsive parent is good but these movements of people who don't know why they are doing what they are doing are just weird.

Who cares
Just focus on your own life

@MadMags They had to choose from the shop's display. I'm sure they had left the mason jar of Kombucha (sweetened with local honey) and the freeze dried kale, almond, roasted strawberries and quinoa mix at home when precious offspring spotted an insect that necessitated a long discussion about the right of every animal to life.

you need to write a blog being one of these mummies. I'd read it!

I fail to give a flying fuck how other people parent. As long as they aren't actually hurting them or neglecting them. No need to be rude to the old lady I agree (if it happened). This whole performance parenting judgmental bollocks that mn has got going on is a bit shit really, just another way to put parents (mainly mothers) down.

sweetened with local honey

She needs reporting to the Vegan Police for that!

Yes, noproblem is right, vegans don't usually eat honey

Oh dear. Guess I have a karma demerit for suggesting that vegans eat honey. You'd think I would know that after the vegan breastfeeding discussion

Clearly I am only a step away from being like The Royale families Nana: "Can she have wafer thin ham Barbra?" God bless her blue rinse,

*family's

@ Nana from the RF - classic!

I don't care if the parents have pink/purple/blue hair, and can wear what the hell they like but what I do object to is having someone else's child racing around (usually squealing) or the parent playing/reading out loud so everyone else can hear when I want to enjoy my coffee (& usually cake) in relative peace and quiet. I've done my time of child friendly watering holes with play area etc and now my grown up child and I want a grown up drink in a "grown up" space that's not home. Oh and both my kids played with cars/dolls/dressed up as firefighters, fairies, builders, princesses and one of them is gay and I've been told it's because I let them play with "toys not meant for them"!!!

"you do know this event is being filmed and you're showing your pants?" 😂