To feel weird about nursery staff putting bows in DD's hair?

[CalonHapus]

When DW picked up DD from nursery yesterday, they had put DD's hair into bunches with pink bows. They were apparently pretty pleased with themselves and were commenting on how 'cute and girly' DD looked.

We mostly dress DD in unisex clothes (which - as she's 14 months old - lots of people seem to read as 'boys clothes'). She has long hair which we mostly tie up into a 'pineapple' on the top of her head. We're not trying to 'make her look like a boy', we just like to put her in comfy, practical clothes that she can be active in. We don't put her in dresses very often because she tends to get tangled up in them or trip over the hem.

AIBU to feel like the nursery staff were trying to make a point by doing this? i.e. "you're not presenting her like a 'proper girl' so we will"?

Because there’s no benefit to a14 month old wearing fancy hairstyles ! It was a series of little ponytails down each side of her head all joined together - it took ages to take out at bath time and the little elastic bands stick to the hair so it’s hard to do it gently. I’d be fine with them brushing her hair but not making her sit through complicated hairstyles just so she looks cute.

Wouldn’t bother me at all. DD has a mixture of girly things/unisex and some things from the boys section!

I put her in more flowery things for nursery because it hides the stains better!! Some of her flowery outfits get comments about being pretty - I would say mostly because it’s different from the plain stuff we mostly put her in. It’s got nothing to do with being girly.

I don’t think nursery have done anything wrong.

I probably would have let it slide, except for the 'cute and girly' comment. That's pretty expressive of their intentions and attitude, and I wouldn't want that kind of gender stereotype crap around my kid. I despise 'girly', it's so fucking demeaning.

She's not a doll.

Unless DW is lying, then they did say it.

(Seems a weird thing to lie about tbh)

Society isn't gender neutral though so I suppose some people are more simply trying to balance it out.

I simply just don't want pink, bows and dresses shoved down my DD's throats because they are girls or for them to be taught that bows = dressing 'nicely'.

I'll bet no boys with slightly longer hair came out of nursery with bows in their hair at 14 months old.

To all the people saying 'get a grip' (or variations thereof), I'm... fine? Like, I'm not huddled in a corner hyperventilating about this or anything 😂

I just thought it was a bit weird and wanted to see what other people thought.

I’m not sure why any of this matters. I think there are far more pressing matters to be conscious of within a child’s upbringing and development. It’s not a hill I’d be willing to die on. It does seem, OP, like you actually let this kind of thing take up a lot of your head space (e.g. the conscious choice of how to dress your child and the hair style etc) and I wonder whether it’s actually that deep?

Nursery.
You aren't in control there, other adults are so your child is going to be very influenced by them, like it or not.

I loved when nursery did my youngest child's hair. She never let me touch it more than a quick brush, but would let them do anything.

Oh the horror, remove her immediately from that awful nursery.

I found our nursery responded to our child’s requests. Maybe your child isn’t into the pineapple look?

Honestly, it won’t have a long term impact. My child starting dropping her t’s and saying haitch, after copying the nursery staff. It stopped within a few months of leaving.

At 14 months old?

She's 14 months old. If she's able to communicate that to them, I'd be very impressed!

@CalonHapus my daughter used to love them doing her hair, sometimes my husband had done a rubbish job of putting it up, I was always grateful when they neatened it up.

Be grateful, they aren’t trying to prove a point, they are just trying to do something nice xx

I think it's a non issue. If your daughter is a girly girl then that's what she'll be. If she's a tomboy at heart no amount of pink bows are going to change that. I was a stereotypical girl as a child, loved dolls, hair and makeup. My niece wasn't interested in anything like that and still isn't, she is 37 now and doesn't want kids.

Perhaps your daughter’s hair had fallen out of it's “pineapple” or however you had tied it up and was in her eyes and annoying her?
Often with young children being so active their hair can fall out and be in their face and eyes, so they cannot see properly. Sometimes children then start sucking their hair.
The hair bows may be the only spare ones they have to tie her hair up with.
Maybe the staff are also thinking about head lice and tying her hair up will help to avoid this.
You could start any conversation about this by thanking the staff for doing her hair for her, you really appreciate them taking care of her so thoughtfully…

It’s infuriating, and you should tell them to stop.

I have a conventionally feminine style, and we’ve found this message is received much better from me than from my much more androgynous wife. Some people assume my wife doesn’t get it or wants our daughter to be a clone of her. From me, people believe we mean it.

In similar situations I’ve dressed our baby the next day in plain navy sports kit, and that seems to have got the point across.

But we did need to compromise on the hair. The pineapple didn’t stay in and gave people a reason to redo it. Bunches have more sticking power and so are more likely to be put back in as they were rather than restyled.

I find quite a few of the problems in my life are down to how society views women as lesser. And it's no one big thing doing that.It's a build up of hundreds of thousands of little things

I wouldn’t mention it, no. Except maybe if they start doing it more and more.
Regarding the gender neutral approach, as much as I agree with no ‘glitter / all pink / princess look’, I also think avoiding ‘girl’ clothes is the solution. Everything in moderation :)

YANBU to feel a bit weird by it. Staff at my DD's nursery wouldn't have put a different hair style in such a small child. They were really respectful of keeping the hair style the same even if they had to redo it (assuming a non complex style!). It sounds petty and like such a small thing but I think it is good practice in looking after, particularly, very tiny ones to take the lead from parents. Having said that, it's not something I'd complain about as it does sound like it was done in a caring way.

My DD has ended up very far down the rabbit hole of pink/sparkly/unicorns (she's 4 now but has been going since 2 I think) despite us being very neutral with things at home. Just to brace you for what might be to come. It's tricky because it becomes hard to know whether to buy the pink unicorn water bottle (for example) because you know she will prefer that or get the dinosaur one because you don't want to actually push the "pink" agenda further. We're just waiting it out!

It was definitely peer pressure and unfortunately I think quite a lot of staff at nursery didn't counter it very much but in all other ways provided really excellent care so I never mentioned it. They once did a fun activity of a pretend fire (just painted or similar) with water pistols and toy fire engines to "put it out". When the activity was described on the app, they said "the boys had fun playing firemen and putting out the fire and the girls looked after the babies (dolls)". They were about 3 at the time and may have chosen to do that themselves but still...

Sometimes I'd pick up DS and he'd have two tini pigtails that looked like antenaes. The girls liked playing with hair and he liked being included. I also taught him how to comb women's hair (only down) so that he could comb mine and the staff's hair when they played hairdresser. He was very gentle and liked to smooth it.

I really think you are overthinking this.

I’m assuming they didn’t mean it badly, and they’re very attentive and caring. But if this is something that bothers you, it would feel very uncomfortable and imposed upon. You could say something, or you could just promptly remove the bows and move on. But if you’re feeling like it’s weird, that’s okay, it makes sense.

My sons regularly used to get bunches and bows in their hair - at their own request - in nursery.

Sounds like your daughter was more than happy having her hair styled like that. If she wasn’t, you’d know.