To not buy him the pink coat

[LadyBitsnBobs]

DS age 4 is starting school. We are choosing a new coat and as school says any colour is fine so I asked him and he want pink.

He inherited many of older DD’s things so his precious football, his scooter, bike, are all pink. He associates pink with being outside in the park or cycling in the woods. It is his favourite colour.

I am supposed to be an open-minded feminist. Why am I finding it hard to buy my son a pink coat for Reception?

I found a “rainbow coat” on FB market which is lots of different colours - mostly navy but including a little bit of pink. And I bought that and fobbed him off.

help me oh wise ones of MN. And the less wise, you just go right ahead and scorch me. Am I a fraud - not a feminist after all!

This 👏🏻

Kids should be taught to simply reply “..so?” To any kind of negative comment directed their way. Could even finish it off with “I like it”.

@girlswillbegirls explained an approach her son took a few pages ago, and it’s perfect. “I like it. Your comment is weird” then cya 👋🏻

Surely something is only virtue signalling if you’re doing it for the sole purpose of making a point - ie making a child wear a pink coat to school if they don’t actually want to…?

No one should feel compelled to do something just to make a point (I felt that was so obvious it didn’t need saying), but if everyone who wanted to do something that might be frowned on thought “I can’t do that, it might be frowned on”, no-one would ever be able to do it.

I do agree that this case is more complicated because a child of that age can’t necessarily foresee what the reaction from others will be and I understand the parents wanting to protect them from that - I was addressing was the more general point that we should behave according to what the world is and not what it should be.

No I wouldn't have bought the pink coat. The risk of him being teased would be too great for me to be comfortable with. At 4 he lacks the experience to understand that this would be a possibility and to make an informed choice to do it anyway. When he reached the level of maturity where we could discuss attitudes and reactions of other people to the way we present ourselves, and how we might feel, that would be different.
I'm all for challenging sex based stereotypes, but not for using my own child at an age where they are unable to understand as a means to do so.

Kids should be taught to simply reply “..so?” To any kind of negative comment directed their way. Could even finish it off with “I like it”.

@ZebraDanios I agree, but that doesn’t mean you have to make them a huge target when it’s simply unnecessary.

Yes, I don't disagree in a more general sense.

I think it's over egging it a bit to say that Mom saying the shop had no pink coats so she brought this cool one is testing him that he's wrong for liking pink, his mother judges him and she's forcing her daughter to conform.

He stil has lots of pink hand me downs so it's hardly like she's burnt it all in the garden on his 4th birthday

I guess it depends how you see it. I don’t really like the idea of my kids having to wear something they don’t like 5 days a week so I try to get them a backpack or a coat they like to try to make up for it. But I know am a bit of an outlier with uniform so maybe that’s just me.

On the other hand, if you’re going to get your child one coat for the whole winter, is it fair to make them wear one that is effectively part of their school uniform the rest of the time too? Wouldn’t that be like making them wear their school jumper at weekends?

@TheBarbieEffect And I agree with you that making these choices for ourselves is very different to making them on behalf of a child who doesn’t necessarily know the implications of it. It’s a tricky one for sure.

Exactly this. Also no one ever always fits in. We all often face situations where we have to defend our choices or feelings. So teaching them to fit in isn’t going to help in the long run. They’re still going to get picked at for something and they won’t have the confidence to stand up and say piss off im happy with me.

I pre-warn my flamboyant kids what other kids will say and practice a response. For example, it’s sad but some people still haven’t learned that boys and girls can wear any colour they want! They miss out on wearing pink because someone years ago said it was a girl’s colour. If someone says pink is for girls what will you say?

and get him to say “well I like it” or “so?” Or I think blue is boring.

also yes it is a feminist issue - why are “girl’s things” bad? You’ll let your daughter wear blue without worrying the other kids will scream ahhhh it’s a boy’s colour.

so by not buying the pink coat not only have you told your son his feelings are wrong and you’re not going to listen to him. You’ve also told your daughter pink isn’t good enough for boys, because it’s for the lesser sex. And also perpetuated this in society.

I know someone who, many years ago, went to work in a pink suit. He identifies as male, but he is colour blind. He did not see pink, but he thought it looked a nice colour. Likes low key stuff, modest patterns. He never did it again. Once the colour had been explained to him he realised it wasn’t how he wanted to look.

My DS likes pink and purple. If he wants it then to wear it then he can. He does, however, have ginger hair so it's a monstrous clash, and I might try and steer him towards a colour that suits him more!

@Alopeciabop I pre-warn my flamboyant kids what other kids will say and practice a response. For example, it’s sad but some people still haven’t learned that boys and girls can wear any colour they want! They miss out on wearing pink because someone years ago said it was a girl’s colour. If someone says pink is for girls what will you say?

I think that’s great. While I am all in favour of allowing kids to wear what they want, I don’t think it’d be fair to send a 4-year-old boy off into the world of school in a pink coat without giving them any idea of the response they might get from less enlightened classmates and preparing them to cope with it. The only thing I’m not sure about is whether a 4-year-old is ready for this yet - but in principle I think this approach is great.

I also agree that telling your child they can’t wear pink because other people will tell them that pink is for girls is basically telling them that girls are inferior to boys - as you say, no-one stops girls wearing blue.

I think it's fine to go through life with an attitude of "is this what I want to spend my social capital on?"

I used to do a lot of things "on principle" (feminist principle or otherwise), "to challenge boundaries" or whatever.

As I grew up I realised life is a lot easier when I pick the "default" option most of the time, and only "diverge" when I really do want to make a point of it. It also requires a lot less brainpower and navelgazing effort!

When my DDs were at preschool they wore skirts and shorts and dresses and trousers. When DD1 started school I bought her all the school uniform options so trousers, skirt, pinafore, summer dress, cardigan, jumper, polo shirts of both colours, tights of both colours. I wanted her to be able to have as much variation as she wanted even though we had no option but to send her to a uniform school. Within a few weeks she started being reluctant to wear trousers and jumpers because the other children were quite insistent that they were for boys only (they weren't). Children at that age can be quite conformist, particularly about gender stereotypes, it's how they learn to make sense of the world. A few years later she was happily standing out and wearing trousers and jumpers because they were more practical for playing football.

The point of this story is to say in a round about way, if you are happy to replace an item because they've gone off it due to peer pressure before it's worn out then get the colour they want. If not then don't (I vetoed cartoon themed duvets and swimming towels for this reason but was happy to buy e.g. tshirts that demonstrated the latest interest).

It is sad. And it isn’t easy. I have reservations and have myself felt worried about my children of both sexes being picked on as we’ve raised them to be colourful both in clothes and personality (if they want to be).

My post also sounded really grumpy and accusatory, which I didn’t mean it to, sorry OP! We all second guess our choices in this area and I have too. I just wish it wasn’t the case.

this reminds me of that Madonna song what it feels like for a girl first verse.

“Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots 'cause it's okay to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading”

@Alopeciabop Yes - see also “run like a girl, big girl’s blouse”, “man up” etc.

There’s an interesting phenomenon around first names that demonstrates the same idea: once a unisex name or a traditionally male name starts being used for girls, it loses popularity among boys to the point that eventuality it never gets used for boys again. This never happens the other way round. Sorry, bit off-topic but I always think it’s interesting!

Thanks @Reetnice

I am horrified with the typos in my post and I cannot edit like I see other people do.

Yes, DS is assertive and a happy camper, very sociable too. He has two sisters and I got exactly the same toys for the three of them when they were little and avoided pink. However pink stuff was around as people gave DDs stuff in pink so DS was free to wear pink stuff too. DS loved the toy kitchen and hoover when he was small:)

They all picked activities they liked after school. One of my girls likes traditionally male sports and she is what traditionally would be denominated as a "tomboy", and the other is what would be described as "girlie". The three of them are sporty and like science.

What it did my head in was family giving the kids very gendered clothes and toys and books on birthdays and Christmas. My husband's family are very traditional and they used to look surprised the way I raised them and used to make silly jokes. I noticed in his family boys don't get as many cuddles and are not allowed to show their emotions as much as the girls which I think is horrible.
I did my own thing and I am proud of them, they people they are becoming. (Not perfect by any means! but good and independent people).

I think we can change the world little by little. But I sympathise with the OP, it's hard. But possible! There is always another parent that might be listening to what you or your son are saying that implies change and decide they want to do the same thing. We all get inspiration from others :)

@girlswillbegirls I noticed in his family boys don't get as many cuddles and are not allowed to show their emotions as much as the girls which I think is horrible.

Eeeek. And this is why there is a male mental health crisis!

In my first post I almost automatically wrote, if you don’t teach your kids to “have the balls” to stand up for themselves…and I was like noooo I’m going to get flamed haha. The idea that girls are inferior threads through everything in our society it seems.

I’d never thought about that unisex name thing but you’re so right. It’s also seen as cool atm for girls to have traditionally boy names like James or Toby. If a boy was named charlotte or Rebecca I doubt people would feel it was cool.

I feel there’s natural differences between sexes. Studies on monkeys show there are, too. Biologically we are built for different functions. But it wouldn’t hurt anyone to make being a girl a positive thing. A thing to be equally as desirable as ‘being a boy’. I hope I’m teaching my children that, and that at some point in the future, “girl” isn’t used as a playground insult.

@MidnightOnceMore I disagree that parents worrying about bullying (in the privacy of their own heads usually. The OP hasnt shared her fears with DS.) is the main reason children grow up worried about the opinions of others. By far the most likely cause of growing up to tow the line, is early bullying for not fitting in.
If your child gets laughed at or ostracised for something by their peers, that is going to have far more impact on them than their parent trying to teach them that it doesn't matter what people think. Because if you're a 4 year old boy and the other children are laughing at your coat, it is likely to feel very much like it matters, and may make you resolve to ensure you follow the crowd in future.

Erm…I’m a teacher.

Nope absolutely not I wouldn't, I'd worry that other parents and teachers would think I'd chose it to make a statement

Say you bought the pink coat. He wore it to school and got teased. He refuses to wear the pink coat again. All that money down the drain.

And you’ve fucked up your kids social status.

Buy a second-hand pink coat off Vinted and sell it on if it doesn’t work out…?