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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To put my son in girl's clothes?

194 replies

Embarassed123 · 22/04/2018 07:57

I'm a SAHM to DS who is 4 months old. He was an unplanned but very wanted addition to the family. We also have an older DD who is 3.

Finances are pretty tight at the moment, as although we did eventually plan to have 2 children, we weren't expecting to quite this soon! So far, I've been dressing DS in white babygros, but it's looking like he'll need new clothes soon.

I have all of DD's clothes from when she was a baby, and I was wondering if it would be mean to put DS in them? They are perfectly good clothes (no dresses as I find them impractical on small children, but loads of flowery tops and some trousers.

WIBU to put DS in some of the least offending outfits instead of spending money I don't have buying him a whole new wardrobe? I know random strangers would assume he's a girl, but in that case I could just roll with it.
Honest answers please, I need to know if I'm being mean even considering it.....

OP posts:
DancingHipposOnAcid · 22/04/2018 11:20

Boxsets - what???

This isn't about how much money people have, it's about the utter WASTE of not reusing perfectly good baby clothes because of rigid ideas about gender.

My DD was still a girl when I dressed her in blue trousers. Now as a beautiful 19 year old she has no issues over being a girl. The flowery pyjamas didn't permanently scar DS either Confused

And just for the record, I had plenty of money to buy new clothes for DS, but the planet can do without the unnecessary production of yet more new clothes when I had a big stock of perfectly fine, hardly used baby clothes in the cupboard!

Thespringsthething · 22/04/2018 11:24

If you go into council estates/more disadvantaged areas, most people dress their children in clothes matching their sex. They just do and often take a lot of pride in their children's appearance (with a few exceptions). People who haven't got much money swap clothes, buy cheap or make do but they don't dress boys in princess dresses or pink dungarees, that's a middle-class occupation!

TheQuestingVole · 22/04/2018 11:25

Of course it's fine to do that. Why on earth wouldn't it be?

DancingHipposOnAcid · 22/04/2018 11:27

Why the obsession with pink for girls and blue for boys? Never understood it, can't we all just choose the colours we like without linking them to genitals?

ICantCopeAnymore · 22/04/2018 11:31

If you go into council estates/more disadvantaged areas, most people dress their children in clothes matching their sex

I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've read on Mumsnet. Ever.

Do you know everyone who lives on a council estate then? Where are your statistics to show that most people who do, dress their children like this?

I'm a teacher. I live on a council estate. I don't do this.

BossWitch · 22/04/2018 11:32

Err... I take pride in my child's appearance! But I take pride in not dressing her like a miniature version of a slapper on a night out. I am proud that none of her clothes are impractical or uncomfortable. Or have stupid ruffles or slogans that reinforce the idea she should be focusing on smiling or looking pretty instead of playing and getting mucky.

I don't give a shit about it being a middle class marker. I'm not telling my kids that at the age of 3 they have to look a certain way because they have this bit between their legs instead of that bit. Because that is the only fucking difference between prepubescent boys and girls and it doesn't fucking matter.

Thespringsthething · 22/04/2018 11:39

If you go into council estates/more disadvantaged areas, most people dress their children in clothes matching their sex

Why is this ridiculous? I didn't say you did, I said that there are differences in how people perceive second-hand clothes, wearing hand me downs, and dressing appropriate to gender that are related to class and not necessarily to economics. You are a teacher, a middle-class/higher SES professional, and you are fine with it. I live in the middle of such an estate and I know that a lot of people who have very little money nevertheless take a lot of pride in dressing their children in certain ways and that includes consonant with their sex. You are ridiculous for pretending not to notice that dress/material goods are class markers.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 22/04/2018 11:43

Of course,pink was previously considered a male colour
This notion pink for girls is a relatively new phenomenon

C8H10N4O2 · 22/04/2018 12:00

It would be a shame for him to look back on his baby photos and see himself in girly clothes

Seriously? You know men who spend time looking at their baby pictures and worrying about them?

That has to be the funniest thing I've read all week. I'd have to lock my adult children up (of either sex) to get them to look at baby pictures.

C8H10N4O2 · 22/04/2018 12:02

OP: Use the clothes you have.

I used a lot of the same clothes for all mine - just a job lot of clothes with patterns, flowers, dinosaurs or plains. None of them have grown up scarred or traumatised by wearing an item of the 'wrong' colour or pattern.

blackteasplease · 22/04/2018 12:08

If people didn't carry on like this about babies' clothes May be they wouldn't get in such a tizz about adults' clothes and realise women can wear "masculine" or sensible clothing and men could wear dresses without it in any way changing what sex or gender they are.

And yes I know the big debate isn't just about clothing.

ivenoideawhatimdoing · 22/04/2018 12:11

Absolutely not an issue.

Personally I would keep the least girly bits like colourful trousers and things but would sell the rest on Ebay and look for bundles.

I bought DS a summer bundle the other week with 5 t-shirts, 2 shorts a shirt and a hoodie for £8. If you shop around, there really are some amazing deals.

ICantCopeAnymore · 22/04/2018 12:15

You really have to ask why a comment about people who live on council estates was ridiculous.

Some of the deprived children I teach are the ones wearing Boden because you can pick it up for pennies on Ebay. Some of them wear Primark.
I found when I taught in a private school that a lot of the children there would wear George/H&M and other cheaper High Street brands on trips away and own clothes days. Some of them wear Boden and labels.
Steiner school parents seem to care even less with lots of children in second hand charity shop clothes as they tend to get covered in mud.

Are you saying then, that all children with expensive clothes or labels are from Council estates as their parents have more pride in what they wear? How utterly bizarre. There are all walks of life on those dreaded Council Estates and all have their own tastes in clothes, budgets and ideas.

OhHolyJesus · 22/04/2018 12:18

I buy 'girly' clothes for DS as he likes bunnies and kittens Smile

MumofBoysx2 · 22/04/2018 12:19

I wouldn't, mainly because my kids like looking back on their baby clothes and if they had been wearing girls clothes they wouldn't be very happy seeing them! Also, imagine the repercussions if any of the photos made their way onto social media! There could be a few embarrassing pics at his 18th birthday party! As someone else suggested, why not put feelers out as there is probably someone out there like you stuck with boys clothes for a girl (on here perhaps?)

MumofBoysx2 · 22/04/2018 12:19

Like looking back on their baby photos, I mean!

Namechangemum100 · 22/04/2018 12:22

Totally fine! My ds is only a week old, and his sister is 14 months, he will be wearing all of her baby Gros. He doesn't care, he's dressed, warm, and cared for...having a couple of flowers on his baby Gros doesn't make one bit of difference to him or I.

zzzzz · 22/04/2018 12:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ErrolTheDragon · 22/04/2018 12:28

It used to be the norm for boys to wear frocks - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys).

Devonishome1 · 22/04/2018 12:37

It’s completely fine to do that. The baby isn’t going to care. It doesn’t matter what other people think.

jamoncrumpets · 22/04/2018 12:43

Thesprings middle class people don't dress boys in dresses, they just don't buy heavily gendered clothing in the first place. Middle class boys wear trousers. So do middle class girls.

blackteasplease · 22/04/2018 13:21

jamon I think that's true.

Oblomov18 · 22/04/2018 13:25

I wouldn't. Surely you can get some cheap clothes from an eBay bundle, charity shop or car boot sale?

velourvoyageur · 22/04/2018 13:25

Talk about wrapping kids in cotton wool. People seem to be absolutely terrified of feeling embarrassed! Is it really a disaster if kids 'aren't very happy' for a few minutes while looking at their photos - they don't have to be unhappy if they're open minded, anyway, in that situation being unhappy would be a choice. Why are we encouraging kids to grow up with these enormous egos that can't withstand a bit of good-natured banter? And you wonder why many millennials are so passive and anxious. We're encouraged to construct these perfect social personas which of course are going to take a battering if we at all engage in the real world, because no one can perfectly fit gender's very narrow constraints unless they keep totally immobile and suppress any spontaneous personal instinct - so to avoid creating a situation where kids and their parents are afraid to do anything that might risk exposing the bits of their personalities as gender non-conformist, surely the best approach would be to just be done with gender, get rid of it, and start with stopping attaching these ridiculous girl/boy labels to clothes...

BossWitch · 22/04/2018 13:30

Indeed jamon. It's fairly obvious just from looking at the kids sections of cheap shops like asda vs more expensive shops. Asda et al are rife with glittery shit, boy=monster, girls are all things sweet and edible, etc. Which pisses me off because I don't want to spend a load of money on clothes that will be worn a few times (baby) or for a few months (toddler). So I scour cheap shops for their least idiotically gendered clothes, and try to pick up some more expensive brands second hand.

I would love to be able to afford to buy from the Icelandic kids clothes companies, but I can't/won't stretch to it!