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!

Gosh there's a lot of curtain twitching, 'what will the neighbours think?' going on in some of these answers. DS loves what traditionalists (i.e. sexists) see as 'cute' animals and his favourite colour is pink. He chooses his clothes, lunchboxes etc. Whenever there's a selection and I ask him to pick something, his first choice is always pink. Let children be children.

What happened to girls being girls and boys being boys?

Why the fuck does a boy need to dress up as a girl? Cant girls just have their shit these days?

You have entirely misunderstood what being gender critical is, then. We believe that anyone can like anything, regardless of sex. That favourite colours or toys or clothes, or characters are nothing to do with sex. It is TRAs who insist that a boy liking pink and skirts means more than him just liking pink and skirts, that it means he is actually and literally a girl. We GCs are actually far more liberal about this stuff than TRAs are. It’s one of our key criticisms of the movement.

OP should leave her kids to like what they like. It doesn’t mean a thing. I think the nursery was simply checking to make sure she is not forcing it on them, because sadly there are some parents who push it on their kids because it makes them (the parents) more “interesting”. It does not sound like the OP is doing that at all. Good for her for not enforcing nonsense stereotypes.

It's a bit too much of a coincidence the long hair, the pink accessories, the dresses... 🤔 You're encouraging this and it's weird

I agree. I think some of the gender confusion is caused by being told you can't do that because you are a boy/girl.

Because no colours belong to boys and no toys belongs to girls. In your world, girls can't like trains and boys can't play with dolls? Shall we extend that premise out so that women can't be engineers and men can't be nurses?

I know it’s not the done thing, but yeah I wouldn’t actively encourage this. I would argue that the wolf is a main character in LRRH - I would say ‘boys don’t wear dresses now you’re big boys and in school, choose a male character like Shrek, Mario, Captain America, Olaf, Spiderman’. And I wouldn’t buy pink hair bands in the first place.

Before starting school I’d let it go, once in school there is more conformity - I don’t let my girls wear pink hairbands, I say navy or hair coloured for school. There a rules in place regardless of gender.

School is the perfect time to perhaps shake off some of these ideas, if you want to, but it sounds like you don’t want to and that’s absolutely fine. But it may throw up some questions that other children and teachers have and it’s just deciding whether it’s a harmless phase or if there is more to it.

The pink bottles were simply the cheapest and they get through them slot. If the white or blue or green had been cheaper, they'd have had those. I just didn't NOT buy them because they were pink. My cousin for example wouldn't have even considered the pink.

They live Spidey and Friends, books about all sorts. It's just that they loved those two especially at that point. God knows what they'll be this year's WBD.

DS had long hair. It was waist length and he didn’t want it cut. He still has long hair as an adult
At first glance everyone thought he was a girl but it only took a couple of seconds watching him to realise he was a boy.
I find it strange that your DS’s only watch films and tv where the main characters are female. Lots of films and children’s tv have male lead characters. DS at 5 was into Men in Black, Star Wars, Bob the Buillder and Thomas the Tank Engine. Dd grew up watching these but never wanted to dress in a Black Suit or dungarees.

A girl in a Hulk costume is a girl.
A boy in an Elsa dress is a boy.

A child of either sex in a sparkly dress is not dressing up as a girl. They're dressing up as a princess, probably because they like the sparkles.

No, I don't say that.

I say

"Little Red Hiding Hood is a girl.
You are boy.
And sometimes bad men dress up like a woman to do bad things, and we don't want to be like those men, do we?
We are not like the bad wolf who dresses up like a woman to make bad things, aren't we?
I am sure we can find a great boy character for you, maybe the Hunter of the tale, who saves everyone. Or maybe from another tale"

The moment you allow your child to believe it is acceptable to dress like the other gender you risk confusing them about the importance of biological reality.

So better nip this in the bud.

The pink bottles were simply the cheapest

So they didn't actually get a choice?

Other than the long hair, this could have been one of my twin boys, also age 5. His choice is he’d prefer Elsa/Arna dress, unicorn school bottle, frozen pyjamas. I couldn’t care less. He’ll either grow out of it, or he won’t.
I would imagine teacher finds it amusing and cute so asked, I doubt she’s questioning your choices.
Let it go.

Hubby has long hair
Eldest refuses to get his cut (because I think girls and boys should be allowed to choose their hair so long as it isn't getting them banned from anywhere!)
Like all the best rock stars.

Long hair is NOT a girl thing in our house.

They went to school today in blue trainers, jeans and dinosaur t-shirts.

My almost five year old is currently loving gabbys doll house and wants everything gabby, he dressed up as Skye from paw patrol last year for Halloween and went out trick or treating as her, when I asked why he likes Skye he said it’s because she has a helicopter and that’s cool! His favourite colour is purple and he has long hair that we have to tie up for school.
i know he will outgrow all of these things, he’s so little still and we’re just letting him love what he loves, one day he won’t want to play with his polly pocket (because it has sea animals and he loves them) and that’s ok, but whilst he does I’ll let him as it’s not hurting anyone.

How are trousers or skirts biological reality? In many cultures men wear skirts and women trousers, and this has changed over time.

WTAF have I just read!!!
You CANNOT be being serious here?
You have told your child that they are a bad person for dressing up as you deem girly.

WOW!!!! Just fucking WOW!

you're conflating sex and gender - clothes and toys are just clothes and toys, children remain girls or boys/female or male, however they are dressed and whatever they play with.

ETA - this was meant to quote @TheNewWasp 's interesting contribution:
"No, I don't say that.
I say
Little Red Hiding Hood is a girl.
You are boy.
And sometimes bad men dress up like a woman to do bad things, and we don't want to be like those men, do we?
We are not like the bad wolf who dresses up like a woman to make bad things, aren't we?
I am sure we can find a great boy character for you, maybe the Hunter of the tale, who saves everyone. Or maybe from another tale"
The moment you allow your child to believe it is acceptable to dress like the other gender you risk confusing them about the importance of biological reality.
So better nip this in the bud."

It’s only been since the last 50 odd years or so that pink has been seen as a girls colour! It was a boys colour for many years before that

This is about clothes and hair accessories and in the real world men don’t wear dresses and any school dc have been in pink hair bobbles would not be on the uniform list.

I have to tie my hair back when working I would be sent home if I turned up with punk bobbles in my hair. Sometimes you can’t wear what you please you have to conform

So... there are no pink bottles involved? It is just a repeated typo?

Nonsense. Teaching them that what they like is nothing to do with sex, because sex is biological and immutable and anyone can like anything, is a far better way to approach this. Otherwise you risk making them believe that simply by liking “girly things” they are in fact girls.

You are obviously late to the GC party, if you don’t realise that gender stereotypes are a key issue we have been pushing against for the last 40 years or so.

When mine was about 3 he was invited to a 'Pirates and Princesses' birthday party for one of his class mates.

He went in his (chosen on amazon himself) pink tutu and fairy wings, despite having an extensive play sword collection and a pirate costume being totally possible if he wanted it.

There were girls there in full on pirate gear too. Although I will say he was the only boy who'd taken the princess route.

She's not 'encouraging' she's just not 'discouraging' - supporting a child's harmless interests is totally fine.

Can you imagine a teacher questioning a parent about a five year old girl who had short hair, a blue water bottle and came to WBD as Harry Potter?

The double standards over this are infuriating - it's just another way the patriarchy shows up IMO. No big problem for a girl to prefer "masculine" things because "masculine" things are normal right and proper but a boy interested in "feminine" things is associating himself with something that is seen as inferior and wrong.

Christ alive this entire thread is a mess of gender-essentialist nonsense. Boys choosing pink makes you a woke/crunchy/try-hard mum? You'll make them trans???!! Do people hear themselves! absolute drivel. Wee boys love pink and princesses and barbies and dresses - and why shouldn't they, that stuff is cool! Incidentally, my partner's fave colour is pink - he wears it all the time and has a pink gaming chair, a pink phone case and a pink backpack (and is also very manly and masculine at the same time)