Why are people so bothered by what my son wears?

[WindowGazers]

My son is 4yo and I let him choose his clothes in the morning. Most days consists of some brightly coloured trousers, probably a mis matching top, and he loves to put tutus over everything. He always looks great and is so confident in whatever outfit he wears.

I'm very introverted personality wise but also choose to wear very extroverted clothing. I don't care what people think about what I wear, but people have started saying in front of me and me son 'aren't you worried that he looks like a girl' or saying directly to him 'interesting choice of clothing you've got there'.

It drives me slightly mad as they're just clothes and he's happy. A dad on the nursery run asked me if I was raising him trans (he was literally wearing black trousers, a hulk top and a red tutu over the top) in front of him!

Am I supposed to just dress him in blue and black or AIBU in thinking that I should be encouraging to wear what he's comfortable in? Also funny how his friends love his clothes (and him!) and it's just the adults who seem to find them out of the ordinary.

I was raised by very extroverted parents who let me wear the most bizarre outfits, but I loved it and I've now turned into an adult who adores alternative fashion. I'm so glad they supported me rather than trying to push me into a box. Opinions?

Well I'm certainly a bit baffled by someone thinking I'm 'raising my son to be trans' because he chose to wear a tutu. Weird thing to think.

I have DCs and never owned a tutu either

The DCs in the other hand...

They’re children. There’s plenty of time for them to deal with all the shit that society has to throw at them! Just let them be young and carefree for a little while!

Exactly!

They are exploring and trying things out - and they are learning all the time. Please don't let them learn that "this is ok for a boy/girl, but this is forbidden". I'm sure that's half the reason why we are having present gender conflict.

As someone pointed out earlier - "girls" clothes and toys don't mean a boy will "catch the gay" - and even if it did, so what? I know some lovely gay people of both sexes. Let them be. Let them grow up and find what they enjoy doing.

Kids are kids - anything that gets them interested in different things is good, developing their little brains and their motor skills, whether it is football, playing house, sewing, painting - whatever.

@aSofaNearYou

"I do not personally care about aesthetic, I don't feel I should need to keep saying that. My internal thoughts about children dressing like this are centred around preparing them for growing up"

Children naturally become more socially conforming in their clothes choices, regardless of whether you let your children wear a tutu when they're four. Do you ever see teenagers cutting about in Elsa dresses over wellies with superman capes? That's the sort of stuff my daughters used to pick out when they were four, and now they're never out of baggy hoodies, jeans and trainers.

Really surprised by the strength of feeling some posters have on this. Some children do want clothes similar to those they’ve seen on other kids. They’re only clothes. My son’s 14 now and dresses v ‘normally’, but he wanted a twirly dress like my friend’s daughter when he was 4 and I took him to Primark and let him choose one - he wore it a lot and then moved on. We got a few second glances but nothing bad happened.

Sure you are!

people like this also love to tell everyone my boy wears a tutu, and my boy plays with a dolls etc. like it’s some sort of honour! A special identity.

I have a son and sure he’s put on a frozen dress at nursery and played with his sisters dolls. I didn’t make a fuss of it, I didn’t buy more tutus and dresses for him in hope that he would turn out “quirky”. He put on the dress, had a laugh with his mates and then found a new toy to play with. I didn’t read much into it or try to force it down a path.

I too can’t help but think of the Hugh grant thing. This stuff is all led by the parents.

This 100% I think a lot of parents need to read this

Yes I think this is exactly it. Flamboyant dressing and hair colour has been taken over by the trans movement as kind of a uniform and people may be thinking you are a TRA forcing your child to be trans by encouraging him to wear a tutu. When my eldest was small he used to wear trousers and tops from the girls section as he loved anything sparkly (and still does actually but is a much more conventional dresser aged 6), and no-one batted an eyelid, but fast forward to now, clothing and hair styles seem to have become more politicised in such a short space of time.

why are you being such an arsehole?

Honestly. Didn't realise that people who don't fit into a box of wearing regular clothes were seen as attention seeking or looking to feel special. That because I wear what I like and let my son pick his clothes that I must have some kind of agenda. I haven't always fitted in, I know this and it's mainly because of how introverted I am and how bad my social anxiety is, but I'm still glad I stuck to my guns and didn't go with the grain because I felt I should. I most certainly don't use my son for attention seeking purposes.

No doubt! But they don't necessarily become more conforming by the time they start reception in less than a year, which would be my concern.

My 10 (nearly 11) year old boy has shoulder length wavy red hair. He’s growing it, he hasn’t decided how long yet. But omg the comments from his grandparents about “when you going to get his hair cut” drive me mad. He’s 10, he knows his own mind and it’s his hair to do what he likes with! I wouldn’t mind but he wears traditionally “boys” clothes and to me looks just like a boy with long hair.

People are fucking weird!

I think that's just life though. Kids grow up with their parents, listen to music their parents listen to, live in the area their parent chooses, sees what their parents wear, eat what their parents eat etc. Of course he is going to be influenced by me to some degree because short of giving him my debit card and sending him off to the shops, I have to buy his clothes for him. That's just the way things work to an extent.

Don't feel like you have to justify yourself to anyone here, @WindowGazers.

I just don’t buy that you don’t know that wearing brightly coloured, mismatched clothes is attention seeking. Of course it is. Sounds completely like you do use your son for attention seeking purposes or just couldn’t be bothered to parent him out of a Tutu before leaving for school.

But yes, when I see a child that is always dressed in fancy dress a part of me does think "well this child isn't being particularly prepared for school starting imminently". That's it. Not a lot of time left for them to grow out of it - they're already at the point they will need to dress a certain way sometimes.

I have a 4 year old, if you only saw her at preschool/weekends/holidays you might think that. Yet she has zero issue with wearing 'uniforms' when required and she understands the difference. She wears ballet clothes for ballet, a rainbows tshirt and leggings for Rainbows, appropriate clothes for church, adult orientated social gatherings etc. However outside of those sort of things she can and does dress as she pleases. She will cope with school uniforms just fine and if in the meantime when it doesn't matter if she wants to wear princess dresses with cat ear headbands or unicorn onsies or light up wellies with legwarmers, denim shorts and christmas jumpers in july, I'm not going to stop her. Her big brother has worn nail polish to school (in school colours obviously) and last dress as you please day went in a wolf onsie...I was slightly concerned til I saw what all his classmates were wearing and yes...there were tutus and onsies and hats in the classroom.

Both of them have picked the vast majority of their clothes from the age of 2 or so. I'll show them things I like in the shops but they make their own choices where possible. My daughter's style is most definitely not mine. At her age, I liked trousers in dark colours as not to show the mud according to my mum and only wore dresses if they were dark blue/black or occasionally red. She loves pink, glitter and sparkles. As a teenager I went through a phase of men's suits, velvet jackets and just wearing my dad's old RAF shirts with tights and purple dms so on balance I'd rather my kids got the experimental phase out of their systems now.

We do have a lot of wooden toys though!

Probably because it looks really untidy. People who allow their children to have long hair seem to have a higher tolerance for messiness than the rest of society. 9/10 child and their hair looks dreadful or it’s always hanging in their face and eyes

It's not weird at all to think certain things, it isnt up to you to decide what is 'weird' for someone to think and wonder (it is true or not is irrelevant).

Maybe it is 'weird' for you to expect for everyone to be comfortable and excepting of something that might be unusual for them.

Well, no. I think you're wrong. If this was the case surely I would just dress him myself in an outfit that I felt would gain attention from others? Sometimes he chooses to wear black trousers with a black top, sometimes he chooses the weirdest outfit that I wouldn't have personally chosen, but that he loves. I don't actively seek or even particularly like attention, so I'm therefore not attention seeking.

Does that apply to girls and boys?

Yup. Does your kid even wear a tutu and a spiderman outfit if you don't tell everyone that your kid wears a tutu and spiderman outfit. If the OP has been dressing 'different' or however she described it for her entire life then she will know that some people comment, it's what happens with anything outside of the 'norm' or even perfectly normal things but the OP just had to come on and tell us about the 5 whole times(which is nothing at all in the grand scheme of things) her tutu loving boy, did I tell you he wears a TUTU had been commented on. But no, it's definitely not an attention thing.

I would say 95% of all girl children I know have long hair - I had no idea 9/10 of them looked so dreadful. I guess your kids all have crew cuts?

If you are going around with a child dressed either as a rainbow or a goth (what 4 year old even has a head to toe black outfit?) then you are attention seeking, especially if you have your own ‘zany’ dress sense and are ‘outside the box’ 🙄

At age 4, on a nursery day I dressed my child. Nothing special, cheap multi buy from supermarkets mostly, not always matching, mostly bright colours, always clean. They didn’t stand out enough to warrant comments. In morning rush it wasn’t the time to let child choose clothes, certainly not from fancy dress drawer. It was up,fed, dressed, drop off (singing to playlist on car) and off to work.

My child wasn’t suppressed in anyway, had a great life at that age, we have a great selection of fancy dress outfits, a lot of time said child was a sheep or dressed as cat boy /owlette from PJ Masks frequently.

You are raising your Child to stand out, you reference your childhood clothing and possibly are trying to recreate that in some way, that’s fine but equally you are complaining about people noticing enough to comment? Surely that’s the point? Tell us otherwise?