DD said babysitter told her men can become women

[Weallgottachangesometime]

Wonder how to approach this-

Today my daughter told me that her baby sitter (who is 19) told her men can become women. I can’t recall my daughters etc words but she mentioned something about surgery to make a man a woman. My DD is 6 and so obviously just accepted what she was told.

I basically told my DD the following -
some men and women want to change sex, so a male might want to be female. People can choose to change their names, ask other people to call them different name and can change what their wear or how they do their hair. They can also change their bodies by taking medicine or having surgery but a male will always be a male and a female always a female. I then gave her the example of her dad. Her dad could change his name to Sarah, wear a dress and ask everyone to refer to him as she, he could also have his body changed with surgery. However he would always be a male. He would always have male hormones in his body and would never be female, be able to have a baby or have a womb etc.

I explained that everyone has differ opinions about if people can change sex.

This is a baby sitter we use infrequently so not someone seeing the children regularly and she is generally very good. I’m wondering if I should speak to her about the conversation she had and ask her to avoid sharing her views. However I wonder if, on the other hand, it’s useful for the kids to hear varying opions and that I should help them hear different opions and make up their own minds?

any thoughts?

This is clearly an attempt to indoctrinate your DC with hardcore trend ideology at a young age. It should NEVER EVER have come up. It is WRONG!! You should NEVER allow a third party to indoctrinate your child again!!!

I know what a legal fiction is, and adoption isn’t a legal fiction so yes, not a good example on any level.

Bizarre thing for that poster to bring up, wasn't it? Very odd.

Give it a rest mate, your ‘jokes’ aren’t funny.

In adoption, the consensus is that it is best to be open and clear about how the children's family was formed. The adoptive parents are the legal parents and the ones carrying out the parenting.

One of the red flags about sex-denialism is that it encourages concealment and shame about bodies and origins.

I’m assuming this is sarcasm? Or maybe not.

I don’t think she’s trying to ”indoctrinate” in my children. I do think she believes that her beliefs about gender are right and fair and thought, mistakenly, it would be ok to share these views as facts.

I’d simply explain your beliefs to DD, then explain that the babysitter has different beliefs. Then a quick email to the babysitter to say that if similar topics come up, she should avoid talking about them and refer them back to you. Personally I don’t think this is a massive issue

This is the way imo to handle it with a 6 yo imo. I think your approach would be better for an older child of maybe 10.

As for your babysitter. Do you have to use her again? She’s way overstepped. I would be tempted to sack her. Regardless, I would tell her the lesson she gave was confusing and completely inappropriate for a young child. She is not a qualified to teach sensitive subjects in an age appropriate way.

It isn’t an opinion, but a belief on her part.

If she is very confused about biology it may be pure ignorance not even a belief. She is as wrong about the biology of sex as she would be saying the earth is flat.

This is no different from a babysitter teaching the child about Jesus or Buddha or Mohammad etc. Not something the sitter should do as it is the job of the parents.

Knowing how much teenagers are bombarded with TWAW and other gender nonsense, if she's otherwise lovely, I would assume your babysitter may think she's being a good person by talking with your child. This is an excellent opportunity for you to have a friendly, yet clear and firm conversation with babysitter that this wasn't an appropriate discussion with children and that what she's speaking about is most likely not shared by all parents and children are very susceptible to all kinds of beliefs and this is a belief not fact based assertion. Give her guidance.

@ChateauMargaux You made the point in public, so you can defend it in public. My parenting of my children is not a legal fiction.

OP, the babysitter has way overstepped. I think I’d be inclined just to never use he again and tell her why.

I’d be getting a new babysitter

I’ve had similar. I just told her no that can’t really happen. People can wear any thing they want but you can’t change from boy to girl. If I put some bunny ears on a cat would it now be a rabbit?