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

I think some of the responses on here are way over the top.
If I hear the OP saying boys toys I don’t think I would have thought anything, but to be fair sexism is not something I’ve come across much. I’ve achieved everything I wanted and had all choices available to me. My 2 DDs have had the same and love typical girl stuff, make up etc and boys stuff and are into football, cricket, engineering and maths. I’ve never stereotyped but don’t get hot under the collar about it either.

I do have strong opinions about plastic waste and environment issues but wouldn’t extend that again to preaching to others. Would never point out the vegan aisle to someone buying chicken in a supermarket.

We do need strong people in society to voice issues with inequality, environment issues, sexism etc but the supermarket was not the best place.

Jux
Isn't that how most of us got through the teen years of dodgy eyeshadow/orange foundation/sun in highlights (delete as appropriate or add your teen trend nightmare here).

One of the department stores have just cancelled their back to school make up sessions. I can't even believe there are parents who will now take their children to back to school make up events. Knowing department store make up it's not your Rimmel type prices either. What sort of message does that send to their kids: yes you go to learn, but it's important to be stereotypically pretty at the same time.

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!

You don't think that teaching little boys that certain toys (that promote stem type brain development) are for boys, and others are for girls, has any bearing on this? Those boys grow up to be the men that don't support women in stem roles, isn't that obvious?!

Exactly @littlewriggler. Misogynists don't spring out of the ground fully formed at 18.

Lolasmiles PERMS! That was my dodgy teen trend nightmare! My dad put a stop to it by saying that he'd take me with them to Gibraltar for a holiday but only if I didn't have a perm, so when the awful thing fell out I just had it all cut off instead of having the perm redone. I wanted to go to Gibraltar more than I wanted to follow foolish fashion. That's a good way of dealing with it, imo.

LittleWriggler I am constantly bemused that people don't see that.

Misogynists don't spring out of the ground fully formed at 18.
It's so dashingly obvious and yet it still seems to pass people by.

See also 'boys will be boys' aka, I'm too lazy to apply an ounce of independent thinking and question the idea that boys are obviously going to be loud, dominate groupwork, tease the girls, rough play or be violent, like being the centre of attention. I might even dress them in stupid slogan tops about being a little monster and coo lovingly and laugh when my 3 year old is being badly behaved in a shop. And then after 15years of boys will be boys' I'll turn up in y11 parents' evening and ask the school what they're doing about the fact my boy is apathetic, lazy, more concerned with being a lad, doesn't listen, has been pulled up for making inappropriate remarks to girls (who obviously need to chill and learn how to take a joke).

Cassian
“Spider-Man is sexed for children from day 1 - it's for boys. Tinker Bell is for girls“

I think that’s essentially what the OP said!

I agree that toys/clothes etc don’t need to be one or the other, so who is imposing this idea? There are never alerts: “Girls look away now!” before a batman or toy car advert. Girls can be influenced by media to want that stuff too and vice versa for boys and Barbies. I’ve seen lost of ads with both sexes playing with the advertised toy in question. IME You can’t force a girl to play with a doll if they don’t want to. They will make their own mind up.

I was just making an observation that IME given a choice, boys overwhelmingly choose action type figures and girls choose princesses when there is a choice of several characters available, including those that would be considered more gender neutral. I’ve never said which “should” be for whom.

LolaSmiles

Your post is so depressingly accurate.

IceRebel
I read a brilliant teaching book earlier this year called Boys Don't Try and it's a teacher who unpicks some of the ways that society and parents and schools all contribute to socialising boys in a way that holds them back from their potential in some areas.
It's interesting because girls routinely outperform boys in formal education and then in the workplace from a set point onwards men overtake women and the gap never closes.

As my teens would say this sort of thing is only an issue because you old people make it so . There are still boys and girls toys in the way they are marketed and presented and I think that needs to change . Toy shops have huge pink girly sections and blue boyish sections . I’m sending op was not thinking when she made the comment being in a supermarket with 2 small kids .
I think the lady that commented shouldnt have spoken directly to a four year old and tbh has too much time on her hands if she feels it her ace to interfere .

I would like to clarify that I have boy/girl twins do got tne full force of the pink blue thing with people buying similar gifts but ‘sex appropriate ‘ fir each child . We however chucked everything in a toy box and they played with what ever they developed likes and dislikes and changed and used toys for different purposes it was great . They have both grown up to be rounded kid with an appreciation of all things but in all honesty have vaguely followed gender stereotypes although I feel this is more influenced by their peers than anything I have done !

I can see both sides but agree you shouldn’t label them as boys toys. You could have said “There are some other toys in the next aisle I think you’d like.” I expect she was a bit of a militant about things like this and couldn’t stop herself piping up.

I think society does need to be careful about labelling though, so as not to damage children’s self esteem or sense of self. When setting boundaries (which includes saying something is for girls or boys), I think a parent should think a) is the child happy? then if “yes”, b) is the child hurting, or spoiling life for, others? and only if the answer to b) is also “yes”, impose boundaries.

@LolaSmiles

See also 'boys will be boys' aka, I'm too lazy to apply an ounce of independent thinking and question the idea that boys are obviously going to be loud, dominate groupwork, tease the girls, rough play or be violent, like being the centre of attention. I might even dress them in stupid slogan tops about being a little monster and coo lovingly and laugh when my 3 year old is being badly behaved in a shop. And then after 15years of boys will be boys' I'll turn up in y11 parents' evening and ask the school what they're doing about the fact my boy is apathetic, lazy, more concerned with being a lad, doesn't listen, has been pulled up for making inappropriate remarks to girls (who obviously need to chill and learn how to take a joke).

So bloody true 😞

"Thanks but I'm not looking for any parenting advice at the moment" should have been sufficient.

Saying 'boys toys' in the moment when you know what you mean (the lego/cars etc) is hardly the crime of the century meaning the OP has forever biased and tainted her 4 year old!

If OP's son was holding a doll and OP was pulling him away crying telling him that boys can't play with dolls as they are for girls and he has to play with 'boy toys' then okay, but that is not what happened.

People are too quick to judge and comment on other people's parenting so they can feel superior.

I think some of the responses on here are way over the top.
If I hear the OP saying boys toys I don’t think I would have thought anything, but to be fair sexism is not something I’ve come across much. I’ve achieved everything I wanted and had all choices available to me.

This is as much of a problem tbh. Just because it hasn't affected you doesn't mean it's not an issue.

I wouldn't have said anything, but would have been quietly shocked and disapproving.

My son and daughter had pretty similar taste in toys. DD was a bit more interested in art and craft stuff, fiction books and climbing trees than her brother, and he was generally a bit more into cuddly toys, My Little Pony, cooking, sudoku and collecting random sticks than his sister, but generally they played with the same stuff and shared most of their toys with each other.

Honestly I think the whole boys toys and girls' toys thing would be less common of toy shops actually mixed up the aisles a bit more. The reality is that if you go to a toy shop you get aisles of pink and aisles of blue. I do sort of understand that logistically it's aisles of dolls together aisles of cars together etc. But I do think they should stop making so many things that are considered "girls" toys pink and just mix up the aisles a bit more. With my kids we try not to refer to sections as boys or girls but actually it's quite hard not to when it always seems set up that way. We do however make sure the kids look at all the aisles and all the toys before making a decision on what they want and have always made it clear to them that of course they can choose whatever toy they want to with their pocket money. My son for example adored his play kitchen for years and years when he was younger even though it was in "girly" colours and came from the "pink" aisle. He's 10 now and pretty much either wants video games or Lego but his younger sister also has toys of all kinds. I think people would be less likely to use terms like boys and girls for things if they didn't seem to be so segregated.

I think that just because everyone says there are not boys and girls toys it doesnt make it true, and if you want to tell ur son where are the boys toys you are free to do so without anyone obv feeling superior trying to "teach" you how to view things. Especially thru a child.

I don't think there is anything wrong with saying boys toys or girls toys. People are way too pedantic and precious about this kind of stuff.

My brother wanted to look down the aisles for boys toys when he was a kid, didn’t stop him having his own barbie doll. People make far too much of an issue out of this and if I’d heard you say it I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.

You weren’t the one being rude, she was. She had no business interfering like that in the first place. Which is why she got told to mind her own business. Fair enough she’s entitled to an opinion on it, but there was absolutely no need for her to say anything. None at all. She was rude.

Don't worry OP you were right.
Kids will choose what they find interesting
Whatever they are labelled
In fact I have seen kids eye roll adults that are overly PC.
There was a test a while back with chimps and toys and strangely they mostly adhered to human stereotypes. But not always, like humans

There are no such things as boys toys and girls toys, and maybe you both phrased things clumsily. Subconscious stereotyping stars in infancy;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719/gender-specific-toys-do-you-stereotype-children

You know what kind of toys your son likes to play with and since he’s a boy you call them boys toys, same as I would.

I don’t get this gender neutral hype. All children play can play with whatever toys they like but for my children dd did gravitate to ‘girls toys’ and ds gravitated to the ‘boys toys’.

MY children are teenagers and this gender neutral toy craze is all a recent thing. You are not being unreasonable, she didn’t need to butt her nose into a conversation that didn’t involve her,

I kind of agree on both sides, my DS6 loves babies, and loves dolls, he also likes to wear some clothes out of the girls section because they have sparkles on them and he likes girls leggings because they are easy to jump around in. I allow him to chose what he wants and make it clear that he can play with anything and dress how he wishes. He is also very boyish in some ways, wears baseball caps, slogan tops and plays with cars. So I try to avoid saying "The boys" anything. I also wouldnt be happy that someine else had questioned my parenting. In my case its usually the other way round I get people saying I shouldnt allow him to play with dolls or I should dress him like a boy. I always say its his choice and more embaressingly my DS has taken to fending of the legging bashers by saying "Your just jelous cos my butt looks sexy in leggings" taught by his Uncle. Kids should be allowed to enjoy beinh a child, but likewise we know our kids the best. Not other parents.

"always say its his choice and more embaressingly my DS has taken to fending of the legging bashers by saying "Your just jelous cos my butt looks sexy in leggings" taught by his Uncle"

Just when we thought the thread couldn't get any more depressing.

Btw, the woman wasn't criticising OP's parenting. She was pointing out sexism.