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are you a girl?
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(don't let her read this! I don't want an angry Thaedydal hunting me down for putting the idea in her daughter's head!:()
*crosses fingers that she'll ask to have her room painted pink*:D
It is her Dad did it for her one weekend I was away.Ah... I see. Can't really come up with any decent & realistic (factoring in kid behaviour at least) suggestions to that problem.
Her climbing walls and trees is not a problem only that doing in a dress is not practical.
But should we be teaching and encouraging kids to denote people's gender based on what colours they wear and if they wear shirts/dresses ?
Should a person's gender matter to children ?0 -
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Jesus they are only kids. Your are talking about an age group the believe's in Santa Claus.
They are hardly dealing from a point of view that is grounded in reality. Let kids make their "mistakes" and misplaced assumption when they are young because people won't let them when they are older.
Not everything needs to come with a life lesson about equality and opportuinity and all that......sometimes it's cool to just be a kid and think and say ridiculous things.
that's true to a point alright... but it's also interesting to note the dicrimination as to what boys and girls can and can't do, discriminations like that are rampant in daily life for adults and older children, and them being active at such a young age can do nothing to help eliminate them.Hope you didn't get sh*t from other girls over doing engineering, knew some girls who did as the other girls seemed to be convinced the only reason a girl would do engineering was to use it as a singles bar.:rolleyes:
i'd a friend like that, a guy who did social care, he was one of only two guys in the class, and as far as i know, most of the years before us only had girls. for all people slagged him about only being in it for the chicks, as far as he was concerned, we were like sisters to him, and it'd be just plain weird. these things do work both ways
When I was a wee lass I suffered what we know today as 'a gender identity crisis'
I hated being lumped in with other girls and be expected to play with dolls, wear pink frilly dresses and scream every time I saw a boy or an insect. I much prefered to play with boys toys, climb trees and wear trousers etc.
So therefore I guessed I must have been a boy when I was aged 4, yet I didn't fit into any other group. The boys wouldn't let me play with them because they said was a girl. And the girls thought I was a wierdo, so I settled for being a happy loner. Now I dread to think what kind of a person I would have turned out if I had been forced to fit in with the other girls.
I actually told my teacher to **** off when she said 'good girl'
hahaha, i lolled at that last bit, genius i was much the same at that age actually, i just wanted to wear my (lol, usually matching) tracksuits, and run around and play sports and have fun. i hated dancing, and didnt understand 'playing dolls'... just didnt make sense to me. i remember about age four thinking my voice was too deep to be a girls' though, and trying to make it squeakier so people knew i actually was a girl :P
but it is quite sad, i think that so many kids are pushed, whether intentionally or not into those stereotypes, and that because, in your case, you were into stuff different from your other female peers, you were left out. obviously it's all come well at this stage, but it's a sad state of affairs that it can come to that.i think you're placing too much emphasis on stereotypical 'girlyness' on children who probably don't even dress themselves.
fact is, i was the same when i was that age. dresses and skirts and pink. why? my mother bought my clothes, and had huuuuge influence on how i chose my clothes. (i.e. picking something up and saying oooh thats pretty, and when i tried it on telling me how lovely i looked) of course i was going to listen to her, she's my mother!
these kids are obviously the same, and i see it even more so now than when i was younger, young girls being dressed up like little dolls, or mini versions of their parents. they ask why they're wearing such and such and why the boys wear something else, and their parents give them a simplistic, because girls wear skirts and boys wear shorts answer. you can't reason with a child and explain choice and equality to them at that age...
as i started to grow older i shunned dressed and pink for jeans and stuff which didn't look so messy when i got muddy, but between 0 and 4 there aren't a huge amount of options when it comes to girls clothes anyway
i remember by the time i was three, i most definitely knew what i liked and what i didnt like. i was forced into dresses for mass on sunday, and after that, it was mostly tracksuits and leggings with tshirts, which might or might not have been pink... there were a lot of hand me downs too, often from male cousins, and i did quite like lots of that stuff.When myself and my sister were in primary school my mam ran a playschool in our house (so she could be there when we got home)
She had a story about one of the kids, he was a boy but never played with the dinosaurs or cars, he always wanted to dress up the dolls and look after them. After he'd been home telling his parents what he'd been playing with in school his father came in and gave out stink to my mam, telling her never to let him play with "girls" toys again. I think he was afraid that his little boy would turn out to be gay.
I can relate to this myself, as when I was a child I never owned any dolls, I loved playing with teddies, cars and tractors. I just loved mucking about in wellies around my Grandads farm too. I'm not sure if this was an early indicator, but I did practically turn out to be gay.
I cut my hair short when I was about nine or ten and I got the "are you a girl" question from all my younger cousins (who must have already known that I was a girl)
It's a strange topic.
it's funny, cos as well as playing shop, house, etc, a couple of the centres ive worked at extended the imaginary play to hairdressers, and the teachers would have hair dryers and water spray and hair brushes and bobbins and do up the kids' hair, which lots of the kids really enjoy. but there was this one kid, about 2/3 years old, and he came home with a few bobbins in his hair, which his mam thought was adorable, and warned the dad before the kid showed it to him to not freak out, which apparently he very nearly did, caught himself, but spent the next age trying to 'gently' persuade' the kid to take the bobbins out. (think ross from friends trying to persaude his kid away from the doll). way i see it is kids should be allowed to do their own thing, develop their own personalities and interests, without it having to be gender specific, or forced or deliberately influenced on them.Nope, sorry I don't think clothing that has the play boy bunny or it or other crass slogans that sexualise my preteen child is acceptable no matter what colour. Little girls are ment to look like lil girls and no lil wannabe p0rn stars.
i definitely agree with that. so many kids are growing up waaaay faster than they should already, sexualising their clothes (even things like 'cute' written on the ass of kids' trousers is just not right, imo) just doesnt help the issue at all.Nope being a goth and a curehead is not something I would wish on her at all.
haha, lol!But should we be teaching and encouraging kids to denote people's gender based on what colours they wear and if they wear shirts/dresses ?
Should a person's gender matter to children ?
and that is my main point, really. no, we shouldnt be teaching, and definitely not encouraging kids to denote peoples' gender based on waht colours they wear, and what type of clothes they wear.I don't see it as blindness to differences but as to acceptance of differences so that while it maybe different to who why are ie person of the gender opposite to who they are but the important part is person.
excellently phrased 0 -
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Just on the topic of parents and their attitude towards their daughters:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/25/health.cancer
As somebody who just had to get a colposcopy done, I would be incredibly angry if I found out that my parents refused me a cervical cancer vaccine on the grounds that it would encourage promiscuity.
1/3 of the 20% turned it down due to concerns over it's long term safety, fair enough, understandable view point. But those who turned it down due to concerns of it encouraging promiscuity, :mad: completely ridiculous, as bad as those who try claim that sex ed. encourages it IMO.
True, but to really fix it would require keeping an entire generation sheltered from all outside contact and media. Better to just try educate them as they grow, help them realise that there are few things boys can do that girls can't (can't think of any significant ones TBH) and vice versa (e.g. give birth)Crumble Froo wrote: »that's true to a point alright... but it's also interesting to note the dicrimination as to what boys and girls can and can't do, discriminations like that are rampant in daily life for adults and older children, and them being active at such a young age can do nothing to help eliminate them.
Yup, I'd imagine the average male nurse will get the same crap too.:(Crumble Froo wrote: »i'd a friend like that, a guy who did social care, he was one of only two guys in the class, and as far as i know, most of the years before us only had girls. for all people slagged him about only being in it for the chicks, as far as he was concerned, we were like sisters to him, and it'd be just plain weird. these things do work both ways
Me too, wish I was a fly on the wall for that.:pCrumble Froo wrote: »hahaha, i lolled at that last bit, genius
I was often called "gay" for not enjoying watching soccer and being a bit too misanthropic to be bothered with girls during my early teens. So it's not even a requirement to show an interest in things associated with the opposite gender in order to be viewed as out of place, just that you don't follow the flock you're stuck in.Crumble Froo wrote: »but it is quite sad, i think that so many kids are pushed, whether intentionally or not into those stereotypes, and that because, in your case, you were into stuff different from your other female peers, you were left out. obviously it's all come well at this stage, but it's a sad state of affairs that it can come to that.0 -
Jesus they are only kids. Your are talking about an age group the believe's in Santa Claus.
They are hardly dealing from a point of view that is grounded in reality. Let kids make their "mistakes" and misplaced assumption when they are young because people won't let them when they are older.
Not everything needs to come with a life lesson about equality and opportuinity and all that......sometimes it's cool to just be a kid and think and say ridiculous things.
+10000000
Kids evolve. Even as adults we're still evolving. Our little ones go from wearing pink dresses with pigtails, to being emos or goths in the blink of an eye.
Gender sterotyping is fine at a certain age. it's pretty harmless. most of us grew up thinking nurses were all women, and doctors were all men, for example. But we can pretty much all cope when faced with a female doc or a male nurse (except for a few nutters, of course).
But with a sensible upbringing, and plenty of freedom for our kids to decide to if they want to dress like one of the bratz or like batman, they'll eventually find their place in the world.
Freedom, with some gentle nudging, as I always call it
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