That if your male child has shoulder length hair it's reasonable to expect other kids will pass comment?

[mrsfinch6]

Dropping DS5 and DS3 off at nursery this morning when the nursery manager took me aside and wanted to “discuss an incident that happened yesterday” I was a bit confused because when I had collected them both the day before everything was fine.

The “incident” was that there is a little boy at nursery with shoulder length, curly blonde hair, and DS3 has been calling him a girl.

The parent of this child went into nursery this morning to report to the staff that my DS was calling him a girl. The nursery manager wanted my assurances that I would be firm with DS at home and have “the conversation” regarding this.

AIBU to say that if you have a 4 year old male child with long blonde hair that it is realistic to expect that other children in that age group will pass comment?

DS3 is very much of the opinion that “pink is for girls, blue is for boys, girls wear dresses and boys wear trousers etc” he only likes typical boys toys, whereas DS5 is a bit less bothered, he picked a pink scooter and is partial to a unicorn, I don’t encourage or discourage either way, however I do believe in sex not gender and whilst I appreciate there are a multitude of reasons why this child has long hair, I don’t think it’s my 3 year olds issue tbh

They are very young kids and yes I have spoken to him and reiterated that we don’t tease other kids and that it’s not kind to pass comment on others appearance but honestly? Reporting it to the nursery? Talk about extreme.

And hair isnt one of them, or shouldn’t be 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ oh my god the stupid is strong here

Fuming ! Oh dear, you must be so easy to temper. My Daughter and Granddaughter both had hardly any hair until they were 3, even dressed in a pink dress people would as what his name was. I can't say i ever fumed and can think of no reason why i should have fumed.

Historically, long hair used to be seen as a sign of masculinity - think Greek heroes, Celtic warriors etc.

Not true.
We knew and still know loads of boys with long hair
They also dressed up in ‘so called’ girly princess dresses during dress up at nursery. Pushed around push chairs and even, shock horror, played with the play kitchen.

My neighbour even gave us her daughters dress up clothes ( all princess) to play with.
The same neighbour who thought it strange that boys didn’t seem to wear pink in the uk and you couldn’t buy pink clothes for young boys in the shops. The dad commented in his country, Italy, children were not treated so differently.
Its quite normal, if you look around you.

I’m with you OP, you’ve spoken appropriately about not being mean, otherwise calling it an incident is crazy.

It's not up to you, it's up to MNHQ, who don't agree with you and have even set up a childless and childfree board.

He is a very young child who (quite rightly) (mistakenly) thinks that boys have short hair and girls have long hair.

FTFY

Who knew long hair on a boy was still so unusual/controversial?

I sometimes think there's more variation these days in boys' hair lengths than in girls' - long hair really seems to be the order of the day for the latter.

And shoulder length isn't even really that long tbh. My middle ds, then 15, had it for a while a year ago, before (sadly IMO) cutting it. He's now cultivating an impressive mullet. Now that's shocking.

I sort of agree with you, but what i find the harder question to answer is what are the restrictions that society should impose on a boy because of his sex?

And then the very important follow up question of given I/we want there to restrictions placed on boys/men what is the most effective way of ensuring those restrictions are enforced. One of the ways is by letting boys (and girls) know from an early age that different standards/customs apply.

It seems to me that bringing children up as unisex and then imposing restrictions on them at puberty or adulthood isn't a very effective way of preserving the important distinction between the sexes.

But if you, and your fellow doubters/ critics, can come up with a better one I am very interested to listen.

Challenge for you: Think of all the A List famous men you can who are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. How many of them HAVEN'T had long hair at one point?

These are often men held up as stereotypes of masculinity.

Men who are comfortable with their masculinity don't feel bothered by having long hair...

@Dantedisciple we are talking about hair! Letting your child grow their hair as long or as short as they want isn’t bringing up your child as unisex! I honestly cannot comprehend how you are coming up with this stuff.

Of course you are being unreasonable! And the other parent is advocating for their child, quite rightly so!

The world has changed, you need to too. You are enabling your child to tease (which leads to bullying) another child.

My son wore a long coat and someone said the same to him and he then started to refuse to wear it! Even though I showed him lots of pictures of males wearing long coats..

Words have power and right now, you and your son are using them for wrong.

Sort yourself out!

Even Santa sports long hair!

YABU. Your son was being mean and needs to be corrected.

OP your attitude sounds like you are condoning your sons taunting, and you are pushing back against the nursery trying to teach him right and wrong.

3yo can certainly become a bully and yours showed such behaviour that day. Your response suggests you are probably inclined to raise a bully, unfortunately.

A weak comment of saying ‘that’s unkind Bobby’ but justifying his actions is not good parenting.

YABU

DS1 is 5 he spent a good week on holiday calling a boy a girl and referring to him as her because they had long hair. There was absolutely no malice in it and we just reminded him that "Rupert" was a boy and a he..... my DS has zero bullying in it he's just used to me having long hair and his dad having short hair. His response when we corrected him was oh I forgot and he's 5.

We also explained that different people have different lengths of hair it didn't mean that short hair is automatically a boy and vice versa.

Some aspects you are correct with though and the parent and child are going to need to grow thicker skins as your DS is not going to be the only one to make the mistake!

*Hobbi · Today 14:06

TeapotCollection · Today 14:01

I feel a bit sorry for your children

I’m happily child free <runs off>
Child free? On mumsnet? People like you make my stomach turn.*

There are men too - time to catch up with reality. Or take your sensitive tummy elsewhere.

You do need to speak to him yes and point out that some boys have long hair etc.

But I agree, rightly or wrongly a boy with long hair won't go unnoticed amongst the other children. They will be interested because it's different from most, and they might mistake him for a girl.

But when they know he's not a girl it's not ok to tease him for his long hair.

Not sure about the ‘quite rightly’ bit to be honest. I don’t think it is at all unusual for males to have long hair and females to have short hair.

YABVU

You are doing your children no favours by raising them this way. How would you like it if another child told them repeatedly “you are fat / ugly / spotty / smelly” on repeat, then their parent said “well, but Bobby is fat / ugly “ so what’s a 3yo supposed to say?

What goes around comes around, OP.

He probably thinks the little boy is a girl because mostly it still is girls who have longer hair.
I had a boy in my class a couple of years ago with long hair and most of the children referred to him as she ,her. They were reception age and have got it sorted now they are older. No offence was meant or taken.

🙂 Atethehalloweenchocs I think you’ll find Hobbi was being sarcastic, hence the emoji at the end

You are being very unreasonable. Why does he have just entrenched views about what a girl and boy wear or look like at 4?. If he mistook him once fair enough but if he has been told he is a boy and still insists in calling him a girl there is no excuse.
He should be able to accept people for who they are and most children at that age would accept a boy wearing pink or a boy with long hair just as that. I think you need to introduce him to a wider variety of people and experiences.

@mrsfinch6 People are absolutely batshit! Your little boy clearly isn't a bully. He made a mistake assuming long hair meant girl and at 3 that's not an unreasonable assumption. I would just tell him that X is a boy not a girl, problem solved.