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!

Err…once a year? Seems to be the frequency. Clothes are just clothes, they have nothing to do with being a boy or not. It’s sad that it’s only young kids who are “allowed” this

Oooh moo, don't blame Frozen on me! I saw it at the cinema with my best friend like a perfectly civilised woman. You want to blame Frozen pushing on anyone I suggest yo ustart with two little 4 year old girls who my twins adore who in turn adore Frozen. Who talked about it so much that my twins came home talking about it so much that I had to LET them watch it. Then you blame those bloody song writers like the Lopez's for writing such catchy bloody tunes. And the script writers for making it funny. I am NOT taking the blame for that one. And no, I won't let it go.

Your logic is wild to me.

You would rather your child be associated (through pretend play) with a group whose members in reality are violent thieves, rapists and murderers, than with any character who is female.

Because dressing up as a (fictional version of a) girl or a female character is wrong, but dressing up as a (fictional version of a) violent thieving killer is not.

In a culture where violence and crime perpetrated by men is much more prevalent than biological males who live as women, that's an odd set of values.

i think in these situations it case of mum wanting girl instead of boys so leading kids in these choices believing the kids are making the choice instead of the mum

Attention seeking because I have a post on MN??

And they were dressed as boys. Boys dressed up as Elsa/Anna or Goldie/Red. Boy pants and shoes. Costume dress / cape.

And no, I won't let it go.

Not the right words op!

But what about the rest of the times when they're in jeans and dinosaur tops and they pee standing up? Is my failure to accept them as boys only manifesting on certain dates and times? Cos they're in full blood uniform for school and their wardrobe is 98% blue green brown grey black

Right? So confusing! I thought it would be great for boys to feel they can wear whatever they want but still be a boy. I thought they'd agreed that wearing a dress doesn't make you a girl?!

I think the issue is long hair + pink things + dress. One of the above is ok but all 3 is too much. People will start to constantly think the child is a girl and he will eventually think 'well if everyone thinks I'm a girl I may as well just be one'. Then with this thought in mind he'll go online one day and he will be they or she before you know it. If that is truly who he is and wants to be then so be it, you'll need to respect that. But he needs to experience life without this complication for a while. Personally I'd be encouraging a haircut. I work with young kids and I've seen a few boys go through this princess phase, when they have the short hair other kids and parents will say X is dressing up as a princess, they won't think X is trying to be a girl. Whatever you think as a parent, acceptance from peer group is important and isolation from other kids or their parents will have an impact on his wellbeing.

Do you genuinely believe it was because you let her dress up as a boy character for fun tho? Cos that's the point. My boys aren't confused who they are. They know they're boys. My eldest is 10 and knows he's a boy. He had a Princess Poppy dress and loved Power Piff girls and dressed up as the green one.

For the record, my kids have dressed up as pirates, as well as superheroes, animals, various Harry Potter characters, Donald Trump (Halloween), Miss Trunchbull (DS1 on stage), Bob Cratchit, a Minotaur, Bunny, Axl Rose, an atlas and a Gorgon. All of these things are absolutely fine because they know the difference between fiction and reality.

I'm no more concerned that DS1 thinks he's a woman or a book of maps than I'm concerned that DS2 thinks he's half-bull or a rabbit who only wants to live in the woods befriending anxious squirrels who like to bake.

Do you honestly think that is any more likely than that a boy in that situation will be told constantly that the things he likes are only for girls, and he can only like and enjoy them if he's a girl, and therefore he'll think "I must be a girl"?

Half the male senior software devs I know have long hair. I’m sure they are not giving a shit on their £100k+ salaries.

You're doing everything right op. Ignore the retrograde comments on here.

So pin them down and force them to have it cut? Just the youngest ones or the older son and husband too? He's had long hair since he was 15, shall I tell him he's confusing his children into thinking they're girls??

My DH has no problems buying tampons for me or our teenage DD, he does housework too, make meals, works hard.
DS will learn from us how to be kind.
A dress doesn't make you more empathic unless you believe that.

But pink isn't just a colour - and I don't mean in a Miley Cyrus 'pink is an attitude' way. But pink bears a weight of societal/gender meaning and expression and to think otherwise is possibly a little disingenuous

< feels the urge to go on a Miranda Priestley rant about cerulean blue >

Why do you consider them “sides?” Why do you demand these children fight in your gender wars and confirm to your archaic stereotypes? I don’t see that as necessary or healthy. Are my girls forbidden to be tomboys? To wear trousers? To dig in the dirt?

I have a nephew who sounds a bit like your sons, long hair, wears clothes with rainbows on and dungarees. I'm sure his mother would deny any influence and argue it's all child led if anyone dared question it but having observed it over 7 years of his life it is most certainly heavily influenced by SILs wishes. Even BIL isn't allowed to mention it. It's had a very negative impact on his school experience and he is very 'othered'

I agree completely.

Let them wear pink and dresses if they like. No one cares if girls wear blue and trousers, do they? But feminine things are seen as 'less than'. I don't believe that letting your boys wear pink and dresses now necessarily means that they will express interest in changing their gender later on, as some posters seem to imply.

Do you have an issue with girls wearing trousers or blue, or liking male characters?

This is exactly my point, no one bats an eyelid at girls dressing as male characters, or wearing trousers, or blue. Because in society masculine = good, feminine = bad.

Aaa but it's much easier to do exactly what society expects than to deal with bullying and maybe teach kids that everyone is different and that's fine. So let's all give in and squash our kids down to make them conform.

These threads really illustrate how most people still judge girls / women as lesser than men / boys .
If a little girl goes to school dressed in blue / in costume as Robin Hood or Spider-Man no one turns a hair .
These two little boys haven’t realised female role models shouldn’t be emulated by boys yet . They will though - another year of the outside World making them uncomfortable will do it .

JK Rowling went by initials , rather than Joanne because her publishers said boys wouldn’t read books written by a woman …