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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

682 replies

Spinoni · 06/08/2019 13:37

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

OP posts:
G5000 · 08/08/2019 08:25

Just a personal preference, but if I go to a shop looking for car windscreen wipers and a cheese grater, I would look in aisles labelled 'cars' and 'cooking' respectively. I understand many posters here are saying that they would prefer to have them in aisles labelled 'mens' and 'womens', because cars are for boys and cooking is for girls?

CassianAndor · 08/08/2019 08:28

very good point, G5000. Shocking how posters who would hate this for adults think it's perfectly tickety-boo for children.

Emmas1985 · 08/08/2019 08:36

I love that this post has so many responses!! Cause in a world where we are teaching our children to be who ever they want to be and if you want to be a little boy who wants purple hair, wears pink tutus with football boots that’s fine cause your a cool gender neutral child with a mind of his own with a VERY COOL MOMMY Hmm cause she supports this gender neutral stuff cause it’s normal to be that way, there is always going to be a boys section and a girls section in the toy shop because most girls gravitate to the dolls and most boys to cars and nerf guns. The OP was so in her right to tell the nosey woman to keep her thoughts to herself which is what the actual post is about

LolaSmiles · 08/08/2019 08:40

G5000
You mean you wouldn't be expecting the shop to be organised around women's homeware and men's homeware? People just have preferences you know!
Grin

KUGA · 08/08/2019 08:46

I think you said it tongue and cheek.
If theres no such thing as boys toys or girls toys,why are they in separate isles.
I don't think children think along that line,they just want to play.
And she had no right to say anything to your son.
So good for you.

demureandgraceful · 08/08/2019 08:48

@G5000 I see it more like a book store where it makes sense to divide the books according to interest and targeted audience and keep them close together.

So in your ideal shop the animals would be in one section dolls in another and let's say diy project stuff in another. The mother is tired but DD has been promised and end of week treat for doing well or it her birthday. Now animals are on the second floor, dolls are on the first floor far left aisle while science stuff is somewhere in the middle. DD is unsure what she wants. First she thinks pony or hatchimal, ok second floor it is. No actually she wants the glitter silme her friend had ok off first floor it is. All this after looking at rows of dinos and other animals she has no interest in. No they had no glitter slime she wants fine she will get a play set. Oh Sylvanian is in a completely different section and hidden in an obsucre spot between lego and playmobli. Again nothing so we try naviagte the dolls section to find anything by now and have to put in a effort to see where the barbies are amongst he action men.

Now is it me or is that a more difficult layout to find a toy?

GreenTulips · 08/08/2019 08:54

Or she could see something totally different and decide for herself what she’d like to play with rather than what the marketing department says she should play with.

What if she spots a toy gun or a transformer? What is she wants to be Spider-Man? What if she has a fascination with toy trains but isn’t ‘allowed’ in that section and it’s blue with a boys face on the box? Why has she been denied the choice?

demureandgraceful · 08/08/2019 08:56

@GreenTulips or she could already know what she likes and does not before she goes into the shop as she already is confident in her preferences

CassianAndor · 08/08/2019 08:58

demure do books shops divide their books into 'girls books' and 'boys books'? Pretty sure the last time I checked they don't. But surely they must! Obviously boys read boys books and girls girls? Right?

G5000 · 08/08/2019 08:59

Most bookshops I've been to also books by themes like 'biographies', 'cooking', 'fiction' etc, not 'men' and 'women'. Yes I much prefer toy shops where they have legos in one place and craft sets in other and soft toys all together, not boy legos on one floor and girl legos on another.

Windbeneathmybingowings · 08/08/2019 08:59

Ffs can people just stop telling their children that certain toys “aren’t for them”. Toys of any description are for children, let the kid play with whatever they want.

Jobs for genders? Er no, let a woman be a labourer if she wants, let a man be a nurse and get on with your own life.

That mythical shop with girls and boy sections sounds like toys r us and that’s bust. Smyths is much more of a mish mash like when I was little, and amen because it’s much more fun to look at everything!

Anotherusefulname · 08/08/2019 09:04

I envy all of you who are able to direct your children to a particular area of a toy shop. Both of mine have always wanted to walk around every aisle looking at everything before deciding actually they want more sylvanian families or more lego or more hexbugs. (the only things they seem to want to buy).

KatharinaRosalie · 08/08/2019 09:04

If a child already knows what they want, there won't be any issues running around the shop, you can just go to the respective area. Or you mean child is allowed to change their mind, but only inside the range pre-determined by the shop as suitable to XX or XY chromosomes?

Windbeneathmybingowings · 08/08/2019 09:11

It’s just so narrow minded to say boys and girls toys/jobs/clothes.

You are cutting your child’s opportunities in half.

AE18 · 08/08/2019 09:22

@demureandgraceful

So in your ideal shop the animals would be in one section dolls in another and let's say diy project stuff in another. The mother is tired but DD has been promised and end of week treat for doing well or it her birthday. Now animals are on the second floor, dolls are on the first floor far left aisle while science stuff is somewhere in the middle. DD is unsure what she wants. First she thinks pony or hatchimal, ok second floor it is. No actually she wants the glitter silme her friend had ok off first floor it is. All this after looking at rows of dinos and other animals she has no interest in. No they had no glitter slime she wants fine she will get a play set. Oh Sylvanian is in a completely different section and hidden in an obsucre spot between lego and playmobli. Again nothing so we try naviagte the dolls section to find anything by now and have to put in a effort to see where the barbies are amongst he action men.

Jesus Christ you make it sound like the world would descend into absolute chaos if things weren't organised by gender 😂

First of all, in the shop you're describing it would be hard to find anything anyway because it is unusually large with an unusual amount of floors.

But why would you find the science things easier to locate because they were in the boys section? Personally, I would have to first work out that "oh yeah only boys are interested in science" before I found them, because that's not in the slightest bit true so categorising them that way has actually made them harder to find for me.

Why would it be assumed that the reason DD has no interest in dinos or animals is because she's a girl? There are loads of things she would have to walk past in the "girls section" that aren't one of the very specific things she's interested in, why is the section with dinos and animals inherently more exhausting to walk past because only boys like animals or dinosaurs?

Surely your DD is wasting much more time walking past toys that are too young or old for her than she is walking past the incredibly macho animals, dinosaurs and science toys? Why do you not find it equally unreasonable that the shop isn't divided into age appropriate as well as gender appropriate?

It's much more of a given that a 6 year old girl isn't going to be interested in a rattle or a complex board game with 10+ on the box than that she wouldn't be interested in dinosaurs.

If all the toys were loosely organised by age then she wouldn't have such a wide selection to navigate and nobody would be subliminally excluded from playing with certain things. It's really not as complicated as you make it sound.

demureandgraceful · 08/08/2019 09:43

@CassianAndor yes but they are also further divided into subcatirgories so for example counting with cars, chitty chitty bang bang, and how to fix a car though all about cars will be in different sections. just as dino would not be the logical shelf mate to my little pony

CassianAndor · 08/08/2019 09:52

demure show me a bookshop where the books are divided into 'boys' and 'girls'. Just one. Show me it.

Windbeneathmybingowings · 08/08/2019 09:53

That’s so overly complicated demure.

Books will never compare anyway because the simplest option would always be to do away with genres have them alphabetically by author. What a digression...

Evilmorty · 08/08/2019 09:58

Cassian, I did used to have a “stories for girls” book that had been my mums, and a “stories for boys” book that had been my uncles (and was infinitely better)

I actually find the idea of gendered books quite abhorrent, so maybe we should just drop that comparison now demure because it isn’t working.

AE18 · 08/08/2019 10:08

@demure

You do realise that nobody is saying you have to scatter all the toys around the shops and cars can't be kept near other cars, don't you? There can still be a cars section, there's just absolutely no reason why that section needs to be labelled "boys".

It encourages young girls that are interested in cars to think they are somehow unnatural for being that way, and young boys to exclude any girls that express that interest.

"Cars" would be clear enough.

CassianAndor · 08/08/2019 10:23

Evil - sure, but that's an individual book.

I spend a lot of time in bookshops and the childrens' fiction is separated by age range and the non-fiction by subject - history, transport, animals, etc.

In not a single bookshop that I have been in is it anywhere divided by sex, in the way that toys can be, both in shops and in people's heads.

Why is that? Surely if toys are sexed then so are books. Right, demure?

demureandgraceful · 08/08/2019 10:36

@CassianAndor they are grouped into interests or genres rather then just topics though. So childrens lit in one section, teens in another fiction, none fiction, seperate historical periods split into the time they belong to. It's all grouped off so people can find the book they want as fast as possible

AryaStarkWolf · 08/08/2019 10:36

Cause in a world where we are teaching our children to be who ever they want to be and if you want to be a little boy who wants purple hair, wears pink tutus with football boots that’s fine cause your a cool gender neutral child with a mind of his own with a VERY COOL MOMMY hmm cause she supports this gender neutral stuff

You're totally missing the point here, the point is Toys are just toys, kids should be allowed to play with any ones they want despite their gender, what good reason is there for saying these are boys toys and these are girls toys? But I think you're purposely missing the point

AryaStarkWolf · 08/08/2019 10:40

Just another 'woke' nutter.

You're actually wrong about that, the "woke" nutters are the ones trying to put Boys and Girls back ion their boxes

CassianAndor · 08/08/2019 10:42

demure sorry for caps but....

BOOKSHOPS DO NOT CATEGORISE BY SEX.

do they? Can you at least answer that one simple question?