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.

Not the best idea to start dictating to your husband when/how to cut his hair for one thing.

But, why not? What would happen if he did get any of those haircuts? His penis falls odd?

If you believe in sex not gender, then you'd just tell your son "x is a boy. What makes him a boy is [however you make the sex distinction clear to your children], it has nothing to do with his hair. Stop calling him a girl, it is not true and it is not kind to say untrue things about people."

You say your young son believes a bunch of nonsense gender stereotypes about what is 'for girls' and 'for boys'. What are you doing to correct this? You know, if you believe in sex not gender.

But it isn't "quite rightly". It's "quite wrongly". Hair length has nothing to do with your chromosomes or your genitals, which is what makes you a boy or a girl. You're talking crap, so it's no wonder your small son is so confused.

Given that there is no single universal definition of "men's clothing" and "women's clothing", I don't see how this superstitious nonsense scripture can be in any way enforceable. Pakistani women routinely wear salwar kameez made up of trousers and a tunic. Arabic men wear thobes, a long gown. English men until the Tudor period routinely wore gowns. Vietnamese women wear trousers under gowns with very high side splits.

There is no single "men's clothing" for women to be forbidden from wearing, or vice-versa.

The vast majority of this is absolutely batshit. Telling children they must conform to old-fashioned gender stereotypes is not going to solve the current issues around sex/gender. If anything, it's only going to make it worse.

Children need to understand that they are acceptable and valuable no matter their appearance and that they can like traditionally male / female looks, activities, whatever and still be comfortable in being the sex they were born with. A boy can have long hair, like sparkles and love football and still be a boy. If you're saying boys should not be allowed long hair to demarcate then as male and avoid gender confusion, are you also saying that they shouldn't cook, clean or wear pink (also traditional female attributes) or that girls shouldn't be engineers or footballers or wear trousers? Can you not see how batshit and illogical your argument is?

Controlling young people to the point of mandating their hairstyles to avoid gender confusion and "protect the women" is frighteningly of some kind of Handmaid's Tale-esque dystopian world.

So to be clear you have come on a thread that didn't mention Christianity to randomly throw in a quote from the Bible about how men shouldnt have long hair, as if everyone should somehow follow a rule from the Bible when you don't even follow the actual rule of that passage yourself?

So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?

There are also many bible verses that say a man should not cut his hair (or his beard). That’s why different Abrahamic religions have different rules about it, as do individual Christian sects and denominations.

There isn’t any one way to do your hair according to the bible!

Also, as far as men ‘dressing as women’, the reason for that was to protect women from men sneaking into inner courtyards and complexes and attacking them by disguising themselves as women. It isn’t because any particular shape of cloth was sinful if worn by a man.

YABU to believe in sex and not gender and ALSO think that your son ‘rightly thinks’ that girls have long hair and boys have short hair! 😂

YABU. You have taught your kids regressive stereotypes and now you’re doubling down on it.

The think is even if we did believe there were "clothes for men" and "clothes for women" @porridgeisbae is one again cherry picking what they want to believe from the Bible

You cannot on one hand demand that Paul's interpretation of Christianity is adhered to by quoting his words from first Corinthians and then simultaneously demand that the laws of Deuteronomy are followed when Paul himself confirmed that Christians are not held to Mosaic law of which Deuteronomy makes up a big part of this.

Either you are following Paul's version of Christianity or not, but you can't cherry pick both way (obviously I don't mean you @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia )

Its all highly irrelevant as the general public shouldn't be held to some standards of a religion they may not follow anyway. I just hate it when people try to use religion (any religion) to try to enforce the behaviours that satisfy their prejudices whilst ignoring the religious teachings that are inconvenient for them to follow.

In fact in 1 Corinthian which has already been quoted is the phrase ‭‭What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church

But apparently that one is easier to conveniently ignore... (again not aimed at you @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia just general musing)

That forum has 11.6k users. Dadsnet has very little traffic.
Women dominate mumsnet. Even the name suggested the participants are likely to be predominately women. The topics discussed in mumsnet are predominately about topics that concern women.

You say in the OP that you "believe in sex not gender". On that basis, explain to your child that the boy with longer hair is just as much a boy (sex) as he is, and that having long hair (a socially-constructed gender indicator) does not affect this. Show your child some pictures of men with long curly hair, if you think that will help. There are plenty of 1970s/1980s footballers and rock musicians who spring to mind.

@porridgeisbae But it's also related to Deuteronomy 22:5- it's wrong for a man to wear the clothing, jewellery etc of a woman and by extension the hair. It is wrong for a man to dress as a woman etc
With the greatest respect to The Bible but did men in the time of Jesus not wear dress- like garments?

Yep.

Deuteronomy is supposedly written by Moses so pre Jesus, but your point absolutely does still stand. Men wore robes at the time of Moses.

In fact if you look at the original wording it actually says men shouldnt wear the Simlat of a woman, and a simlat was a cloak or wrapper

So essentially men can't wear womens cloaks, if modern day Christians were held to the ceremonial Mosaic laws, which they are not

And when you consider the robes the Pope's wear or a lot of Christan religious leaders then it's all a load of nonsense if people are using it to justify men not wearing what we currently believe to signify women's clothing anyway

It’s really not that difficult to say to your kid- ‘some boys have short hair, some boys have long hair. Some girls have short hair, some girls have long hair. Stop commenting on someone’s appearance and stop saying that x is a girl, it’s not kind.’
It’s obviously upsetting the other child enough for their parents to comment on so why wouldn’t you try and help make the nursery a nicer place for everyone by educating your child? I think you are the one that’s overreacting tbh.

And long hair 🤷‍♀️

I guess all this in the bible doesn’t apply to Jesus

Jesus most likely did not have long hair. Jewish men in Jesus' day had short hair and long side burns. The only thing the Bible says about Jesus's appearance was that he was completely ordinary-looking, so he most likely had short hair too.

Isaiah 53:2b (prophesy from OT about the Messiah), “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”

Oh well then all images from Jesus are fake.

Its highly unlikely Jesus has long hair

However it is highly likely John the Baptist did have long hair and Jesus specifically seeks him out to be baptised by him and says that no one has risen higher than him so he doesn't seem to have an issue with long hair

Only on MN could a thread about the length of boy’s hair turn into a debate on what Jesus looked like 🤣

This thread makes me miss my boy having his long hair. He’s 7 now and prefers it short as it used to tickle him apparently, but when I look back at photos he looked amazing with it his lovely thick locks

But that's because John the Baptist may have been a Nazirite, who were instructed to not cut their hair.

“All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long." Numbers 6:5

For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” Judges 15:5

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nazirite

(Samson and Samuel were also Nazirites)

Yes I know