To not want royal wedding fever forced on my DC

[rosybell]

So my DD is in reception. They are having a royal wedding party at school today. Whilst I think this is fine I hate that they have been told to bring clothes to change into- a dress or a shirt (this is what the info given to parents said). Of course most girls have taken princess dresses. I have now seen photos from the party showing the children in boy girl pairs walking down an red carpet 'aisle'

I'm all for imaginative play but some of these kids looked bewildered. AIBU to complain to the school? There is something that really doesn't feel right about it - maybe because it seems like it more for the adults than the kids let alone all the princess pressure the girls must feel.

I was bewildered by the OP but at Haribo actually making a complaint about the same thing!!

HariboIsMyCrack are you on glue?
Men are free to wear a meringue if they wish, but funnilly enough most are not that keen.
So many examples, but the lovely Portia de Rossi wore a beautiful wedding dress to her wedding with Ellen, so your reinforcement of gender role nonsense is clearly all in your head

What MrsTerryPratchett said. If you’re going to take umbridge, at least do it with some substance OP.

I do quite wish I had married a prince on a regular basis however....

Princess pressure, love it. At least it's not Sats pressure. YABU and need to be a bit less invested.

You will look like a ranty moany complain-about-fuckall whinge bag if you do moan about it.

It will be over in a day or so. Get over it. The kids are probably enjoying it!

Meh. I wouldn’t care. We had a party to celebrate Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson when I was my daughter’s age. I remember it being quite fun. I don’t remember it giving me firm ideas about marriage and what it ‘should’ be or anything else.

ffs

Kids dressing up and having fun at a party. Those dam schools are torturing our children, they should be reciting their 12 times tables.

I wouldn't be thrilled, either. Heteronormative, reinforcing of gender roles, suggesting that we should celebrate these fucking parasites...

But (particularly at primary age) I wouldn't have complained, would have allowed DS to choose for himself if he wanted to dress up or not, etc.

In fact, for the last one, I took him to a 'street party' near a friend's house, that didn't sound too excessively flag-wavy. He was 6 then and too young to be told that 'everyone else' could have a party but we couldn't. It would have been a nice day except he fell over, cracked his head open and we spent the rest of the afternoon in A&E.

Not in the least unreasonable. I pulled my six year old out of some equivalent nonsense at his school today for pretty much exactly the reasons MrsTerryPratchett lists.

Oh, fgs, yabu

mrsterry you are exactly correct but much of the damage in that sense has been done by the Cinderella Disney fixation with marrying a handsome prince, living happily ever after, beauty being enough to make said handsome prince fall madly in love with you/ waiting for handsome prince to rescue you narrative that is constantly pressed on little girls than an occasional party for quite a rare event. If they've bought a princess dress they (and their parents) are already buying into that narrative.

When parents make you want to shoot yourself...

I'm a reception teacher myself and this is a soul destroying post. HOURS of preparation per day go into this you know.

The kids loved it, I bet. You'll just be that whingeing parent who put a dampener on the next fun thing they might risk.

Like many schools we've also had pirate day and Viking day. I don't think they're actually endorsing either of those as career choices.

Teachers can't win.

We're not doing anything for the Royal Wedding tomorrow and we're not stopping lessons for the children to watch it (we have Saturday school).

Some parents have complained that we should be celebrating it.

If there's going to be complaints either way, what are schools supposed to do?

Mummy Megan looks like me thAt means I can marry a price to

She actually said that? Word for word?

@raisedbyguineapigs so true. Which is why I pushed Studio Ghibli like it was crack, not subtlety asking every time we watched anything, "huh, why aren't the girls flying the plane/having an adventure/saving the day? I bet you would" and going on about how strong, brave, funny, kind and clever she is instead of how pretty.

She's going to be a total PITA in later life.

only on mumsnet!!

in our area the reception age agreed syllabus for RE includes something about celebrations and always looks at how different cultures celebrate birth and marriage and other life events. this year they hung the wedding bit on the royal wedding and I guess a lot of schools have done the same.

Yes you should complain. I think it's awful that they're 'forcing' children to have a bit of fun at school. Our local school even decorated the playground and had a cream tea for the kids. Absolute fuckers.

Took the words right out of my mouth Yorkie. I’m a Y2 teacher and we’ve had a “street”/playground party today. It’s the end of SATs and it was lovely for them to enjoy sandwiches and scones, and learn the waltz, and make wedding cards. We discussed different types of families and why some people choose to get married and some don’t - so please don’t just assume that we’re enforcing the idea of marriage on them!

It really does depend how it's done, and what the school cohort is generally like. There will be schools where it is just a bit of a party and a bit of fun for the DC, but there might well also be schools where the know-your-place/gammon values stuff is pushed a bit too hard, and it's not unreasonable to be concerned if royal-worship or 'patriotism' or little-England guff are uncomfortable for you - or your DC.