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!

Ugh. “Social suicide”?

Did you miss OP's many replies about Marvel, superheroes and Minecraft in making your determination about what's "obvious"?

Lots of bizarre views on this thread!

DS2 is now 15, but aged 4-5 he loved dressing up as Shezow, painting his nails, putting on make up etc.

He is now a perfectly normal nearly adult male, albeit with long bleached hair 😁

There is no way in the world he would have ever listened to me if I had refused to allow him to wear certain clothing and so I went with it and actually love that he has always had the confidence to express himself

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

YANBU to allow them to pick freely. I'd just tell the teacher that.

My DS is now 13 but when he was younger, I always said to him that there's not a girls "box" that contains only pink and sparkly things and cupcakes and fluffy kittens and a boys "box" that contains sports and blue things and mud. You can pick whatever you like from a range of stuff so it's perfectly fine for a man to play rugby but also love baking and flower arranging or perfectly fine for a woman to love pink but also be into motor racing and football (or any combination or selection from either "box" at all of course!). I think it's really important with boys to make sure they don't look down on "girls things" as being silly/frivolous (and then by extension look down on girls for liking them). It seems to have helped DS anyway.

I don't think telling them they can play with it at school but golly it simply isn't permitted in OUR house is helpful in any way.

When he asked to wear Frozen dress to soft play, he was told no. That's not appropriate.

But standing in my house singing "Let It Go?". For that, the dress would be perfect

You are not obliged to buy what they want though. Especially expensive dressing up outfits. Long hair is parent driven too.

Agree with what you've said here but I do often find when people say things about men with non-gender stereotypical interests they have to justify with "...and he's very masculine/manly". Like it's OK up to a point to not conform as long as long as they don't stray toooo far from gender norms.

I would really love to know what @TheNewWasp thinks "gender critical" means.

I know, right? Tell that to the gender bending boys in my DD's class. Long hair, plaits, nail varnish/sequins on non-uniform day. They look AMAZING. And are the ones rolling around in the mud at breaktime (ruining their manicures, but that's life!) and fighting.

Vive la difference!

What? A child saying 'I don't want my hair cut.' when a hair cut is suggested?

Have you heard of bodily autonomy?

I think their choices at that age will mostly come from what they are being exposed to. Have you been only exposing them to princesses movies and girls stuff, then that’s what they’ll be interested in. It’s you job as a parent to show them both sides maybe so they have a fair choice rather than only know one side of it, maybe. Apologies if you already do expose them to both sides and then they pick the princesses which in that case will be a whole different story and truly personal preferences of both boys.

Yes, he see his father doing these things everyday, a man who shows kindness consideration to everyone.
Honestly he'd have no interest in singing animations.
He loved dinosaurs, cars, dragons.
I don't like Disney movies anyway, mind numbing.
The only decent one IMO was Meridath, Brave.
Much better and more powerful message than a depressed sister and a lonely but happy sister.

Be 100% child-led - the moment they want to cut their hair or change the water bottle, support them, and if they never do, that's all good too.

Anyone raising an eyebrow or a comment is projecting their own issues or prejudices.

Your kids meanwhile will grow up confident in their choices having had a lot of fun along the way.

It’s so frustrating. No one questioned my DDs choice to prefer being a pirate to a princess, but boys aren’t allowed to make the choice in so many people’s eyes. I’d just keep telling school you let your children make their choices. Again, and again, until they stop asking.

100%. Also quite keen for their thoughts on kids dressing up as pirates, because if you want a group where the proportion who are "bad men doing bad things" in reality is approaching 1....

Children shouldn't be given a choice about what colour their hair bobble or water bottle is?

What do you let your kids decide on if you think that's too far for a 5 year old?

But why is the bar so high for Princess dresses and pink bottles? We need to stop linking clothes, colours, toys and similar preferences with sex. Completely. These are completely insignificant fashion choices. Nothing else. They have got nothing to do with your sex.

Maybe then our kids won't be so easily manipulated into thinking that they are born in the wrong body.

They'll be the same lads trying to access women's spaces in 2035.

They're just checking you're not using them as some sort of poster boys for being a 'cool right-on' mum

I'm pretty sure that's it op.

Maybe the school want to be sure they are getting to know the boys. Maybe they wonder if one is leading and another following, and they don’t want to see them as ‘the twins’ but as two people so they are asking in order to help to get to know them.

Yeah, the thing with fairy tales is that you need to get to the end for the moral.

Will they though???

Possibly if they're over 7.
My DD is 16. There is 5 students who identify the opposite sex in her class, very normal these days.

Thank for you for providing the names. This article from Out use the term gender-bending to describe the play so chatGPT must have taken it from there.

That fact that they go on so long about this portrayal clearly indicates how exceptional and unusual this play is. Maybe one day it will be commonplace and any individual will play any role regardless age, sex or race.

We are light years from that.

In the meantime, I prefer to keep it simple for the little ones. My child is a boy. He should be dressed up as a boy character. And when he grows up if he wants to be an actor who plays women, I would be in the first row to support him.