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.

Tbf he probs does look a bit like a girl. Pre pubescent boys with long hair often tend to.

I’m perfectly calm thanks. Short haired women and girls are in abundance, there will be several at his nursery for a start- plenty of nursery age girls haven’t grown enough hair yet for it to be long!

Yeah for sure, mine is 9 and still mistaken for a girl frequently. There’s no issue with a mistake (or 2 or 3 from nursery kids)- it’s the comments again and again when they have been told to stop because they are wrong and upsetting someone else that’s the issue. And the op thinking it’s fine for her kid to upset someone because they look in some way unusual.

Men had a lot to lose by pretending to be women back then, like higher pay, being taken seriously at work, being allowed into careers like engineering, and getting places at Oxford University.

They don't now because it's illegal to exclude women under most circumstances and illegal to treat us less fairly under almost all circumstances. Some can even gain by pretending to be women, by gaining unfair sporting advantage and access to women's spaces for fetishistic or validation purposes.

Reverting back to 1950s-type sex inequality would hurt all women so it's not the magic bullet that you seem to think that it is.

OP, my 2 year old has gone up to a boy at a Halloween party who has very long hair and said "girl, dance with me". I told him it was a boy and boys can have long hair. He still said it again a bit later on. We have never said anything about girls have long hair and boys have short, but the most immediate people in his life generally are where the females have long hair, and the males have short so he has made an assumption.
My son is definitely NOT a bully.
I expect the older child has probably just been upset about being called a girl and his mother has asked that a convo be had with yourself to ensure it stops. Not because your child is a bully but because even without bad intentions it may have hurt his feelings.

This is totally normal for a two year old, or a 3 year old. This isn’t what has happened here however.

The point that you are failing to understand is not that children don't know boys are biologically different to girls. that is self-evident. What is difficult for them to understand is that those differences will lead to different treatment.

That is how sex differs from race or religion or sexuality. If one girls skin is brown and one girl's is black, they will be treated the same. If one boy is religious and one girl is not, they will be treated the same. If one boy is straight and one boy is gay, they will be treated the same. But if one pupil is a boy and one a girl they will be treated differently, and those differences will increase as they age.

If society treats boys and girls the same all the way through primary school (I accept that most primary schools do have boys and girls toilets) the less they will accept being treated differently when that is necessary in later life.

And this is understandable. Toddler do pick up on societal stereotypes despite best efforts.
But OP seemed to reinforce these instead of correcting them and was incensed that anyone would say anything to the nursery.

@AStrangeStateofMatter why don't think he would be upset about being called a girl?

? I don’t understand? Clearly the kid whose parents have complained IS upset at being called a girl? That’s the point.

Unless you are referring to my son not being upset about being mistaken for a girl? He just isn’t. There isn’t anything wrong with being a girl, it’s just a mistake. Half the time he doesn’t bother to correct people.

Why “quite rightly” ? Because traditionally it’s been that way? We should be teaching our children it is not our right to pass judgement on others, we can have our opinions and our beliefs but that doesn’t mean our opinions and our beliefs trump another’s. I was taught from a very young age the good old thumper saying “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”.

I appreciate your son is only 3 but it’s at this age we should be starting to teach them that, he’s clearly upset another child and that has been reported to you and now you are almost victim blaming by saying well if they didn’t have long hair it wouldn’t have happened. Accept that your child has hurt another’s feelings, ensure that you keep teaching your child that they don’t need to say something about someone just because they think it and move on, no need to blame the ones that were upset.

The difference that should be enforced from day one is "these are the boys' loos and these are the girls' loos", likewise the changing rooms. That difference is easily explained to children as "because girls and boys have different bodies and each deserve privacy from the other".

There is no sensible reason for giving children different clothing or hair styles based on sex.

Insisting that girls have long hair and boys short hair would actually undermine the idea that the sexes are treated differently for good reasons, because you'd be treating them differently for no good reason. If you treat boys and girls differently in ten bullshit ways and one needed way, they will just think that the needed way is bullshit #11. Like the boy who cried wolf, yes?

Long hair and a skirt didn't save me from being sexually assaulted in the mixed changing room aged eight. Single-sex changing rooms would have done.

I agree that it's poor behaviour to keep calling him a girl once told it's upsetting him. However, if the child in question is a bit overly sensitive his parents probs aren't really doing him any favours by making him stand out.

No but if you let him keep doing what he's doing he will turn in to one

I've seen a few comments like this, saying that the other boy's parents should make him conform more.

Some kids don't get to conform. They are Black, or visibly disabled, or need to wear glasses, or are neurodivergent and can't fit in. If it's not OK to bully those kids, it's not OK to bully a long-haired boy either.

YANBU in my opinion. If he was taking the piss out of a boy knowing it was a boy and calling him a girl just because of the long hair, yes. Assuming a boy was a girl because of long hair, no. My son has and has had loads of kids in his classes over the years who tbh i couldnt tell. There were girls with bowl cuts who wore trousers and boys with ponytails and lovely little faces who looked more girly because of their hair. My 6 year old nephew has waist length hair and always gets mistaken for a girl. Not a big deal, people are being a bit OTT. You say 'boys can have long hair and girls can have short' end of convo 😊

Reverting back to 1950s-type sex inequality would hurt all women so it's not the magic bullet that you seem to think that it is.

I mean it might be a magic bullet to a man who thinks life would be better if it was the 1950s and women were still financially reliant on a man because they couldn't get a mortgage or a well paid job...

Some kids don't get to conform. They are Black, or visibly disabled, or need to wear glasses, or are neurodivergent and can't fit in. If it's not OK to bully those kids, it's not OK to bully a long-haired boy either.

This.

Men with long hair and women with short hair aren't exactly uncommon on TV, film etc...

Vikings, The Witcher...

I can understand a 3 yr old not quite getting that hair length doesn't determine sex but surely that's just a simple explanation and then the problem is sorted? If DS is still calling the boy a girl he needs you to set him straight

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

Yes my 3 year old prefers Bluey and Number Blocks to The Witcher

Yes.

You shouldn’t expect people to change who they are because some people are small minded.

If I were to change everything about me that wankers have ridiculed I’d have to get divorced, start walking, loose weight, buy a new wardrobe, disown my disabled child, get a job, remove my nails, change my hair and my clothes and on and on.

-Dumbledore
-hagrid
-Disneys tarzan
-the prince from tangled
-thor
-several Pokemon trainers from the cartoons
-the beast as a prince in beauty and the beast
-Gaston from beauty and the beast

Short haired girls in everything from Scooby doo to the power puff girls and the Batman cartoons.

Its quite easy to expose yourself and your child to age appropriate characters with a whole variety of hairstyles!

I love how wound up this (your own) thread is making you!

So he doesn’t know a single older woman with short hair…?

How is this even possible, unless you all live under a rock?