To not buy her a tail, so she can be like her friend who ‘is a therian’

[Laura9899]

My ten year old has a friend who seems nice and has sane sensible normal parents and yet she wears a tail and tells my daughter she’s a therian. I’m not in any way happy with all the furry rubbish and this feels along the same lines. My daughter has now asked to be a cat for Halloween, then asked for a furry tail as part of her costume, and now I think it’s actually so she can join in with her friend. They are only ten so it’s likely just play but there’s no way I’m letting her go out in a tail 🙄.

Tell her you'll get one too? And then start miauling everytime she asks for something.

You do sound nutty 😉😆

Through school! I just heard of some of my daughter’s classmates who have tails which they wore for non uniform day! My daughter is 9 years old for reference. So they hear about these things through school.

I know loads of young 'therians' and it's just creative play 😂
They make masks and wear tails and gallop around the park on all 4s.

Is this a joke? I feel like I am in a parallel universe. My kids are at University now. Is this what loads of kids are doing? Wearing tails and going on all fours in the park? I mean, my daughter liked some cat ears at Halloween but this feels so unusual to me.

This. Nope not in any way should you indulge it

Furry/therian "culture" is heavily sexualised and pornified online, pretty sure that's why a lot of mothers don't want their daughters wearing tails & ears in public. It's very much a sex thing for the adults, and they get off on seeing young kids joining in.

It's also just weird and too infantile for 10 year olds. They're still kids but well past the age where they should be wanting to be in fancy dress all day long.

Honestly the MN frothing is hysterical.We all used to pretend we were horses and gallop around the park when we were kids , ditto role playing cats and dogs.

Maybe MN should publish a list of what some posters deem acceptable in the world of make believe. Honestly I pity the way some of the way brains on here work. It must be exhausting and miserable.

Let her go as a cat....but tell her it has to be a Manx cat.

When you were ten?
I played those games too, around age 6/7. Not year 6.

How is this weirder than say, LARPing or improv? Just get her a cat costume. What is the slippery slope you’re worried about exactly?

My mum made me a tail for a dressing up thing when I was 8 or 9. I loved it and used to wear it round the house occasionally for the next year or two. Fortunately it was the 80s so no one panicked I was turning into a fetishist.

@Leafstamp take a wild guess at what I think of your reply.

Fortunately, when these threads appear outside FWR, it's increasingly the case that the responses are much more balanced and sensible.

Of course there's still the hardcore of anti trans/anti non-binary/whatever people trying to pretend that a 10 year old wanting a cat costume is part of a global anti-women conspiracy, but their numbers are becoming fewer. The obvious overlap with the hard right doesn't help.

Brilliant. Full George Galloway cringe.

Sorry, are you seriously suggesting the OP show her 10-year old child pictures of people in fetish gear?

Post reported.

Ugh I thought all this nonsense was dying out?

Personally I’d stop my child playing with this friend. You don’t want them anywhere near this nonsense in the teen years.

Kids are pressured out of play way too early. Nothing wrong with a 10 ten old wanting to dress up as a cat. Play is helpful developmentally.

I'd say, using the term "therian" is just a way to make a child's natural desire to play acceptable. It's the same as how dc of that age might "help a younger sibling" with toys.

I’ve known children who ‘were’ horses. Run round horse style, neigh a lot, paw the ground horse style.

They grow up and out of it - except 1 I taught. It was secondary so not so much trotting round. She went on to get an Olympic silver.

i believe the litter tray business comes out of something far more serious and from the US.

When there is a shooter in their schools, they lock down. Classroom doors locked and barricaded. Could be for hours. No toilet trips.

The litter is for those who need a wee - nothing to do with cats or pretending to be a cat.

People have put 2 + 2 together and have got 5. They know it’s 4 but 5 suits their needs better.

Yesterday I saw two girls walking through town in beautiful cat masks with ears and big bushy rainbow tails. My first thought was wow they must be going to a fancy dress party, then I asked my teen if they were Furry which apparently they were.

I thought it was cute. I think I were a teen now I’d be furry, but without the fetish part, I’ve always thought a tail would be amazing.

Therianism is an adult fetish, not innocent dressup.

I think anyone who assumes that a 10 year old dressing up as a cat is a sexual fetish is the odd one tbh. Pre-pubescent child aren't often sexually motivated.

'There's playing. This type of play would be a young age. Not 10.'

Sorry @Yellowcakestand I don't really agree with this - I used to play pretend games when I was 10/11, I think I grew out of it about 12. None of the therian stuff was around back then but I still enjoyed pretending to be animals etc and and had friends who did too. 10/11 year olds can still have very active imaginations.

I'm now a perfectly functioning adult, but then all of the furry/ therian stuff wasn't around for me.

It just muddies things that there is now all of this, and I agree you do need to be very careful of these sub cultures.

It's when it crosses the line from fantasy/ play into reality and children need to understand they are not actually animals (and most do).

I think that litter trays etc are clearly silly and I wouldn't indulge that, but I would absolutely let my kid wear a tail at a halloween party if they were otherwise a sensible, normal child.

You just have to judge it by the individual child I think. You can let them play whilst reiterating to them that it is just play and making sure they know that.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pretending to be a cat, IF it’s part of dress-up/ game. Not to be worn out of the house etc… it’s no more part a ‘lifestyle’ than playing with Barbie’s. And it’s not worn when she’s not actively playing a game.

I know some 10yos are beyond playing these days, but in my opinion that is wrong… playing at 10 is still perfectly normal. Including dressing up as a vampire, princess or a cat….!

Can you try to encourage some distance from this friend?

I wouldn’t let my ten year old play with dress up ideas that are rooted in fetish sex play. I don’t think it’s accidental that there is a silly and innocent therian movement happening among children at the same time as an extremely fetishistic sex play furry movement happening among adults. Some of those kids will be predated upon online by furries.

Yes. And tails at festivals are abundant. There is a whole stall that sells them. Nothing sexualised. Kids love them. Family festival. Don’t overthink it. If you make a big thing of it it will become a big thing.

Yes. But DD13’s group of friends were having a snigger at their friend dressed up in a too-smalll Winnie the Pooh outfit (who was in on the joke) but a teacher ticked them off and told them they were being discriminatory/unkind to furries. Cue my daughter coming home and asking what on earth the teacher was on about,