Was I BU telling a woman not to speak to my son?

[Spinoni]

I realise I might be. But in the moment I was so annoyed.

In Sainsbury’s with DD 8 months and DS4
Son wants to go down toy isle- we don’t often to to Sainsburys so he was overly excited. As all 4 year olds are while looking for toys!

Go to the isle, he is looking and I noticed the ‘ boy ‘ toys were down the next isle.
By boy toys I mean toys I know he likes toys he has toys he’s into and toys that are quite frankly marketed at boys.
Me - ‘ ooo look DS name the boys toys are over here ‘
Interfering woman down isle to my son - ‘ you know you can play with whatever you want let your mummy know that ‘

FIRSTLY I was annoyed that I’m not ‘ forcing ‘ him to ‘ boys ‘ toys. It’s stuff I know he wants.
SECONDLY why even say anything?

The thing I massively regret is saying anything.
I said pardon?
And she replied ‘ Sorry it was just the way you said boys toys - when he can play with whatever he wants he shouldn’t be told their just for boys ‘

I replied probably not too politely telling her to mind her own business and I’ll parent how I want to and walked away.
And I could then hear her and another customer talking about me saying how rude I was ?
Was I BU?
I feel mortified I just was angry that something I said was interpreted as me forcing my son into something it’s ridiculous

wereare yes it has. I don't want my children brought up in a world where its OK to say some toys are boy's and some are girls. Call it out I say.

csleep your parents didn't fail to teach you 'how to be a young woman'. That's really deoresdubg that that's what you be taken from being bullied for not conforming as a child.

Sainsbury's toy aisle isn't too bad. Asda, on the other hand...

Depressing!

lolasmiles that's not what I meant or said at all. I was always myself, I wanted to wear make up but I didn't know about it, I was never introduced to it. I wasn't allowed to be girly. Sometimes it goes the other way.

I didn't need to be bullied all that time and I was too young and miserable to stand up to bullies. Expecting all kids to grow up fighting bullies is BS. Don't know where you went to school but it was obviously a lot nicer than me.

And make up doesn't stop you following your passion. Get with the real world.

Csleep you also criticize your parents for imposing their agenda on you - why is that worse that the bullies imposing their agenda on you?

"Whether it was a poor choice of words or not, it's got nothing to do with a random woman in the supermarket."

I can't imagine the thinking behind this. If someone witnesses something sexist/racist/homophobia/violence etc, is it nothing to do with them as just a random person, and they should turn a blind eye?

No wonder women get so much shit in public and you see people just ignoring it. It's really fucking sad to think like that, sadder that people just think "well it's nothing to do with me" which is less understandable to me than "I'm scared to say anything"

This is how it starts. Someone promotes a sexist stereotype but it's nothing to do with me - it has everything to do with us!

A woman being sexist in a supermarket - don't say anything. A man being homophobic on a train - don't say anything. A colleague being racist - don't say anything.

Well fuck that.

Oh FFS lolasmiles teaching your kid how to put on makeup and dress girly gives them the option to fit in or do their own thing or anything in between. I'm sure you would agree that conforming to the patriarchy's standards of feminine beauty is a job in itself, it doesn't come naturally, so if you don't get taught it, you can't do it. What sort of rebellion, what sort of choosing your own path is that? We're back at vegan dogs again.

Csleep you also criticize your parents for imposing their agenda on you - why is that worse that the bullies imposing their agenda on you

Because her parents were meant to look after her?

Look, do I want my kids living in a world where there is social pressure to limit yourself to a narrow range of behaviour based on your sex? No, I most certainly don't. But that doesn't mean that my children are obliged to go into school like little gender warriors as if that was going to overthrow the patriarchy when none of us adults have managed it yet. They inherit a flawed world from us. We have to equip them to navigate it as best they can. And that includes teaching us what we need to know to be able to choose how we present to the world.

I worked in a highly technical stem field as a woman, and essentially had my career ruined by male colleges' subconscious bias against me. Tbh, I find it insulting and patronising that people blame parenting for this, as if women somehow don't know we can go into stem. The real issue is the lack of support when we get there. This attitude normally comes from people with no experience in the field, who blithely assume that their woke parenting methods will solve these issues that they have absolutely no understanding of! I had I guess fairly girly toys, but neutralish ones too - no skaletric not that much Lego, so not as neutral as advocated on this thread. None of this affected my ability to achieve highly - I have a first class stem degree from a russel group uni. However I wasn't given the right opportunities to develop my skills during my job and was bullied. We really need to look at the behaviour of adult men in the workplace, not act like parents and children are stupid, and all they need to do is realise that girls can do stem!

cassian bullies agendas are to make someone feel like crap so they look cool in front of their friends. They don't care what the subject is. I was an easy target. So it's not comparable. They missed part of their job teaching me, and I'm sure I'll miss something for my children too as parenting isn't easy. My point is simple, we should make life as Easy as possible for kids and give them all the information and teaching and then let them make their choices.

Teaching a boy wearing a skirt is ok isn't fair as he will get bullied. It's not about whether people think that is right or wrong it's a fact of life and it's our job to say....You can do this but you will have a hard time if you do. Informed choice I believe it's called. I never got the message that if I didn't dress differently or try make up I would get bullied. I'd rather have conformed and enjoyed my time. I ended up wearing it later and skirts etc too and now I love dressing up. It didn't change the end game it just made it bloody hard to get there.

Csleeptime
My parents didn't teach me how to use makeup. It was a battle being able to shave my legs with my mother which is a whole other issue.
I spent my allowance on make up. Experimented with friends. Looks frankly ridicous in the silvery blue creamy eye shadow of the day (I would imagine today's kids will look back on the felt pen eyebrows with similar fondness and horror). We read magazines and so on, followed the tutorial pages badly.

There is a middle ground between refusing any feminine coverage at all with girls and then giving into the wants of bullies which tells your child that if you change how you dress then that's the way to get by in life.

toomuchtooold
I don't believe any parent should be saying to their kid they have to fit in or when a child feels pressure to conform saying "oh ok so we'll mould you to fit".

There's so many influences on kids. There's so much marketing on their appearance and flaws and so on. Is it really that bad for parents to say "you know what, you don't have to cover your face in a layer of slap to avoid being bullied"?

Personally I like the approach of our sensible students who wear light foundation or tinted moisturiser, mascara and a little blush. Very little make up and you can't really tell they have any on.

The number of teens wearing full faces of slap has gone down in recent years round my area. I wonder if that's because there's been some movements to highlight fakery and also y10/11 students are much more socially aware than 5 years ago.

I worked in a highly technical stem field as a woman, and essentially had my career ruined by male colleges' subconscious bias against me. Tbh, I find it insulting and patronising that people blame parenting for this, as if women somehow don't know we can go into stem
Actually all the studies I've seen looking at female underrepresentation suggest that it's fairly complex.
There socialisation from childhood, stereotypes that boys and girls are conditioned into (for example how often are boys made leaders in school groups? How often to boys learn to hog conversation? - that's relevant because they grow up to be men who dominate conversation and men who hog the limelight because they're men and they're important).

There's media representations of STEM and leadership (also works in sectors where men are under represented such as early years).

There's social attitudes towards what men and women will do. This is started from childhood and then feeds up into the workplace where certain areas become male dominated with a narrow type of men, who take that as reinforcement that they are naturally best, create a culture that is shared with other men like them and it becomes a nightmare for women and outsiders to be part of it.

The cocky, dominant, unsupportive men didn't become cocky, dominant and unsupportive men overnight. They've had their whole lives telling them they're great, this is the career for men, this is a man's world, they see more men at work and create a man's culture (all around one very narrow view of masculinity).

It's a long complicated process, but sometimes people have to start questioning things and trying to bring change. Maybe starting with there are many ways to be a boy and a girl and we'll do our best to give you as many options as possible because social norms and stereotypes are quite powerful is a reasonable place to start.

Just look at this thread. There are people who seriously believe boys are hardwired from birth to like boy toys.

It can go too much the other way too though.
It will get to a point where people feel awkward about buying their son/ daughter stereotypical toys even if the child has selected that toy.

Never read so much tosh in my life as I have in this thread!

Nothing wrong with saying boys/girls toys.

I'd have told her to write her opinion on a piece of paper and shove it up her arse!

certain areas become male dominated with a narrow type of men, who take that as reinforcement that they are naturally best, create a culture that is shared with other men like them and it becomes a nightmare for women and outsiders to be part of it.

I couldn't agree more

However, it's easy to go round criticising women and children in the supermarket - I'm sure people are less likely to challenge men in public! It's really the behaviour of powerful men which is the problem. I feel the op was picked on unnecessarily.

Mayagoldchoc I feel exactly the same way. Blue over sodding pink. I used to work as a process development chemist. I'm butch as all hell, made sod all difference because my industry thinks it's cool to relocate and fire staff on the slightest whim. It has a massively disproportionate effect on women with families or planning families because they need a bit of job security to get past the maternity period, and then after that they're more likely to be part time and worse paid than their dad colleagues. Every time there was a round of redundancy or relocation what you would see is that the dads did whatever they had to to get a similar job, whether that meant moving abroad or whatever, and the women either left the industry or a very few of them either commuted or moved their kids with them. In my entire career I knew of one bloke who ended up a trailing spouse. When there's job insecurity, lower wages, part time work, a history of doing more childcare and societal expectations almost always result in the woman's career taking the hit. But we're still cursed with panels of women scientists who got lucky, scratching their heads over what could possibly be causing the leaky pipe and being fucking mentors. What good was a mentor to me when my husband (who'd made riskier career choices that paid off while I was trying to accrue some service against needing mat leave, and was earning three times what I did) got made redundant and couldn't find a job in the UK? I mean maybe if she'd been able to flap her fucking wings and fly me from Basel to London every morning...

lolasmiles

I don't believe any parent should be saying to their kid they have to fit in or when a child feels pressure to conform saying "oh ok so we'll mould you to fit

That's not what csmiles was asking her parents to do though, she was asking them to teach her what you need to do in order to conform.

Is it really that bad for parents to say "you know what, you don't have to cover your face in a layer of slap to avoid being bullied

No of course there's nothing wrong with that but equally I think as a parent you should respect the fact that your kid has to negotiate quite a complex social environment in school - one they can't get away from, it's not like finding a new job - and if they choose to do that by trying to fit in, there's a point where you should just accept that as a parent and keep your opinions to yourself. Otherwise you just become another source of social pressure.

toomuchtooold

Agreed - relocation, redundancies, short term contracts etc are a massive issue in science, also disproportionately affecting women.

"I think I do believe in boys and girls toys though.
Generally my son likes completely different things to his female friends"

Those two things are quite possibly causally related.

She was BU to interfere, you were BU in your rude and rather old-fashioned reply.

@Lilyannarose

Of course it won't go the other way, why would it? There's nothing wrong with them choosing those toys, just no no need whatsoever to teach a boy that those toys are only meant for boys, as if there aren't enough problems with boys being raised to dominate certain spaces and conversations. By suggesting to a child that a toy geared up towards fun, science or engineering is meant for a boy, you imply it is not meant for a girl and therefore that those things are not qualities girls possess.

I find it extremely depressing seeing young girls internalise beliefs like that boys are smarter, especially given that most evidence suggests that girls develop faster academically and it levels out later on, so where on Earth are they getting that impression from? It's either from boys telling them that's the case, or from outside influences like toys and T-shirt slogans about science etc being marketed towards boys, and pretty things being marketed towards girls.

It's equally depressing the other way - there was a brilliant documentary on the BBC that explored the fact that there's no inherent difference in young children's ability to empathise, yet this trait is widely associated with girls and many believe boys just aren't wired that way. So young boys are either not being encouraged to play with the kind of toys that encourage this (more nurturing toys like dolls) or are being actively discouraged from doing so.

I would absolutely hate to think that I had raised a boy to think girls aren't cool enough to play with the things they do (which is what they seem to take from the segregation at that young age) and not hold him to the same standards in terms of being kind and caring for others as I would a girl, or that I'd raised a girl to think boys were smarter or more adventurous than they were.

There's just absolutely no need for it.

Mayagoldchoc
The woman in the supermarket was rude in my opinion.
I do think all adults, men and women, have a responsibility towards kids to be consciously aware of how deep these stereotypes are woven through society.

I remember being in school and it was considered ok to say 'stop being gay' to mean stop being soft. I remember nobody batting an eyelid. But thankfully times move on.
I still hear 'man up', 'dont be a girl' towards boys as if being emotionally intelligent is a negative trait to have, that being suitably cautious is a negative trait to have. Interestingly both are linked to the idea than "men are strong and women are weak".
If we then think about how these attitude can be conveyed from early play then it's no surprise we have teens who say "man up".
It troubles me that using the tiniest bit of critical thinking is equated with being professional offended by some.

toomuchtooold
But parents aren't really the source of what being cool is for teenagers. For a start, I work in a school and what's cool varies as the wind changes. Some trends are there in teen magazines and increasingly social media but the vast majority of our parents we work with openly can't fathom teen culture (and some months neither can I).

I think more can be said for talking to children about the trends and fads rather than expecting parents to teach them how to fit in. Otherwise it's "everyone else is doing..." And that's just accepted. Having established the issue then do something with it.
E.g.
Child:Can we go shopping for make up? All the other girls are wearing it.
Parent: other than everyone else why do YOU want to wear make up? Is there something in particular that's bothering you that makes you want to start wearing make up?
Child & parent discuss
Outcome: parent and child go to buy a few products that help the child feel confident as part of a general message that you don't need loads of makeup or to look like everyone else
That's much better than the parent teaching their teen contouring just because a dozen girls look like a colour by numbers book.

The longer I work with teens, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that "everyone else is..." simply isn't true.

Woman was an interfering and judgmental busybody.

I'm always speaking out against discrimination based on grounds of sex, but YANBU. Self-appointed "talk police" are extremely irritating. And its not women with children with a million and other things to do caught in an off moment we need to target. And I suspect the woman in the shop is all too reticent to correct men in their sex-based assumptions.

Csleep, you can spend your life being angry at your parents over make up, or you can work out why you didn't take action yourself like everyone else did. Parents can't anticipate every single possibility, you have to take some responsibility yourself.

Also, if there was actually a sign saying "boys' toys" then I can see myself reading it out purely because I lack verbal fluency and I might just blurt it out in that situation because it's on the sign and I'd be distracted dealing with children. My vocab is fine in writing but I'm just not good at thinking on the spot. It wouldn't reflect how I feel though. Equally, an observer seeing me in 'mum' mode is highly unlikely to think I might have stem degrees, and might jump to the interpretation that makes me seem ignorant etc, when I could just have been distracted in that moment. I'm assuming the people judging the op must have much better verbal communication skills than me and always say exactly what they mean?