My 4 year old son keeps choosing mostly girls characters, anyone with kids who have been through this?

[Leonor888]

Hi Mums. I have a 4 year old son that since 3 yers and a few months chooses girls characters from movies to pretend play. He keeps the days pretend playing and mostly he only chooses girls in the movies. When he is playing these characters (all of them, animals, whatever) he can’t be called by his name. So it’s the same, when he’s a girl we can’t call him a boy. His Dad is getting upset and this is really hard to deal with. He also loves cars, dinos, trucks, fighting... I love my son above everything but I am worried that he wants to be a girl. I just would like to know if there are other kids/boys going through this, because from what I hear from other mums and kids boys are really ‘masculine’ and love superheroes.
Thank you.

Your DS liking “girlie” things isn’t the issue. It’s the ridiculous sterotypes that are placed on kids that are. From the minute people know your having a boy it tends to be blue, trucks and dinasours. Girls get pink, glitz and princesses.

Ds1 loved trains, cars, dinasours and everything considered to be for boys (still does. Ds2 age 4 loves pink, Disney, dolls, barbies etc. His little female friend the same age loves blue, dinasours and cars. Toys are toys let them explore and enjoy them.

Your husband sounds like an intolerant dinosaur. I’d naively assumed these attitudes had died about by now.

My daughter's best friend had a box of Barbie dolls under his bed. He loved playing with them but had to keep them out of sight when his Dad was about.

(She wasn't that impressed with the dolls and preferred lego herself. Her Dad was happy with that.)

Their choices then do not seem to have had any impact on their interests/confidence/sexuality now. However, his relationship with his Dad is still not great.

Let your son play. Let him be a princess - a goat - a cash-till - a god - a fire - a bus. He will learn from trying on these things and have lots of fun. Perhaps advise his dad to be less frightened and judgy in order to look after their future relationship.

My son (age 2-3) spent about a year being a dalmation (a confusion that might have arisen from watching 101 Dalmations during several nights while suffering from Chickenpox.)

He does not identify as a dog these days - but won't watch any film where the dog dies.

That reminds me of when we all watched Jaws when DS was a kid 11. Did he bother when the people were eaten - oh no... but when the dog collar came out of the shark he was not happy!

Honestly, I think you are worrying about completely the wrong thing. It’s not society/other children that are going to screw your son up - it’s his own father. I hope this thread might be a bit of a wake up call to try and make his home life a little (or hopefully a lot!) more loving and accepting.

The dad sounds like the type who stands at the sidelines of a kiddy match getting all aggravated because their kid isn’t the star player. Lord help the child of he doesn’t want to play football or Cricket or whatever dad wants him to play.

Your DH's attitude will be very harmful to your DS. He needs to quickly get over his projection of what a little boy 'should' be like. Seriously.
DS is 4. He's playing. Don't punish him for not fitting into stereotypes.

The Dad is the issue here. & your comment about what will other children think…maybe if the adults quit being so judgemental then the kids wouldn’t have learnt anything to say negatively.
I used to babysit for my cousins he absolutely loved WWF wrestling had the toys as a kid - the ring and characters. Played in the football teams etc - he came out when he was 15 now in his late 30’s. My other cousin used to steal my bra when he was 3 and go around wearing it now happily married to his wife. Not once did we sit there when he was 3 worrying about what it meant ..he was a child.

Quit with the stereotypes kids are just kids playing and hopefully enjoying themselves.

Your DH is making something out of nothing.

@Leonor888

Yes they are!!!! Sometimes just hate our society. What do you think I should tell my son to say if kids laugh at him in shool when he s playing these characters?

Have you raised it with the school? Our school has been great at encouraging kids to not worry about stereotypes, boys play dress up in princess dresses and nobody bats an eye, etc. Perhaps the teachers could do some lessons on how girls and boys can play with whatever they please?

At that age my son always wanted to be one Disney princess or another. I think it lasted a couple of years. We just let him play, fortunately my husband didn't have an issue withit.

My DS was very much into Disney princesses etc, he has always had a love of all things "girly"
Always preferred girls clothes although he would play with any toys.
He is a teenager now and still prefers girls fashion, loves make up etc.
You never know how they are going to turn out but they need the freedom to be themselves.
Your DH needs to change his attitude, your DS doesn't need to hear such negative comments as he grows up.

He’s 4. He had no idea about the stupid way adults categorise things by gender. He’s fine - it’s his dad who needs to get a grip.

Would the father be as angry if the child was a daughter, who liked trucks and football?
No, didn't think so.

OP your child likes lots of different kids toys. It's not necessary to be concerned about a boy liking pink stuff or dressing up. He's a child. Stop overthinking it.

Your OH is the problem here. Your DS is only 4 and doesn’t have the concept of gender stereotyping. He likes what he likes and he is far to little for you to even be thinking about this. You need to have a serious word with your DH about the kind of dad he wants to be and the impact his anger and frustration will have on your son. My 5yo loved Frozen and did baby ballet….neither of us had an issue with it at all. Encourage your child to do what they love and help them to be happy, don’t shut them down and force them to conform to some ridiculous notion like this. If you had a daughter who wanted to play football I bet he wouldn’t be complaining!

Your husband has what is commonly known as small dick energy.

Please stick up for your son when his father is batshit. Like another poster said … my kid pretends to be an animal and never once did it cross my mind he’d ever turn into one.

@SimonJT

Your husband has what is commonly known as small dick energy.

🤣

You have only 2 posts on MN, and both are about the same issue.

You clearly have a DH problem, not a DS problem.

@Leonor888

Yes they are!!!! Sometimes just hate our society. What do you think I should tell my son to say if kids laugh at him in shool when he s playing these characters?

Why on earth would you tel him kids would laugh? That’s really horrible

I’m so so shocked

I met a lovely little boy. Who wanted to wear nail varnish. He was hysterical because some boys had told him he was a girl and he’s tried to scratch his hands to pieces because of it

It was heartbreaking.

Horrible.

@Pinkflipflop85

Your partner is a dick and you seem to projecting some issues too. Why do you believe anyone is going to laugh at him? The children I teach embrace all sorts of imaginary play.

I taught a child who pretended he was a helicopter all day every day.

Oh yes!

Love it. Helicopter every single day. Now that’s the cutest!

@Leonor888

Because he was very sensitive when people laugh and came up with this thing ‘this is for boys and this is for girls’ and told me that their teachers told him that he was and had to be a man. This is why I am taking him out of this school. But want to prepare him since he s a very sensible child to react to other kids... cause sometimes they are very rigid with gender stereotypes. But hope you are right.

I home educate.

We have tons of people who didn’t cope in mainstream school due to differences

Not one person is shunned where I am. It’s lovely. Boys girls. Any age. Any disability. Always accepted. It’s wonderful. Phobias of other types of people is a learned behaviour. It’s not inherent in us.

Learnt.

@NovacDino

I am a year one teacher and all the children I teach don't bat an eyelid if one of their classmates want to play like this. Also, we never reinforce gender stereotypes - in fact I work hard to unpick them as much as I can. I would hate for a child to have them thrust upon them at school. Gender stereotypes are a social construct and need to be thrown out asap. Your son is just playing and exploring the world and who he is. Nothing unusual and nothing to worry about. Just let him find his own way.

You sound like a fantastic teacher