4yo DD says she’s a boy and I’m being accused of pushing her

[whatfreshhell0]

Bit of a long one, sorry. Just need to vent and see if anyone else has had this.

DD is 4, youngest of 4 – she’s got three big brothers (10, 8 and 6) and she’s basically grown up trying to keep up with them. She’s loud, funny, loves being outdoors, obsessed with football and bugs and Minecraft. Couldn’t care less about dolls or sparkly stuff. Just not her thing. She’s always just been more into “boy” things but recently it’s stepped up – she’s been saying she is a boy and asking us to call her by a boy’s name she picked (it’s a normal name, just v much a boy one).

She’s also super close to her 6yo brother – they’re like twins, always together. She looks up to him loads and copies everything. She’s started saying she wants to be like him – clothes, hair, everything. On Saturday I let her get the same haircut as him – really short. It was boiling hot and she was constantly sweaty and matted, wouldn’t let me brush it or put it up. She was so happy after the haircut, couldn’t stop smiling. Been showing everyone her “cool haircut like [brother]”.

She also flat out refuses to wear the summer dress for nursery (it’s the uniform) – completely melts down if I try. So I’ve just been sending her in her brother’s old school shorts and a polo. No one said anything till now. But this week nursery pulled me aside saying they’re “concerned” and asked if I’ve been “encouraging” it. I honestly nearly laughed. Like what? For letting her wear comfy clothes and cut her hair?

I’ve never said anything to her about being a boy or girl or anything like that. Just let her wear what she wants and didn’t fight her on the haircut because she was clearly miserable. But now I’ve got staff side-eyeing me and family making comments that I’m confusing her or pushing her into being trans or whatever. Even MIL said she’ll “end up bullied or messed up” if I don’t “nip it in the bud”. What exactly am I meant to do? Force her into a dress and make her cry every morning?

She’s FOUR. She knows what she likes and what she doesn’t, and I’m just trying to keep things calm and let her be herself. But now I’m doubting myself and feel like I’m being judged for doing the wrong thing, whichever way I go.

I'm not arguing about the wearing of shorts etc. If the nursery have a policy of wearing a dress, then she wears a dress. Op can challenge the policy but her daughter isn't trans. Just a wee girl copying a much loved brother.

I'm completely baffled by the posters who say she should wear the dress. If she prefers wearing shorts and a polo shirt, let her and challenge the school strongly about their uniform policy. Clothes and haircut do NOT dictate someone's sex or gender. It is crucial that she is allowed to understand this. She can have cropped hair and wear shorts and be a girl. No discussion, Her sex is 100% never dependent on gendered societal rules that change all the time anyway (Go back a few centuries and pink and high heels were the exclusive domain of successful men!)

Just tell her she is a girl and is lucky enough to have the option to carry a baby, but otherwise, anything available to a boy is also hers for the asking.

It may be helpful to break the issues down:

SHORT HAIR - is an excellent idea for small children (& large children & adults). Cooler in the heat. Easier to deal with class not outbreaks. Minimal brushing. Quicker to wash. Less faff and time wasting all round.

UNIFORM - she needs to wear uniform, but it is legitimate for you to challenge why there are separate uniforms for girls and boys. Shorts and polo shirt sounds eminently more practical than a dress and, as others have said, less likely to impede physical activity. I don’t think it is a good idea to enforce gender stereotypes (which are harmful to all, but especially girls) through dress codes.

NURSERY CONCERNS - there are definitely some parents (not saying you are this OP) who think it gives them special social capital to have a “trans child” and who therefore cultivate such ideas in their children. Ironically, despite notionally bucking the gender stereotype trend, such approaches actually ingrain the stereotypes more rigidly because in order to show that this is a “real trans child” the parents need to apply other-sex stereotypes to their child. The nursery MAY worry that, rather than simply allowing your daughter to have short hair and wear the boy uniform, you are actively cultivating thoughts within her mind that she IS a boy. You may be able to deal with their concerns by reassuring them that you are absolutely clear she is a girl but just want to allow her the freedom to have her hair how she wants it (hair is hair) and wear comfortable clothes. And watch out for others gravitating towards you to celebrate your “special trans child” - sad to say, such people don’t exist.

DAUGHTER’S ATTITUDE - it is worrying if she is picking up that girls can’t do things boys can. It doesn’t sound like she is getting it from home, but these attitudes are still depressingly pervasive in schools (playground rather than classroom). It may be worth doing more to reassure her by explaining that she is and always will be female but she can do everything her brothers can and that only silly people believe in gender stereotypes.

good luck

I really don't think a 4 year old has to wear a dress. That's ridiculous.

4 year olds want to be all sorts of things - I wanted to be a boy, a horse, a dog, a train (not a train drive, no, I wanted to be a train) I wanted to wear my red wellies everywhere (having a bath with them on proved uncomfortable and naturally ended that phase)...

I wanted to be the things I liked and was familiar with - a boy looked good because as an outdoorsy child, being able to do a wee outside without getting your whole bum out and risking nettle stings looked MUCH more convenient - horses, dogs and trains are just cool (and i still think so now)...

Be blunt with nursery - she wants short hair its cooler and her brothers have it. She wants to dress like boys and do boy stuff as she is the youngest sibling and the only girl with multiple older brothers - that really is all there is to it!

Sad to say but she may have already discovered that wearing a dress/skirt in summer means any time you sit down you get grass seeds up yer bum and doing handstands/cartwheels, general active play means someones going to see your knickers and make silly comments. I much preferred shorts at that age too for exactly those reasons!

Those things are not “boy”things. Many, many girls enjoy the things she likes. What has made her think having specific interests makes her the opposite sex?

Couple of days ago saw a dad on insta talking about how angry he was that his daughter came home from nursery upset because a boy told her she couldn’t play instruments because they were for boys so him and his wife showed her female musicians. He said that the one part of parenting he hadn’t considered was he’d have to learn how to combat other people’s parenting.

This post exactly OP 👌

My dd was similar but without the siblings.
Always wore trousers and shorts to school. All clothes came from the boys dept. Hair was short and cut at the barbers.
She even wanted to wee standing up like boys! That was intresting!!!

By about 14 this all changed, hair was grown long etc.

Bad that nursery ask girls to wear dresses and no other option.

🤢 at all the posters insisting that girls be made to wear skirts and dresses. Fuck that. It's 2025.

As long as she's wearing uniform, there's no problem. Same for any boys who would rather wear a dress.

Enforcing arbitrary gender stereotypes and insisting that X is for girls or Y is for boys is a lot of the reason we're in this ridiculous mess in the first place. People don't burst into flames if they wear clothing that's traditionally been worn by the opposite sex.

She's a little girl who likes short hair and hates dresses. The end. Tell school to stop reading more into it than that and concentrate on teaching her.

I could have almost written this myself, apart from Colin and the brothers.

I am in my 60s and, until I was about 10 or 11, I thought I wanted to be a boy and rejected all the girly stuff, though I had no choice about clothes at school. For me, though, it was because I thought boys got to have more fun, had more choices, did the cool stuff, while girls were meant to do the boring stuff, playing house and so on.

When I got to senior school I had accepted I was a girl and didn't really want to be a boy but was still indignant at some of the imposed differences. In those days, at our school, there were still certain subjects that only girls or only boys did. E.g. needlework (which I loathed with a passion) and cooking as opposed to woodwork and metalwork.

The older I got though the more I could see that was changing and I actually ended up in a fairly male oriented industry. Despite this I would say 100% female, married and a mum. I even own a sewing machine and make some of my own clothes!

I don’t think we are on a different page about that. She isn’t trans and people shouldn’t telling her she is in the same way that people shouldn’t be correcting her or insisting she’s a girl if she says she’s a boy. Just let her be on that. She wants to be exactly like her brothers and they are boys so she wants to be one too most likely.

I just think the uniform thing is a policy issue rather than a child one so I’d be challenging the school not the child.

The OP really seems to be dealing which the whole thing quite sensibly and in the same way I’ve seen lots of other parents deal with it.

Is she getting concern for this behaviour? I wonder if that is spurring her on unintentionally.

Like other posters have said I wouldn’t pay too much mind to it. Let her do what she wants to do and send her to nursery in what she is comfortable in. Seems odd they insist on dress for girls!

You sound like a great mum and your little girl sounds awesome. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing and support her to be herself - don’t doubt yourself. And tell the nursery to update their uniform policy and jog on with the judgmental comments.

My daughter claimed she was boy for a few years around that age. Wore underpants and boys uniform for reception and Year 1.

She was a girl before going to juniors. She's now 11 and still a girl, but wears boyish clothes. I think it was the effect of a big brother.

Trans stuff was less of a thing than now, so no one worried about it too much.

No, they don't. My daughter prefers boys clothing and hates dresses. She doesn't wear school dresses, as long as it's uniform it shouldn't matter. She also doesn't wear skirts or dresses outside of school (although likes to get her nails painted and hair done). Completely identifies as a girl without feeling she has to conform to traditional 'girl' clothes. And when she did wear skirts she wore shorts under them anyway.

I don't think the name change should be encouraged though. Is there a way to shorten her name into a nickname?

Prep school nurseries often have fairly strict uniform rules.

It is bonkers that she can’t wear the ‘boys’ uniform. There are so many girls who don’t like dresses, whether they want to be boys or not.

Honestly i would avoid such schools like plague. What backwards values are they teaching children?

I honestly don’t know if this is just a phase or something more

There is nothing "more" to this. There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body.

She's a 4-year-old learning about the world and making sense of things. Other 4-year-old girls observe that it's girls who are given pink toys and begin rejecting anything that isn't pink (or vice versa). It doesn't actually mean that pink is only for girls or girls are require to like pink. They're just developing socially. Your 4-year-old girl adores her brothers and wants to be like them.

She will always be female, humans cannot change sex. It is your job to gently reinforce that she's a girl and that being a girl doesn't mean she can't do the things she enjoys. Parents are supposed to teach their children the things they need to develop into healthy adults.

Girls who resented wearing dresses are not new. The only thing that's new is sterilising them in response.

I'm very amused at these comments.

When I say my SD is non-binary and prefers to wear "boys clothes" on MN, I quickly get shouted down and told there are no "boys clothes" and SD is a girl who wears clothes.

When you say your DD wears clothes which could be for either gender, they say force her into a dress. 😂

I'd honestly look for a different nursery which is more inclusive. If she doesn't feel comfortable in a dress she shouldn't have to wear one.

100% agree. Both my children are at the bog standard local primary and can choose between skirts, trousers and shorts (and to be honest many come in joggers etc and no one seems to care as long as they’re there)

She sounds like me and my cousin when we were little. We were tomboys. That was the thing then, little girls could cut their hair and say they wanted to be boys and adults would laugh and let them grow out of it.
We’re now both married mums who wear dresses.

It's totally sexist that they make girls wear dresses. Dresses make it harder to perform lots of physical-style play that young children of BOTH sexes enjoy. That sort of rubbish is PRECISELY the reason some girls start saying they want to be boys.

Let her wear whatever she wants, let her have whatever hairstyle she wants, let her play whatever games she wants.

Just don't let her believe she can change her sex, but that there's nothing wrong with that, because being a girl won't stop her from doing anything she enjoys or having any job she likes when she grows up.

It sounds like you are doing everything right, OP.

My sister-in-law had a phase of insisting she was a boy, when she was about 3-4, chose a boy's name for herself and everything. And it was for exactly the same reason - she had 3 brothers and didn't want to be left out. Her parents just shrugged their shoulders and let her get on with it, because it was the 90s. She grew up absolutely fine.

Nursery were probs a bit concerned about your parenting if you can’t keep your daughter’s hair from being matted! This comes up in training as potential neglect.

In my children’s reception classes of 60 not one child has matted hair.