AIBU to say no when my nearly 6-year-old wants ballet flats?

[HannahW2768]

Hello dont know if chose correct topic but am I wrong/unreasonable for this?
My son who is almost 6 years old was with me when I went into clarks to buy myself some work shoes the other day and he really really liked the pair of ballet flats I got and said he wants a pair like them for himself
I told him no as these are for girls and people may not like him wearing them but was that wrong to do and should I have said yes and got him similar pair in his size?

My son wanted sparkly pink jelly shoes when aged 4. I didn’t buy them because they weren’t very practical. I did let him wear nail polish and bracelets to school when he was about 7 or 8. My friend’s son wore a princess dress constantly for a while. Neither were bullied nor are they now trans or gay. I wouldn’t care if they were though! I think this thread is a bit sad tbh.

I'm sure the posters who basically don't approve of school age boys wearing dresses & bows to school on non uniform days hold the belief it would make them gay or trans, nor would they be bothered if they were.

Its about far more than that. It's about boys being free to express themselves with an identity that separates them from girls & vice versa. Although they have similarities & should be treated as equals, boys & girls will in the vast majority of cases always be different to each other & they should be respected for those differences.

id you type what you meant to type?

Just correcting typos

Had a quick look before lights out to see where I made a mistake in my last post. It's obvious I meant 'don't hold the belief' & not hold the belief but I agree a post has to be correct if an opinion is to be properly understood.

Male and female anatomy, including feet, are different from birth and detectable when babies start walking. Good shoe brands should take that into account.

Women are not just small men. Their physiology is fundamentally different to men’s and the differences start in early childhood. Unfortunately it is always recognised in product design.

So tell me how a 5 year old boys foot is different from a 5 year old girls foot @disappearingfish ? Or alternatively, how is a ballet flat shoe designed so that its wearable by a whole range of girls but not a single boy?

I don’t understand your logic here. By not allowing boys to wear non boyish clothes their ability to express themselves is diminished.

Feel free to Google. But if you do so with your filter firmly set at “I’m right” no doubt you’ll find information to back you up.

As other posters have said, ballet flats are terrible for most people of either sex. I have never bought them for me or my DD for that reason.

There is huge overlap in individuals between male and female anatomy, an overlap which is far greater before puberty and I'm sure that overlap is absolutely enormous in the case of 6 year old children's feet.

Could you point to what research suggests that 6 year olds' feet differ by sex, and how?

Yes you’re right that they have different bodies - my point was more that girls’ feet are no better equipped to wear shoes that aren’t good for feet than boys are. So if you’ll put girls in them there’s literally no reason you shouldn’t put boys in. Because those shoes have no support, no shape, no contouring, they’re not designed for feet in anyway other than having something between the floor and your foot skin.

So a girl is not going to be benefitting from those while a boy is getting his feet screwed up - both boys and girls will get screwy feet from them.