To see where this dad is coming from? RE little boy wearing make up

[Earlyrisers0]

It's on a parenting group on Facebook. I'm happy to post it to squash any concerns that I'm trolling, but I will have to blur out the boys face for obvious reasons.

A mum has made a post showing a heated exchange with her ex. Their 9 year old son went to his dad's wearing make up and nail varnish and the dad told him to remove it all. Not that it makes much of a difference but the make up wasn't applied properly, think red lipstick smeared around his mouth and chin and what looks like black eyeshadow smudged around his eyebrows.

The mum also attatched to the post a handful of pictures of their son wearing dresses, pink pyjamas with pink dummys in his mouth and my littly pony onesies.

The mum said if her ex continued to tell him he can't express himself then he'll grow to hate his dad. The dad said she shouldn't be imposing her values and beliefs onto him and he will parent his child how he sees fit when he has him. The dad clearly thinks the boy is far too young to be experimenting with gender identity and I have to say I agree with him.

I'm clearly old fashioned but am I unreasonable?

@Davodia

It sounds fetishistic tbh. Pink pyjamas and dummies? And why was she photographing the child in this outfit? I’d be concerned enough to report to SS.

My son has pink pjs, I also sometimes taken photos of him. You better call SS quick and save him from this terrible abuse. From the amount of pink childrens pjs in Tesco there must be thousands of children suffering this awful fate.

The actual issue here is likely that the dad is sexist and doesn’t want his son wearing ‘girls’ things because he likely believes girls are inferior.

Isn’t ‘gender swapping’ for young kids the new munchausen’s by proxy?

Parents with an iffy control on reality desperately seeking the attention of a wider audience and using their children to get it.

The row conducted over Facebook is the real issue here, in my mind.

Sounds like dress up and dress up is fine whatever. My 10 year old boy likes to wear nail polish - but only blue cos he’s a boy don’t you know.
His dad is showing his own insecurities nothing to do with the kid.

My DS has longish hair - his choice- and sometimes let’s his sister put bunches in his hair - no big deal. He just likes having his her played with.

It sounds like the bad relationship between two adults is now on FB through the child. He can wear it if I’m he likes but the adults should both think about the child first more.

It’s very provocative and dominating of the mother to send the child in full make-up to his Dads. This will not have been the child’s idea. I think this is borderline abusive of the mother.

A child choosing, without any ‘encouraging’ to dress up in women’s clothes, try a bit of his mum’s lipstick on, you just let them and don’t make a big deal. You definitely wash it off before going out as you would with a girl age 9 who did this.

The dummy also really is a red flag that the mum is not a grown up and is her ineptitude about helping him grow full stop.

Also this is pretty terrible to be played out on facebook. Give the child some privacy and don’t argue publicly. Don’t argue at all. The mother has done this to gain the ‘mob’ support.

It’s all pretty awful.

@thorilicious there is nothing wrong with nail varnish. Take a look at my fellas toes Haha he is 21 stone strongman competitor and he currently has pink toes nails because my girls wanted to experiment on his nails. Think dad might of over reacted because of the way he views the world x

ASummerCherry it wasn't full make up. It was only nail polish on the ds's nails.

@SummerCherry

Also this is pretty terrible to be played out on facebook. Give the child some privacy and don’t argue publicly. Don’t argue at all. The mother has done this to gain the ‘mob’ support.

It’s all pretty awful.

Yep, I only have instagram. I very rarely post any pictures of my son, if I do his face is always obscured and I would never put anything odd about him in the caption. Children deserve privacy.

If as an older teen he chooses to have SM he can plaster as many pictures he wantsz

9 year old don’t play dress up
Have you ever met any children?

Just imagine if a school friend’s mum saw the dummy and showed her child the picture! That little boy will have to deal with worse than his dad’s disapproval. The parents should have a care what is posted on Facebook unless their settings are bomb proof.
The rest could just be dress up play or maybe the child is exploring gender identity but it doesn’t have to be played out on social media. That is shameful.

They’re both a pair of pricks for plastering this all over FB [anger]

Poor kid.

Firstly, make up does make a gender.
Wearing pink does not make your girl or implies you are "playing with gender".

My sons regularly wear pink, have nail varnish on etc. The elder girls don't have make up and neither do the boys -they do play with nail varnish but they do this.
I hate the fact boys have to wear blue, monkeys, tractor etc and girls have pink, unicorns, princess etc -that is ridiculous.

Dummy over the age of 3 except for exceptional reasons -nope.

both parents have huge issues I think and are using said child -to cause problems and as a pawn in a power game.

My ex didn't like our sons wearing hair clips -but they like them and wear them. If they wanted to wear a dress they could -I know my ex wouldn't "like it" but tough shit. Likewise the pressure on boys "not" to wear pink and dresses is awful. Society needs to change.

Bbq1

What does MLP mean?

My Little Pony.

The boy might not be able to find non-pink PJs of his favourite show so it's pink or nothing.

They’re both a pair of pricks for plastering this all over FB

They really are. Even the op is posting to say which ‘side’ she takes. Using something like this to build mob support is bad for the child. Sadly nothing anyone can do to get mother / both to stop. It would lead to more FB outage no doubt.

@Thorilicious

ASummerCherry it wasn't full make up. It was only nail polish on the ds's nails.

But the OP said big red lipstick and black eyeshadow?

If he had his nails done - it wouldn’t have been half so provocative - and if I were the Dad I wouldn’t have commented. However kids often bite their nails so it’s not good to have it on for long.

It’s not been plastered all over fb, its shared in a private mums group. Only mums in the group can see it and it cannot be shared out with...
That doesn’t mean that someone can’t screenshot it or start a Mumsnet thread bashing it though.

I thought it took a village to raise a child? Not a random collection of morons on social media.

@summercherry
This was what I posted earlier in the thread. OP has also failed to mention that the mum has said it was a controlling relationship too.

*Today 09:38Thorilicious

YABU. I saw that thread, and the photos weren't of what he went to his dads like. They were an example of showing how her ds experiments in his own home.
From what I understand, it wasn't a full face of make up, he went to his dads with nail polish on his fingers. The ds said he didn't want to remove it, the dad ignored his son, and removed it anyway.*

@DeadSouth

It’s not been plastered all over fb, its shared in a private mums group. Only mums in the group can see it and it cannot be shared out with... That doesn’t mean that someone can’t screenshot it or start a Mumsnet thread bashing it though.

Exactly. It can be shared anywhere. OP even offered to share it here to prove she wasn’t trolling. I guarantee you other people in that group have shown people from outside the group. And tbh a private mums group is bad enough. I still consider that plastering it all over FB.

I agree, playing with makeup is not ‘exploring your gender identity’. That’s such a damaging and backward message. It’s just playing with make up!

@AlwaysCheddar

That's one if the saddest comments I've read regarding children's activities on here.

9 year olds dont play dress up? Are you serious?

My 8 year old will be 9 in a couple months. A lot of his friends have been 9 for a long time. They love coming to our house because we have a kallax unit full of dress up stuff (masculine and feminine) and they all love it. My phone is full of photos of him and his friends dressing up as super heroes and villains and posing in fight scenes, or dressed up as wizards and posing doing spells, or dinosaurs or aliens, covered in make up and face paint. etc. Kids love dressing up.

Whether or not the drag look is appropriate is a whole other argument, but 9 year olds dressing up in not even in question.

We went on holiday to Joali last year and they have a dress up station for kids to express themselves and it had many an older child playing.

How sad that you think children shouldn't be dressing up.

Sounds to me as though the DM is trying to show everyone how 'woke' (hate that word) she is, and is using the child to have a go at her ex. She should spend more time trying to wean him off the dummy rather than posting such shit on SM. Whatever path the child takes in life, I can't imagine he's going to thank her for posting these pictures online.