To find this comment unprofessional, inappropriate and unpleasant...

[sooziesquareeyes]

Was being shown around a nursery with a view to finding a place for DD when I go back to work. All looked great until right at the end, just before we left. Returned to the baby room and the manager giving the guided tour said to a little boy toddling around in his vest - 'Hey! Woo-woo, got yer sexy legs out!'.

as I said, just not what you say to a child IMO. or am i getting all het up over nothing?...

I am suprised that someone in a nursery setting said it, but only because they are so PC these days, not because I think it's so terrible.

I do say it to LO (and call her sexy bum as in 'come on sexy bum let's go, not as in 'dont't you have a sexy bum' completely different comments, but actually only to the littlest LO (g 20 months) and have never thought about it in this much depth. I wouldn't say it to the older one (g3) as it wouldn't seem appropriate - possibly this is subconsciously because of the differing levels of awareness they have? I think it's partly ironic (little chunky legs) and it's just one of those 'common usage' things that you don't think about - such as 'cool', 'neat', 'hot' - nothing literal about the comment, or other 'nic names' such as pumpkin, chicken, chunky monkey, sweetie pie, sweetheart, baby, darling etc etc - if you really thought about the true meaning of these you wouldn't use them when speaking to a child. But to be honest - if you thought too much about what you were going to say to a child these days you'd probably not speak to them at all - as everything seems to be sexist, racist, or just completely not PC...

So I can understand you being a bit in a nursery setting, but I probably wouldn't have even registered the comment had it been me.

Oh and to the poster earlier - if this makes me common, then so be it better than being stuck up.

lucyellensmummy - thank you for seeing that I was just asking the question and for answering me without taking offence. I was a bit worried that I came across agressive or snotty and that you would yell at me but my need to know overwhelmed me, because I really didn't understand and just couldn't get it.

Now I know. straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

I don't like it either. YANBU.

Me? Yell at people? Am i really THAT scary?

Just an aside really but once i started a thread because i was horrified that an oldish man said to me about my DD (about 18m at the time) "cooorrrr, don't ever let her lose that wiggle will you" referring to her toddling along the road in her nappy, the tone of voice was leery and horrible and made me feel sick. I picked DD up, clearly made the guy feel guilty because he said "oh sorry, perhaps im "that way" - ugghhh, still makes me shudder. BUT i most certainly didn't get the resounding YANBU this OP got - i was flamed for making an old man feel bad!

No offence taken Hecate - its all a question of semantics

YABU IMO. It's the same as blokes calling a car 'sexy', it very clearly isn't but just using a term that is descriptive of something they like.

In this case the nursery manager was making a throw away comment, if it was said to my ds I wouldn't think anything of it. This sort of over reaction is why the world is becoming such a mad place - when a child can be lost and crying and nobody goes to help them for fear of being misconstrued.

Personally if you liked the nursery I would forget this incident and go with it. To me the manager's comment would say that she has a comfortable and caring relationship with the children, and surely that is what you would want for your LO?

took dd to the GP when she was maybe 4 months old as she had extremely dry skin across her chest and tummy. took her in, undid her babygrow to the waist and rolled the shoulders down to her elbows, so it was basically like a deep v neck...so the doc could see the skin.

he said...

'oooooooh sexy!'

he was about 50. i did feel quite sick, but am fairly sure he meant nothing of it.

I'm a bit that somebody here (can't remember who) said that it's ok to call a young boy "sexy" but not a young girl.

Why?

ime people who use the word "sexy" in relatin to their kids tend to be a bit thick and chavvy

so flame me weirdos!

lol @ Hecate's wallpaper comment.

I don't think sexy has to mean that you personally would give them one. In colloquial banter it can just mean in some way rousing of a favourable emotion. Not necessarily in a sexual way, but it any way, eg. a sexy dessert, a sexy camera. Then of course it gets adopted into sarcasm and irony, so unpleasant or displeasing things also become 'sexy'.

I would find it inappropriate myself to refer to a toddler as sexy, but I can sort of see that somebody might without actually meaning anything by it. But I probably wouldn't want my child to believe that being sexy was something to aspire to at any age, so no, YANBU.

mm22bys - it was me and you're misquoting me.
What I said was, 'I wouldn't say [I meant 'say it'], but I wouldn't get that upset about it either if it was used of a boy.
Oddly enough if it was a girl I would be much more bothered, probably because girls are sexualised at an inappropriately young age and so I think it would be potentially harmful in a way it really wouldn't for a boy.
In the context of the OP I think it was a relatively innocent joke. '

which I think explains why clearly enough.

I expect that she says it to her DP/DH or it is said to her all the time (in a jokey way)and she just said it as a slip of the tongue. That or she is just stupid

I wont flame you wilko - but just point out that I have in the past made sexy comments about DD. And make comments about her boobies (she likes to flash! - hehe). I have a PhD so that blows your thick argument out of the window - i am a bit chavvy though, so the two are not inclusive.

The woman didn't say that the child was sexy though did she - she just said "got yer sexy legs out". Obviously from this thread it was a silly thing to say as us mummies can be pretty precious about things and clearly deeply influenced by the media.

Gaga - Why isn't being sexy something to aspire to? Obviously its irrelevant for a child to think about it, but i am still aspiring to be sexy! There is nothing wrong with being sexy. I think it depends on ones interpretation of what is sexy - for me, a sexy woman would be: Confident, happy go lucky, cheeky and succesfull, not completely flat stomached, nice boobs and bum . In a man I would like : Confident, happy go lucky, successful and have an air of being able to take care of me. I'm less particular about how he looks for some reason. I wonder if you mean that you don't want your children thinking its good to be sexualised (ie: Low cut tops, short skirts, make up, high heels etc with attitude to match) then i'm with you all the way.

Honestly cannot think of anything unpleasant ever being described to me as sexy.

This thread is interesting because it shows that language and its interpretation is complex and fluid. Gay in years gone by was meant to describe something happy and carefree, people even named their children Gay or Gaye. Now its used to mean something quite different and often in a derrogatory manner.

Double standards there Kathy. Boys are victims of abuse too.

I'd be interested to know the makeup of your family.

I would not call my boys sexy at the ages of 4 and 2 (or at any age for that matter), it is inappropriate, IMO, and wouldn't like anyone else calling them sexy.

But then it's probably fairly safe to say I do come from a different background to those who think it's OK to call a young child "sexy")

(Yuk yuk yuk...)

I think it was an inappropriate comment, but I'm sure easy to do as everything seems to be described as sexy these days, even tv screens and mobile phones ffs.

Nursery staff should be more careful though. The term can be confusing to kids. Probably this child a bit too young for it to matter but it isn't something I would have been comfortable with as a child, being called sexy. When it was bandied round the playground I thought it was a grown up term I didn't quite understand properly yet.

i have heard some mum's use the word sexy in that way. once in a shop, two younger mums, chatting about their sons. I just thought it was more a generational thing.

I didn't feel comfortable hearing it tho.

I don't like it. Make me wince when I hear someone saying it about their LOs (usually someone younger than me, as Piratecat suggests).

I just think it's inappropriate and I would feel the same as the OP to be honest.

Crikey I can't believe this is still raging!

FGS the woman didn't say "mmm, check out that sexy toddler!" and leer at him!!!!
She said "woo hoo! get yer sexy legs out!" in a jokey, public and probably very affectionately meant way. Those two kinds of comments are so completely different, and despite my earlier humour on this it's actually starting to irritate me in a "PC gone mad" way...

That, or a parent looking far too much in to something which was so throwaway, and as someone said earlier being far too sensitive and dare I say the acronym I hate - PFBish? Either that or plain bored and looking for something, anything to post about. (Sorry if not Soozie but you see it all the time on this thread, and your question was simple enough but the OTT reactions to it are bothering me)

I really think that as soon as we become mothers we become so oversensitive to things that we just wouldn't have noticed/cared about before. In many ways that's a very good thing, we have children relying on us to protect them after all. But this is just nothing.

Having had my son at a very cold, uncaring nursery, and then promptyl removed him to a far more jolly one (where a comment like this hadn't been said but I can imagine it) I would appreciate the way this lady tried to be familiar and jokey with the child, she was being caring in her own way. And quite frankly, the carers all have different styles, (including half who probably have a fag on their break 5 mins before breathing over your child, sad but true), at least she seemed open and honest about who she was in front of you, rather than pretend to be whatever she thought you might want her to be.

I really wouldn't worry.

My SIL calls her kids sexy, she's said it to babies and toddlers. I have always found it weird/wrong. I think she thinks shes being affectionate.

On the nursery front, my DTS were at a total of 5 diff ones. And i looked at many more. I think you have to accept that most of them are not the best place/way to care for a small child. What can you realistically expect from generally under-educated, staff being paid minimum wage? With nurseries you will always have to turn a blind eye to something. So I think you are looking for a caring attitude and clean well maintained facilities. Go with your gut feeling.

I think it is a bit inappropriate and chavvy But the term 'sexy' is very diluted.It is now used to describe cars ,jobs, mobile phone just to mean 'hip' and aspirational.ble
.I even heard someone say that deaf charities didn't raise as much as sexier charities like Cancer research.

sexualising children.............yuck

I totally agree with you OP . It is not appropriate and would make me think twice about leaving my child there.

Ugh.
Hideous to call a child or anything to do with them 'sexy', though I as others have said, not in a peado pitchfork way.

Fwiw, I get pissed off with sexy being used to describe food, or things being 'sexed up'. Get a fucking thesaurus!

Having posted on here this morning in defence of the nursery I have had a change of heart.

An hour later a new window cleaner come round and he said our mega new oak conservatory was (and I quote) 'a real sexy number'! and yes, he was very chavvy and no I'm not hiring him again. So I now realise, if I feel that way about my conservatory I can understand the OP wondering about her LO at that nursery .