I do sometimes wonder about dresses/skirts and why it’s so culturally forbidden for men to wear them except very specific skirts (kilts, sarongs).

Would certainly like to see less gender-specific clothing for children though.

I’ve wondered sometimes if my lack of clothing the Boychick in dresses ever is unconsciously sexist on my part (although I’d say it also has to do with the fact that he wears mostly handmedowns, and no one’s given us any), but then I remember that I don’t wear dresses either. It’s just not something we’re particularly in to around here. But is that excuse just so I don’t have to face the reactions if he did wear them? Given that he does wear pink and flowery things, maybe not, but I don’t think I can know for sure.

Thanks Abi

It freaks people out, but hopefully it makes them think a little!

They play with the same range of toys (including dolls and trains); their clothes are, subject to size, interchangeable. All of them wear trousers and leggings mostly, as they are more practical. My daughter inherits clothes from her elder brothers, and the boys borrow her frocks and skirts from time to time. All of them like pink, and my little daughter takes great glee in teasing me because I don’t – “Oh no! Pink! You don’t like pink, do you, Mama!”

My eldest son learned to defend his sartorial choices when he first started school. A classmate asked him why he was wearing “girls’ socks”, which he considered to be a thoroughly stupid question, and replied that they were clearly people’s socks, and did the person really think that boys and girls had different feet? I asked that same question of a shop-assistant (in Pumpkin Patch) when I asked for some thick warm socks for my daughter. The assistant busily looked around half (you’ll know which half!) of the shop before telling me that, sorry but they had nothing of the kind. It didn’t take me long to find some nice blue and cream, thick, warm socks, which I showed to the assistant. “Oh but those are for boys”, she said. Right. So firstly girls and boys have different feet? And secondly girls aren’t entitled to have warm feet in the winter? Even though I’m generally *very* polite to such people, they are often offended to be questioned about their prejudices.

My 7 year old boy wears his hair long – because he wants to – and is frequently mistaken for a girl. And, as phoolani has found, people are remarkably stubborn in refusing to acknowledge that they’ve guessed wrong. I’ve had several conversations (typically with shop assistants) that go something like:

Them: “Isn’t your daughter good/lovely/clever!”
Me: “That’s my son.”
Them: “Yes, she’s lovely etc..”
Me: “No, no. He’s a boy. He’s my *son*. ”
Them …still utterly refusing to hear me.

It happens a lot in shoe shops, and on one memorable occasion a “trained shoe fitter” in Clarke’s tried to make me buy the wrong fitting of shoe for my son, because it was a “boy’s” shoe, rather than allowing me to buy the correct size for him in a “girl’s” style. Obviously I did buy the correct one (very nice purple gingham, if I recall), but I was astonished that she was prepared to damage my child’s feet rather than countenance me buying the “wrong” gender of shoe.

Sorry; I’ve blathered on far too long. But this is a subject close to my heart, and not one I’ve heard discussed much, so I’m carried away at finding some like-minded people and an interesting article on the subject.

Nature and nurture both play a role, some things will happen regardless of your input, your kids are wired that way, other things you influence completely almost by a one-off accident.

We have never told them what do or like as girls or boys, but have told them that they are able to do and like anything. So I have a four year old girl who likes blue, short hair and won’t wear a skirt or dress and a five year old boy who likes pink and in reality if left to his own devices would probably wear a dress while being Bob the Builder. Its best when we go swimming – he likes to wear her pink, Dora the Explorer costume (purchased by Grandma) and she prefers his trunks with the monkey on.
What makes me sad is how this is all slowly being changed by outside influences. She asks me can girls be this or that, he is becoming less attached to pink. As we grow and change things change – but everyone thinks my daughter is a boy and used to think my son was a girl, they have learned this is because of how they look and slowly have changed because they are fed up of correcting people.