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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that parents should mind that people mistake their boy for a girl?

110 replies

ChocFudgeCake · 22/04/2009 22:36

My children were playing football in the park with other little children. They all attend the same school so I know the faces. DS came crying because the little girl wouldn't let him play with her ball. A mum sitting next to me commented that this boy doesn't like to share his ball. "What boy?" I asked, "I thought the ball belonged to that girl". The mum said "HE is a boy". I laughed, "No, I mean that little girl with WAIST LONG hair". She insisted he was a boy with long hair, she knows the family. All year I have seen this child and never crossed my mind he could be a boy! They all wear tracksuits so I couldn't tell by the uniform. He also has a unisex name... Apparently the parents don't cut his hair because it's too pretty. He wears a half pony tail... How could I know?

OP posts:
policywonk · 22/04/2009 23:52

Ah, I had this at the weekend. DS2 was at a party, and after a good two hours one of the parents wandered over to me and said 'That's a very tomboyish little girl you've got there.'

I thought it was funny. DS2 doesn't give a monkeys.

KingCanuteIAm · 22/04/2009 23:57

Why should a boy have his hair cut just to keep people like you happy? Where in the rule book is it written that a boy has short hair? If the only reason for hair to be short on boys is so that you can tell it is a boy not a girl then, I am afraid, that is not enough!

Gender may be binary but hair length is not, if the child is happy then it is nothing to do with you!

AYBU "to think that parents should mind that people mistake their boy for a girl?" Yes you are and more than a little pathetic TBH.

Megglevache · 22/04/2009 23:59

everyone mistakes my ds for a girl because he runs like a pansy and is soooo pretty, he will NOT let me cut his hair either.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 23/04/2009 00:04

I was mistaken for a boy. When I was twelve.

[mortified emoticon]

MillyR · 23/04/2009 00:09

My DS is 10, has long hair and is often mistaken for a girl. It doesn't bother him at all. His friends have long hair too.

YABU.

thumbwitch · 23/04/2009 00:14

My DS is very much a little boy, always was imo, but his big blue eyes and blond hair always seemed to make people think he was a girl, even dressed in boy clothes. I minded a bit but not much, I just thought they should look a bit harder.

However, I have some sympathy with the OP - I have friends whose younger DS didn't have his hair cut for ages and it was below his shoulders when he did - he did look like a rather porcine little girl and those of us without DC at the time kept dropping hints, ranging from subtle to sledgehammer, about the length and inappropriateness of his hair. Sensibly, she ignored us and did what she wanted, but it was cut not long afterwards and he looked much better for it!

solidgoldshaggingbunnies · 23/04/2009 00:14

Well excuse ME but gender is NOT binary. More people than you think are biologically not 100% male or female.
See here.
Just because intersexuality is rare doesn't stop it being a medical and scientific reality - and the fact of its existence makes so much of the crap spouted about gender to be obvious crap.

TheFallenMadonna · 23/04/2009 00:17

Gender? Or sex? Or both?

MrsMerryHenry · 23/04/2009 00:23

When DS was a baby he did look quite girly so it didn't bother me when people made mistakes. Anyway it's very common to mistake gender when they're babies. A woman called him a girl in the park the other day, though - when he was wearing very boyish clothes, looks like a boy and I called him by his boy's name. I put it down to her needing an eye test.

SGSB I have always understood intersex as being, scientifically speaking, a genetic malformation. In this case is it scientifically sound to 'count' it so to speak as another gender? Bearing in mind that there are many different 'types' of intersexuality caused by different malformations.

midlandsmumof4 · 23/04/2009 00:31

Never bothered me. My ds4 had long blonde curly hair until he was 2+ and was often mistaken for a girl. I was berated on several occasions for dressing my 'daughter' as a boy . After the first cut, it turned dark brown virtually overnight and he went from being my baby to a toddler . I often wondered who he took after until i found some photographs of my older brother when he was aged about 5. He had never had his hair cut and it was past his shoulders. Long, blonde ringlets and cute bib 'n' brace shorts cos it was summer-photo was taken 60 years ago. Nobody bothered then-why bother now?.

TheHedgeWitchIsNAK · 23/04/2009 04:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

cory · 23/04/2009 08:02

Ds insists on having his hair long to look more like his (foreign) cousins. At least imo it looks better than those shaven head hair cuts that some of his friends sport.

Have told him he'll have to have it neatly cut for his ballet exam though

rubyslippers · 23/04/2009 08:05

ah - this happens to DS a lot (long blonde hair)

doesn't bother me, doesn't bother him

in fact, he now says "i'm a boy - i've just got long hair"

greatwhiteshark · 23/04/2009 08:08

Well unless he lives in a vacuum, I should imagine he's quite used to being mistaken for a girl and is not bothered by it.

I know boys with long hair who wear it like that with pride and bloody good for them, not worrying about what twits like the OP think of them!

HecatesTwopenceworth · 23/04/2009 08:08

YABU. You can't decide what other people should or shouldn't mind. you can only control what you mind. So if you mind that your child was mistaken for the other gender, then that would not be unreasonable. Thinking that other parents should feel a certain way, just because you do - that's unreasonable.

But that's only my opinion. It would be unreasonable of me to expect that you feel that way, just because I do.

NorkilyChallenged · 23/04/2009 08:27

YABU I think.

My DDs (2.2 and 11 months) are ALWAYS being mistaken for boys. I think it's largely because they hardly have any hair, not so unusual in my younger DD but I suppose more unusual in my elder. I don't really dress them head to toe in pink or put ribbons in their (non) hair so maybe I'm asking for it too?

I don't care because they don't care. I've even had a parent at soft play comment on how DD1 was a "typical boisterous boy" .

branflake81 · 23/04/2009 09:20

People used to mistake me for a boy when I was a child because I had very short hair and wore boy hand me downs.

I hated it.

MitchyInge · 23/04/2009 09:23

gender is not binary, it's a completely social construct

biological sex and gender are very separate concepts

MrsMattie · 23/04/2009 09:23

More long haired boys than short haired boys in my DS's class. Must be a fashion thing? My Ds had girly ringlets until a few months ago, actually, and I miss them

BalloonSlayer · 23/04/2009 09:27

The only time I get really about it is when you see a family with two boys, one who has blond (or red) curls and one who has mousy straight hair. The blond curly one has long hair. The mousy one has short hair.

I have seen this several times.

Imagine having two daughters and allowing one to have long hair "because it's so lovely," and making the other have hers short because it isn't.

Imagine what that would do to their self-image?

I can't imagine why people would do the same to boys and say it has no impact.

bananafish · 23/04/2009 09:30

My 3 yr old has shoulder length blond curls and is very 'pretty'.
People think he's a girl whether or not he has short hair. I prefer it long. What's it got to do with anyone else? I'm really not going to conform to some outdated stereotype about how boys should look.
YABU (and narrow minded).

TsarChasm · 23/04/2009 09:31

Waist length though? That's very long isn't it? I suppose if they don't mind the inevitable confusion, then it's their choice.

Personally I don't like very long hair on little boys.

savoycabbage · 23/04/2009 09:32

YABU. Totally unreasonable in fact. You don't know anything about this child. He might want people to think he is a girl. He might not be bothered if people think he is a girl, he might feel that people who think that he looks like a girl when he is a boy are fools. He might be a hair model! You know nothing about it. I can't believe that you want some random child to have short hair so you know if he has a penis or not.

CMOTdibbler · 23/04/2009 09:32

My DH had ringlets half way down his back until he decided the front was thinning too much (aged 30). You certainly wouldn't mistake him for a girl. Wheras I, who had a bob as a child, was frequently mistaken for a boy, and was fine with that

I love long hair on men, and see no reason at all why long hair should be a female only thing, nor indeed why any part of appearance should be strictly divided by gender. I have some good male friends who wear makeup, and can't understand why others get het up about it

CoteDAzur · 23/04/2009 09:36

Everyone thought DD was a boy until her very curly hair finally made it to the shoulders.

Even when I dressed her head to toe in pink. With pink shoes. And pink hair pins. In a bright pink pram, fgs. People would still say "Oh HE is so cute"

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