My dd keeps coming out with nonsense.

[cheesenpickles]

So my daughter is 3. We've always been very vocal that she can do anything but lately (since starting nursery of course ) she's coming back with some super dated notions.

We've tried speaking to her in an age appropriate way but I'm starting to find it difficult.

She is absolutely insistent that "boys are in charge", "girls are nurses and cannot be doctors", "girls can't play with cars" and all sorts of nonsense. If we gently explain that actually her dentist and doctor are actually female she refuses and throws a massive strop.

I know it's probably just her age and I've spoken to nursery about it and they've said it's a bit of a culture with the kids.

Am I being over sensitive? My dh was constantly told he was stupid and wouldn't amount to anything at school and has such a horrendous view of himself as a result. I'm terrified that she'll actually really believe all this nonsense when she grows up.

I think societal ‘norms’ are very strong. I remember my son laughing at the end of Zog and saying it was silly because girls couldn’t be doctors. At the time, our GP was female and the only time he’d been to A&E we had seen a female doctor. My best friend is also a doctor. But somehow none of that had gone in.

They do come out of it though, just keep saying boys and girls can do anything.

I remember DD coming home from reception class at primary absolutely fuming. The teacher had been asking the kids what jobs their parents did, and when DD said that I was a doctor, some of the little boys had said that was rubbish and I must just be a nurse, as only men were doctors! Fortunately the teacher corrected them, but they took some persuading.

Including a princess?

Haha, that would be a difficult goal to attain, although not technically impossible. Probably not a goal to encourage, though.

Including a princess
Why would anyone encourage their daughter to join a symbol of a class based elite? The point about monarchy is that it represents a system where people can't be what they like but have their lives dictated by an accident of birth.

(I may be kidding but not very much )

horse yep, if she wants to be a princess she can. If she wants to be a footballer she can. If she wants to be a midwife (her current idea) she can.

I think you have to be born a princess. That’s why Kate and Meghan aren’t princesses and why Di was Princess of Wales but not actually Princess Diana. But I am no expert!

Gently? Nope. Agree with PP that a firm line is needed on dissuasion - not making fun of her but being clear that those notions are silly and of course there aren't jobs that only certain people can do!

Where does the men =doctors thing even come from?

I think there are more women GPS than men and its been popular with women for years, female doctors in the UK can't have been a noteworthy sight for decades.

Most TV is pretty careful to be even handed.

So where is it coming from?

Agree this age and until beginning primary school is max gender conform or else for little kids.

Are they all sitting down to watch carry on films at the weekend?

I'm genuinely baffled.

Can you go to a different nursery? Ideas are formed early, right now she is making sense of the world around her.

I wouldn't want to switch at this point as she is due to start school in September. She's super settled and really doing well.

She is in a really tight clique group of girls who all love princesses and fairies etc. They're all good kids and the majority of their families the mum is the higher earner/further in their field etc.

I had another chat with the nursery staff about it and they just assured me that they get a bit like this at this age and it does tend to wane. Where she's in quite a tight group as well probably doesn't help either.

Dh and I have just kept asking her why and even today there were some toy adverts on for Sylvanian Families and she started shouting "boys can't play with those!" When there was quite clearly a boy in the advert

I've been switching the pronouns in books as well. It's just such a bizarre thing that they can be conditioned by such a young age and it concerns me if such things are so ingrained and believed what else can be ... skewed. I've been trying to explain to her about having autonomy over her own body etc and it does worry me that someone could just suggest otherwise.

I have had some horrendous experiences growing up because I was conditioned by very old fashioned parents. I inclined to think it was my fault certain things happened. I would hate that to be the case for my dds.

My DD was the same when she started nursery- and we are in London, in a bit that I would say was less traditional and where it’s not really “old school” at all. I suspect it’s a thing with kids either at this kind of age or when they start mixing properly. It’s not great but we found if we kept saying no, don’t be silly” and giving her examples from life which disproved her mad ideas, then she got it a bit more. She’s at school now and has grown out of it.

It's that's reassuring. She's just turned to me and started talking about lady doctors so it's either going in or she was just being a bit daft in the first place.

My youngest DD went through this, she became quite focused on what was a boy or a girl. I just kept telling her that girls/boys could do/be/wear/have xyz etc and now at 7 she seems less fixated.

This was in sharp contrast to my eldest (almost 13) who never really did this, apart from the memorable Christmas when she was almost 4 and opened a toy car, threw it at her brother and went 'that's a boy's toy' She gets reminded every year.

It's not always the nursery or you it's the million other signals they are getting fro the world. We often don't realise we are doing it or other around us are reinforcing