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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be quite worried about this boy, when his mum seems to think he is a girl??

196 replies

hulahoopyfingers · 19/09/2009 17:04

Yes I know don't be so judgy

Yes I know it is none of my business, but tbh I am actually quite worried/bemused/not sure what to say about this situation

We met a new mum about a year ago who has two children a girl of 5 and a boy of 2

When we first met them the boy had just turned 1. To cut a long story short the mum dresses and treats this boy as a girl. He had lovely long hair to his waist which is often in plaits, hairbands, tied up with ribbons. He wears girls clothes, not just girly clothes but pastel patent shoes, frilly socks, girls blouses and tops, the other day I saw him in pink cords with flowers on the pockets.

To look at him you would think he was a girl. I did for the first 3 times we met. He has a unisex name and I wasn't sure who she was talking about whenever she said he or him. Everytime I am with her and we met other people they think he is a girl and say she etc the mum doesn't correct them at all.

I don't know why this is bothering me. My DS has quite long hair himself. It wouldn't be bothering me at all if I thought he was inputting into it himself and saying I want to wear this or I want my hair up but he doesn't talk yet.

I just keep getting a weird this is not right feel about it.

I am waiting for the influx of YABU and here is why

OP posts:
fattybumbum · 21/09/2009 11:32

Just wanted to say that I now think that the child in question that I know is definitely not the same one as the child in the OP. Bizzarely similar circumstances (inc BF (not odd in itself) and home educating). Child that I know is definitely NOT intersex or anything like it. The clothes thing is just down to the mother's gender politics. She would say that the child chooses these clothes but I have been shopping with them and know that she pushes the boy towards girl's clothes also because he is HE and quite isolated from the mainstream, he has no concept of male/female clothing (a dleiberate choice on her part. And yes, I am not comfortable with it.

thehairybabysmum · 21/09/2009 11:59

Poor little boy .

Have you spoken with her about her attitudes? Clearly its something she feels v. strongly about so I guess she isnt likely to be receptive to anyone else's opinion anyway.

fattybumbum · 21/09/2009 12:04

I used to be pretty good friends with this mum but we fell out basically over her way of parenting her son which I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable about. I don't think her son is 'abused' and I do definitely think she really loves her child, more that she has a lot of issues which she has projected onto her son. In my opinion, which at the end of the day is only an opinion, she is bringing up her son incorrectly but so far he seems happy enough so who am I to interfere? Just didn't want him round my son anymore.

ninedragons · 21/09/2009 12:16

I thought intersex, too.

As Katie says, it sounds pretty much like how I'd play it if I had an intersex child.

SolidGoldBrass · 21/09/2009 12:38

FBB, why don't you want this boy around your son any more? Are his mother's attitudes making him cruel to other children? Or is your DS distressed by his unusual appearance? If it's the latter, then you might like to think about whether you are projecting your issues (around conformism and homophobia) onto your son.

ninedragons · 21/09/2009 12:41

Well said, SGB.

cheesesarnie · 21/09/2009 13:02

well this is a 'please copy and paste me dm' thread isnt it!!

fattybumbum · 21/09/2009 13:05

Hi, I just wanted to say that I'm not really a conformist or a homophobe. I knew this lady was a lesbian plus we''d been friends for about 2 years before we fell out. In that time her son usually wore girl's clothes. So if I was judgey I don't think I'd have hung about with her in the first place. In fact I did really like her. The reason we fell out was over the kids but it was more to do with the fact that her son was very very aggressive towards my son and she wouldn't do anything about it. We ended up arguing over it and I decided I didn't want to make up as I was finding our differences too great to bear. Also I had my son's safety to think of. And I'm sorry but I do think encouraging your child to wear girl's clothing because you have issues to do with masculinity(I repeat encouraging) isn't a fair way to start them off in this world. Maybe this does make me conformist but aren't we all mostly?

mrsruffallo · 21/09/2009 13:21

himophobia? Blimey, she's talkin about a child

SolidGoldBrass · 21/09/2009 13:56

FBB: fair enough, I did ask if the issue was that the other boy was behaving unpleasantly. FWIW it's not that uncommon to fall out with friends when one's DC scrag the other's DC and the parent of the aggressor won't do anything about it - this isn;t just something that happens to kids whos parents have unusual social or political viewpoints;.

lockets · 21/09/2009 14:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

AnybodyHomeMcFly · 21/09/2009 14:26

It's not really that unlikely that 2x2 people from this thread know each other in rl, if you look at the results of the mn survey we aren't evenly spread across country and social backgrounds.

NotanOtter · 21/09/2009 19:55

where's the live and let live ethic?
i suppose it's all the mums 'fault'

itsmeolord · 21/09/2009 20:07

If there really were so many people locally who were "angry" about this then at some point someone would have spoken to social services about this.
Am very about a 1 yr old managing to get waist length hair as well.

It's bollocks.

(am referring to the child in the op.)

Nasty thread really.

overthemill · 21/09/2009 20:16

I dont know if this a genuine thread by the OP or not. I dont know if what the op professes to feel about the situation is true. All I am saying is if anyone feels strongly that a situation involving any child is wrong then they should make great efforts to help, even going so far as to contact ss or nspcc. It takes a village to raise a child and too many people, sadly, don't dont follow their instincts and turn away. children are too precious to risk

NotanOtter · 21/09/2009 20:19

over the mill

It takes a village to raise a child

no it doesn't!!

bystander apathy always seems to be in evidence when something really shit is in the offing

'boy wearing dresses' let's call social services

chattermouse · 21/09/2009 20:41

To be fair though, it's not an ideal situation is it. It does sound like the little boy is being treated 'unusually' by his mother. Sadly, she is (albeit perhaps without intention) setting him up for ridicule. He is likely to have an unhappy childhood because of the reaction other children will exhibit. His mother is pretty naive or uncaring if she cannot forsee the way things will go if she continues to treat him in this way.

thehairybabysmum · 21/09/2009 21:48

Bang on there chatterbox! Thats exactly what i would write if i was able to sum the situation up so succinctly!!

SolidGoldBrass · 21/09/2009 23:08

Sorry but it's actually the attitudes of the hypothetical bullies which should be modified. Kids should be being taught on a daily basis that picking on someone for being 'different' is NOT ACCEPTABLE. All very well telling people that they should suppress their individuality, compromise their views etc to fit in, but what if you can't? Eg the 'different' thing about you is that you are in a wheelchair, or it's the colour of your skin?

ThatVikRinA22 · 21/09/2009 23:28

being different though can mean anything. my son is very 'different' as he has AS, but he isnt outwardly and obviously different - he still got the shit ripped out of him at school though. id have thought this is a wider issue than the OP was intending. in an ideal world yes, everyone would accept difference and move on. but im not sure that projecting your preferences/differences onto a child is ok, as in the OP, IF that is indeed what it is and if it is not the childs choice. im all for live and let live if its the individuals choice for themselves.

overthemill · 22/09/2009 16:36

sorry but i still think that if your gut feeling is that something is wrong then you should always 'interfere'. that doesnt mean letting your prejudices or bigotry come to the fore just because you dont agree with how other people parent their children but abuse comes in many forms. i am not speaking about this situation specifically as i dont know anything about it but children come first.

Conundrumish · 22/09/2009 19:02

I think I know this family too.

Only joking . Sorry.

worsttrip · 23/09/2009 09:29

I have some personal experience relevant to this issue - but it's coming at it from the 'other side'. Personally I don't believe that little girls should utomatically be shoe-horned into wearing nasty frilly pink dresses, plunge-bras, kiddy eyeliner etc. and I've always dressed my four year old daughter in non-gender-specific clothing accordingly. This means, so ingrained is gender sterotyping in this country, that people in the street invariably assume that she is a 'he'.

I don't correct them because - partly because well, at her age I don't think it's a big deal, but mainly because I find it's slightly embarrassing to make an issue of this thing that I don't think really matters yet with people I don't know.

Actually, I don't think the mother of the girly boy from the original post is doing the lad any favours by force-feminizing him in the first place / when he's so young....but on the other hand, why is it considered socially acceptable for us to foist these completely artifical, socially-derived notions of "feminity" onto our daugthers? In a sane world, I think that compelling a little girl who - like the boy referred to in the post - has 'had no input' in the matter into wearing long, elaborately-styled hair etc. should make people feel exactly as 'weird' and 'not right' as the OP feels when she's confronted with this pink-clad little chap....

annamama · 23/09/2009 11:10

Interesting post worsttrip!

I was thinking earlier, even if this boy is intersex, why the extreme girlyness?

When I was a child I wanted to be a boy and my parents let me look like one. (I'm "normal" now.) I think kids themselves should decide as much as possible and parents should not push them into anything.

DD (16 m) looks a little bit tomboyish sometimes (and acts it!). But if she wants to be more girly when she's older that's fine too.

And why do boys always have to wear clothes with cars/planes/tractors?

Going off topic, sorry. The question here is does the boy in question want to look like he does? Hula and the others who know the family(ies) - are you still here, what have you decided to do? (if anything)

thedollshouse · 23/09/2009 11:19

I would just ask the mother why she is dressing her child as a girl and tell her that everything thinks she is loopy. No point in beating about the bush.

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