Clothes and gender

[sushigal007]

Last week, I took my daughter shopping for some clothes. She's a bit of a tomboy and deeply into pirates, dinosaurs and dragons. The girls department had nothing of the sort, so we went down to the boys section and got her a few tops and some pirate underpants. On the way, we passed a mother who was telling her son, "no you can't have that, it's

Comments

[lotus82]

I went through a phase when I was 6 when I decided I want to be a boy. [By all standards, I am female actually.] My mother was surprisingly accommodating - I guess she saw it as a kind of game on my part. So she gave me a boy's name, and clothes weren't an issue, because I wore lots of hand-me-downs that my brother outgrew. It was nice, really. I was a huge tomboy and pants gave me the freedom to do my thing [climbing trees, playing with mud, building fortresses in the snow, etc]. And it didn't even feel like I'm wearing boys' stuff - it was just pants, just shirts, just jackets.

[alirose]

I haven't, but my daughter hasn't asked, she gravitates towards butterflies and flowers anyway. But I wouldn't keep her from the boys clothes unless it said something like "Mom's little man" or whatever that basically says that the wearer is a boy. (nor would I let her get something that I thought said something stupid, like "spoiled" or whatever.) She can't read yet, fwiw.

[sarahness]

I wouldn't allow my son to go to school in a skirt or anything (to save him from the teasing of his peers), but if he wanted to wear one around the house, I'd be okay with it (just gotta make sure daddy doesn't find out, because he would NOT be okay with it). But this is all hypothetical, since I also have no son.

Kids like to experiment with gender roles. I think it's a normal part of life. And should my child identify with the opposite gender, so be it. Gotta let them grow up as themselves!

[sushigal007]

Yeah, I like to think I'd buy my hypothetical son a dress if he really wanted one, but I'm less sure whether I'd let him out of the house wearing it.

[velvetpage]

This. Thankfully I don't have to worry about it - no sons for me.

[tinylegacies]

The teenager in my house loves dinosaurs (she's 13) and we frequently have to buy her dinosaur themed stuff in the boys' department.

As for buying a boy stuff from the girls' department? I don't know if I would. Mostly because I know how cruel kids are and I don't think I could put my kids through that. Then again, it doesn't matter how kids dress, because there's always some reason for the other kids to be cruel to them.

[sushigal007]

Mine adores dinosaurs right now. I blame the visit to the Natural History Museum.

[vivalapiggy]

I'll admit it. I'm old fashioned. My girls are going to be dressed in pink and Hello Kitty for as long as I am dressing them. My boys get to be billboards for our favorite football teams. I won't be so rigid to say if we're at a concert and they want a tshirt of the band and they only have them in male sizes that I'd deny a girl a freakin shirt. I'll also be buying little baby Gator jerseys for my kids to piss off my fiance.

[vivalapiggy]

Also, if my kid needs like a plain white tshirt or turtleneck or something and I can't find one in their gender department or one is cheaper in the other section, you can bet your ass I'm buying the cheaper one or the one I can find.

[sushigal007]

When you say 'as long as I am dressing them,' does that mean until they can choose their clothes, or when they can buy their clothes? I admit, once I found out my girl was a girl and she grew out of the beige and boy newborn clothes I'd brought, she wore a lot of pink for the next two years until she started making it clear what things she liked.

[vivalapiggy]

I mean like... infant and baby. Like I'm physically dressing them. I still have final say before they leave the house but if I'm putting the clothes on them, I'm picking because that saves time.