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!

My nephew has only just turned 6 and his favourite colour has always been pink. His bike, camera, car, drinks bottle etc are all pink and he always chooses the pink option. They're just a child and it's not on your teacher making a thing of a child just enjoying themselves and asserting their own likes and dislikes. I would have a quiet word and ask her to keep her opinions to herself

Jesus, people on here. You can't possibly dress as a female human! The horror! Make him dress as a wolf or bear or pig instead! Because those are, of course, male (you presume) and therefore appropriate for a male human. Wizards, animals, demons, inanimate objects are all fine but NOT GIRLS! Noooooo!

You must really struggle with pretend play.

Fuck knows how you cope with kids dressing up as pirates.

That is not even remotely similar 🤣

So where did the conversation with the teacher go from there? She asked, you answered then...silence? Did she not say why she was asking? Did you not ask her why she was asking? Because my concern would be is this just curiosity on her part, or is she asking for a reason such as your boys are being teased or seem embarrassed by the bobbles in school.

You know what, I'm ok not shaming my son into thinking that if he wants to dress up like Red or Elsa or some other generic female costume, that he is akin to bad men who dress up as women to hurt women. (Not to mention the 5 hour conversation on why bad men do it and which bad men do it and is that a bad man or a woman over there etc. that will ensue).
I'm ok not to reinforce that dressing up for fun somehow affects biological reality. What biological reality? That they have the same shaped bodies as the next 5 year old, regardless of their sex? That your penis doesn't turn necrotic if it goes in a dress? That Elsa is just as cool to play as Superman?

A hundred years ago pink was a colour for boys (a bright, dynamic colour, suitable for rough and tumble boys they thought) and blue was for girls ( a calming sedate colour suitable for sweet little girls).

also the double standards - a boy comes to school with long hair and pink hair bobbles, pink drink bottle or whatever and it’s all shock, horror. A girl comes to school in with short hair, a blue t-shirt and denim jeans with a blue water bottle and no one raises an eyebrow.

When my daughter was a baby I went shopping with her and she was wearing a pink tracksuit. Two people told me what a lovely boy she was!

Why is there nothing wrong with a girl being a “tomboy” and wearing blue or boyish clothes yet boys should never wear anything girly. Are girls and women so inferior that you must make sure you are never mistaken for one?

But why on earth should she make that decision? What possible cause could be served by not allowing her son to wear an else xostume?

I assume your grand daughter wasn't allowed to wear thr lizzo outfit either because it wasn't suitable for jumping and climbing in soft play or because it was too skimpy. Both of them very different from existing you can't wear something because it's not for your sex.

I'm also going to say something else that might be controversial but while I dont think preferences, toys or even personality is sex specific I actually don't think there is anything wrong with a man wearing dresses. I mean whom does it hurt? The bad wolf wasn't bad because he dressed up like the grandma. He was bad because he ate the grandma, stole her clothes and then tried to eat little red riding hood. I am also pretty sure that the bad wolf didn't actually start believing he is a female human just because of his clothes. He pretended to be grandmum to hurt little red riding hood. Surely that was why he was bad, wasn't it?

I do tent to overthink but I think those saying they're just checking are right, and it's right that they should do so. Eldest also has long hair, picked art and music club over any sports, loves a good book and hates football so perhaps she sees a pattern where there is simply free choice.

No we talked about a few of their choices, but it kinda ended when another teacher came up with my eldest to take to ab appointment so it got cut short. She did say she was just curious but there was an undertone that made me paranoid

@TheNewWasp Your mum wouldn't have let you dress up as a mouse? Not even for Halloween or something? Poor you. How sad that you weren't allowed to pretend and imagine things as a child.

Btw, my DC don't think they're Elsa in her dress or that they're Spiderman in his outfit. They still know who they are.

Children can be cruel.
It depends if your DC has thick skin, even at 5 they notice differences.
If your children are happy, it is okay.

I didn't have this problem as DS was never interested in girls toys, his Dsis had plenty of pink things, he preferred cars and balls.

I had to run a search on chatGPT. Those men were portraying drag and gender-bending roles. Not that kind of stuff I want to be talking about to a 5 year old. A tad too young. Let's keep it simple for now and when he grows up I will touch on that and other sensitive issues.

It's not really a debate when it's clear that there's no connection between genes and clothes. It's relevant in that you suggest approaching this issue with a child with flat out lies, which is never really a sign that one is making the best parenting decision.
If what you're trying to tell your child is real and true, you won't have to bend facts to tell it to them.

@Caszekey My twin boys were exactly the same. They’re 12 now, still have long hair but now wearing Metallica t shirts 🤘

I find it so depressing that people think their boys need to be hardmen at age 5 to avoid bullying. Bullying is not a fact of life that we need to teach our children to bend to. What an awful attitude.

We cope just fine so no need to ask Fuck.

Yep but a quick Google tells me Lizzo dresses flashing a fair bit of flesh and in badly fitting clothes so no they isn't inappropriate for soft play. I'd want boy or girl in leggings / joggers or similar and a long sleeved top ideally. What I wouldn't care about is the colour of them.

She wants dinosaurs? Fine. He wants kittens? Also fine r

A million times this. There no girls things and boys things, everyone can wear what they like.

Social suicide????

Just say you want to brain wash children into binary gender identify corresponding with their genitalia and don't bother dressing it up with hyperbolic language.

And to address another poster, why is allowing children freedom of expression only OK if they pretend to be a gender specific character/superhero?

It's ALL bloody fantasy. Life gets real all too soon. I fail to see how a pink water bottle is turning a kid trans. FFS.

Little girls aged 5 with short hair or mistaken for boys by other children.
My DS was convinced a little boy in his class was a girl when he was 5, he kept saying she/her.

Exactly. DS is 10, long haired and in a Steve's Lava Chicken TShirt. Understands there's no such thing as a girl / boy colour etc. but his favi8is blue anyway. He's not the one who's gonna bully another kid for being a bit different but I worry about some posters kids.

Agree. Why shouldn't men wear dresses and skirts as men? Women wear trousers which was unthinkable for a long time.

At 5, my oldest twins who are both boys:

1 wouldn't take off a pair of red lady bug rubber boots
1 was obsessed with wearing a purple and pink beret

Let your boys have fun and wear what they want! They will grow out of it soon enough!

Wow, so many PPs have a problem with children dressing as the main characters from their favourite stories!

People saying they wouldn’t let their children choose their costumes - what?? It’s not like these children dressed as Nazis or something 😂 Is it OK if a girl wanted to dress as Robin Hood, or would that start you clutching your pearls too?

To those criticising the pink water bottles for boys - I just don’t know what to say. Are girls allowed to have blue belongings? Or is it that touching pink items makes boys trans these days 😂

To those asking whether boys are exposed to stories with strong male characters - are you actually joking 😂 Are we not allowed to read fairy tales with female protagonists to our children now? Can children only read stories about characters of their own sex unless they get wild ideas about dressing up as them?? Bonkers stuff.

OP - I’m sorry the school is being weird about this! Of course YANBU.