Teacher asked who chose the pink bottle....

[Caszekey]

Ok, so it's more aibu to allow / encourage this behaviour.
Fairly identifiable so here goes.
5 year olds twin boys, both have long hair like their Dad which I put up for school. Ones favourite colour is pink. Both adore Frozen so wanted the dress up dresses (Kristoff is a minor character). Last WBD they dressed as Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood (bear, wolves are minor characters). School have jokingly passed comment previously about pink bobbles etc but today I was asked, incidentally, if I chose the pink bottles or them, do I pick costumes etc.
I don't know if she's curious or implying I'm doing something wrong but it's got me second guessing

The choices are child led and I reckon they'll age out of them but I don't want to pull the "boys don't do that" line when girls have so much fun.

So aibu to allow them to pick so freely ? We've not yet encountered a request for a dress for general living, just they like to be Princesses!

Well obviously because long hair and body decoration is an immutable female characteristic and if boys are allowed to enjoy them even for a moment, they will think they're girls forever.

PP has clearly spent no time hanging out with guitarists or drummers.

I agree with you on that point - I was more saying that he still has stereotypically masculine hobbies and habits to make a point to the neanderthals on this thread that raising kids on pink doesn't turn them 'feminine' (and even if it did, it wouldn't matter anyway!)

I honestly think we haven't achieved gender equality until there's a male equivalent of a 'tomboy' that's seen as being equally acceptable and rather cool.

Or better still when we don't need such labels at all because whether you like "masculine" or "feminine" things doesn't fucking matter

He can sing to his heart's content. But you are the one buying the dresses. it's amazing how you don't see how inappropriate it is.

And yet you are actively confusing him by closing off the idea that people can pretend to be something they're not, without being or becoming that thing. What do you think he'll think if he sees a boy dressed up as a female character, or a woman playing a male character? How will he cope when school has the panto in at Christmas?

(you do also really, really need to think through the motivations or biases of the sources you cite as factual.)

(also I'm super keen to know if you're bothered about him dressing up as a pirate or an animal.)

A lot of these answers do
not reflect what most people think in the playground. If you allow your son to school in dresses whether it’s dress up
or not you are going to raise eyebrows. Long hair fine, pink fine. But dresses will be associated with trans. I feel like a lot of the answers given are the “correct “ answers but not the reality otherwise we would see a lot more young bus in dresses.

The pendulum has swung too far. From scrapping gender stereotypes, allowing free will, while there is a www of people waiting online to convince your vunerable DC that they are in the wrong body.
It is important to protect gender.
My beautiful DD became a "They" about 12, thank fuck she reverted back to she/her and orginal name, I acted calmly through the panic, freaking out inside.

oh my gosh "associated with trans" god forbid, pass me the smelling salts!

Threads like this absolutely fascinate me.

I keep thinking back to when my sons were this age and the idea of them actually wanting to wear a dress... not only out in public, but actually to school in front of all their peers, is absolutely insane!!!

Even if they had wanted to, and they'd asked......there's no way I would have allowed it.

That may be narrow minded of me, or mean I'm a bad parent, or make me 'part of the problem' but even so, there's no way it would have happened.

The whole idea of 5 year old boys going to school in princess dresses just blows my mind.

I have not got a formula of a function that takes in any possible character in the world of fiction and says yay or nay. Let's leave it in male or "neutral gender" characters.

• Examples of "neutral": a tree, a stone that talks, a teletubbie
• Male animals
• Men or boys

So yes, pirates, why not.

And in regards the other point where you claim that I confuse my child. Well, maybe. Life is confusing. You teach your kids how to be nice and stay of out trouble, but at the same time you want them to learn how to defend themselves and protect the innocent. You teach the kids to help each other and yet life is constant competition at work, university, where you have to look for yourself. It's all a question of striking the balance, understanding the circumstances,...Yes, it's bloody confusing sometimes, but such is life.

I wholeheartedly believe that I am not going to traumatise my son by saying, no, you are not going to dress up like Goldilocks, the same way that I say no to many other things he asks for that he can't have.

Let them be 5. My friend's son wore an Elsa dress all the time at that age, now he's 12 and only cares about Minecraft and jogging bottoms and trainers.

My son went to a World Book Day as Belle one year, when he was about 8. Wore his sister's dress, heels, a wig, make-up.. he looked great. Everyone told him he looked great, then the next day he went back to wearing trousers where he has stayed ever since. He's now a very masculine 19 year old. Not for one second did I worry about him doing this- it's a dress up day! I've just realised his brother has just pinched his sister's pink water bottle bottle too..

I love that so many people seem to think that you have control over what your DC like or don't like to such an extent. I didn't "expose" my DC to K-pop Demon Hunters, but they still started asking to watch it. I didn't purposely "expose" them to literal colours in the world and they still managed to choose favourites. I'm not sure how people think you can prevent your DC from being "exposed" to fairy tales or the colour pink or barbies or whatever!

The choices are child led and I reckon they'll age out of them but I don't want to pull the "boys don't do that" line when girls have so much fun.

Odd choice of words. Boys have just as much fun. Were you hoping for twin girls?

Two pink bottles this time as they break them all the time and pink was cheaper.

Really? Children’s water bottles were a £1 in Tesco yesterday.

No my point is that girl stuff is ALSO fun. It isn't inferior just because it's not aimed at boys. Princesses and Unicorns can be fun as much as Superheroes and Dragons.

And that's nice, but it cost me £2 from Asda. Tesco would have required a special journey out of town. Utterly ridiculous just to grab a bottle that isn't a specific colour when the kid doesn't care

I don't think it's wrong kf them to ask you.
I know someone who wanted a baby girl, but had a boy... Always dressed him in pink from newborn, bows, long hair. Everyone thought he was a girl. Surprise surprise he's grown up very confused.

@TheNewWasp then why was if best that your DM didn't let you dress as a female mouse? Surely that's within your rules? Very amusing that a kind heroine is horrifying but violent criminal pirates is fine! My DD was Fantastic Mr Fox one world book day. Should I have stopped her in case she magically forgets that she's female and human?

She has a husband, they have a dad- he could take them for a hair cut, except he has got long hair too so we can presume he is fine with it and they just want to be like their daddy.
I have no idea what an esky bag is but perhaps we should teach children not to exclude or bully because someone is different. And teach them that sex has nothing to do with fabric, colour or jewellery and is only defined by our bodies.

I think we're still old fashioned enough round here that they'd associate it with being gay. But I can't shape my world to otherwise narrow shafts of experience

Erm, “temporarily becoming”? What on earth are you talking about? It’s dressing up. My DD sometimes dresses as a bear. Has she temporarily become a bear? Does she think she actually is a bear? Of course not.

I think these things are fine so long as it's genuinely the children driving it.

I don’t see what the issue is here, and seems a bit precious of people to be bothered by boys having pink belongings or picking dresses for fancy dress….kids just do what they like at that age! I asked my mum if I had been wrong to choose pink Minnie mouse high chairs and pink car seats for my twin girls, as if I have a boy in the future he will have to use them…she just laughed and told me to stop being ridiculous as it was fine for boys to wear pink or have pink belongings!

Or the totally comfortable in their own skin guys who can buy their gfs tampons without passing out, who'll talk to their mates about his suicidal feelings, who'll let his kids play hairdresser on him when they're 4 and who'll not be entrenched in ideas of his and her jobs at home.

Dress them like boys, FFS, and stop attention seeking.

The amount of posters on this thread that see a problem with this is depressing af.

Also I swear all the "gender critical" people used to say "you can wear what you want but it doesn't make you the other sex" but now 5 year boys aren't even allowed to wear a dress!

OP, your kids sound great and everything you are doing is fine. I would find the teacher's comment annoying to be honest but a lot of things are annoying in the world so I would attempt to brush it off as much as possible.