Bringing up boys and girls

The constant emphasis on the looks of women nowadays, in particular young women, seems designed to make them feel that they are not good enough as they are.

They are told they have to keep attending to their hair, nails, makeup, body hair, clothes, shoes - all to make themselves acceptable, it not only takes up time and energy, it wears down their self confidence.

Obviously, some attention has to be given to cleanliness and grooming, as men have to do too, but the expectations put on women are ridiculous.

Good on him, trisher!

GS was wearing a pair of fairy wings and his underpants last week and playing with his trains

It's a little more controversial, to most people, trisher, if a boy does both those things.

I grew up in the 50s in what I suppose was an enlightened household. Most of the women in my family worked, my mum, my aunt, my grans. My mum taught both me and my brother to cook. My brother was considered cleverer but probably because he was science and I was history and art. I was encouraged to study and go to college. In fact it was at a women's teacher training college that I first realised some people thought women couldn't do stuff. I remember a friend getting the magazine Spare Rib and telling me about inequality I'm afraid until then I had tended to think I could do anything I wanted. I suppose having children made me even more aware of the difficulties.
I hope my 3 DSs have been brought up to treat women as equals and they can cook and clean, unfortunately their standards are like mine and maybe not as high as they might be.
I do love the fact that my GD can be dressed as a princess in pink one minute and have bruised legs and filthy knees the next because she has been on the adventure playground. I hope she stays like this.

I saw my brother's willy when we were very small but remember thinking, maybe when I was around 10, that I must have imagined it as it seemed so unlikely.

When my DD was a baby, my DS thought that the reason she needed a nappy was that her willy hadn't grown yet.
He was very surprised to learn she wouldn't be getting one.

Well while we're on the subject, it was a long time before I realised that the fig leaves on statues were not actually part of their anatomy, but were covering up something else ?

Oh that kind of makes me feel better ( silly I know) but I was always made to feel like a freak at my all girls school . Everyone seemed to know it all whereas my parents forbid me to have sex education lessons . Silly Billy's .

I do remember, at college, by the time most of us had read Lady Chatterley, an ad hoc discussion ensuing about where pubic hair figured in the whole set up. As none of us were in any way familiar with that part of the male anatomy, either directly or indirectly, some wild, interesting and hilarious theories were perpetrated! How times change!

I don't suppose many of us had by 17 gilly - apart from being flashed at by an old pervert when I was around 10.

At 19 I became a nurse and have now seen more than I've had hot dinners!

A bit off topic I suppose but I had never seen a willy ( sorry to those who prefer real names for body parts) until I was 17 ( not even a baby or a real photograph. ( I did see a diagram once in biology ) you would think I had been born in the 20's and not the 60's !

I was brought up thinking that little boys were made from slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails and
Little girls were sugar and spice and all things nice .

I think that when I was growing up in the fifties, gender stereotyping was pretty entrenched. It was assumed that boys would do particularly jobs and girls would do others and their education would steer them toward those roles. Girls did not do woodwork or metalwork; boys did not do cookery or needlework. Where would we be now if all that had not changed? I was a total tomboy and it caused my mother great angst. I think she thought people would judge her by the fact that, when not at school, she was the one with the unruly, untidy kid who would not wear anything but shorts and jeans, when all around my female compatriots were daintily clothed in dresses and trying out their mother's make up. My father just let me get on with it but quietly in the background fed me a diet of Boys Own stories and encouraged me to be my adventurous self. I do not remember having any female stereotypes I hankered to adhere to even in my teens.
As for my own children, I have one of each. They were never consciously encouraged to be gender typical. We just let them be what they wanted to be whilst encouraging gentleness, compassion and a diversity of interests in both. We are blessed.

That sounds wonderful gillybob.

Love the image that conjures up Gilly ?

I have some great photos taken in the 60's of me and my friend sitting on a back step in the back lane of the flat where I lived as a child. We are both filthy ( I recall playing in the coal dust) My friend has wild hair and dungarees, and I am filthy but sitting there like a silly little princess in a frilly frock and knitted bolero cardigan ( probably pale pink knowing my mum) .

All my schools were girls only and I had no brothers. I never encountered any sexism until I went into teaching in the 60s and I was astounded.

My sister and I were brought up in a household that had no male stereotypes and so we were just children, running pretty wild in the hills of Scotland, climbing trees, damming streams, getting mucky. Being at all girls schools meant, for us, no stereotyping. The teachers were women, we were girls, and that was that.

Don’t think I ever had anything pink until I could buy it myself ?

The 'pink princess' phase is just that - a phase, but a very profitable one for the retailers of children's clothes. However, my erstwhile pink princess - who used to climb trees in the frilly dress - is now, at 15, much more at home in Army camouflage or those revolting ripped jeans and has been seen in a very grown-up LBD.

When my children were small, in the 1970s, clothes for toddlers were often unisex. Girls did wear dresses and pinafores, but often in bright colours, with very little that was pink or frilly. Otherwise, girls wore trousers, dungarees, shorts, t-shirts and sweaters in cheery primary colours that could have been worn by either sex.

It wasn't really until the 1980s and 90s that all this extreme differentiation came in (girls wear pink, boys wear army camouflage!). Tiny tricycles for three-year-olds started to be offered in pink or blue/khaki. This, of course, entailed more expense for parents who felt they couldn't pass a girl's pink anorak, bike or duvet cover on to a brother.

So there were sound commercial interests at work here: in a mixed family, many gender-specific things couldn't be shared among the children, so more stuff was bought.

Whether all this had a lasting effect on children's life expectations I couldn't say, but I am relieved that both my granddaughters have now rejected girliness and are growing up into strong and independent young women.

I was one of four sisters and we were very over protected ,no bikes no trees no swings even,my father had lost two little sisters when they were under 5 so he was extra careful with us ,one died after being hit on the head by a swing.They would have liked us to go onto further education but we all ahd other ideas ,I left school when I was 15 and no one could have made me stay on ,I'd already had jobs for over 2 years.I went into the same line of work I'm still employed in and started my own business when I was 22 ,I think my folks were quite proud that we succeeded and over 41 years later we're still in business.My sisters all had careers, childrens nurses and a display artist in retail .We were all "girly" girls, liked clothes and makeup as well as music and books,I'm the only sister who doesn't play at least one instrument.So quite a traditional upbringing ,it did us no harm .My own daughter had her career mapped out when she was about 8 ,when asked by a member of our staff what she wanted to be she reeled off three jobs finishing with and then I'm working here and I'll be YOUR boss.The staff member was highly amused ...but it went exactly how DD said.

I was an only child and was always expected to do well because there was no one else. I went to a girls' grammar school where we were expected to be successful and there was no suggestion that boys would have been cleverer. At Art School the only thing that mattered was the standard of the work we produced and when I went to work my boss made sure that I was paid the same rate as the men.

DD was a gymnast and her training made her stronger and faster than most of the boys at school. Dolls played no part in her life and she could rarely be forced into a dress. She was always clever and assertive and, if anything, DS suffered from the constant comparison with his big sister and has never done as well as her.

Recently I overheard a mum say that her toddler, who was with her and listening, is a 'real boy' and that when he was offered a doll he said "Yuck". Cue laughter.

I suspect that the toddler has been subtly or not so subtly influenced in his toy preferences, and probably got clues from tone of voice etc when the doll was offered.

I think the pressure on girls and very young women to seek male approval and do what their male contemporaries want them to do, is far stronger than it used to be.

We have heard this week about the rise in child-on-child sexual assaults and also figures for the amount of pornography watched by adolescent boys, pornography that give them a totally distorted picture of what a sexual relationship is, as well as sexting as it becomes clear how many girls take pictures of themselves naked or performing sexual acts and posting them to coercive boyfriends.

I was not discouraged from climbing trees, wearing shorts or trousers and preferring to play with the boys than the girls. My mother stayed at home with the children. Her own mother had worked, leaving my mother (the oldest) to care for her younger siblings. Mum was determined we'd always have her to see us off to school and welcome us home.
I had children in the 70's and 80's. My children were encouraged to play and get involved in sports activities they enjoyed. The girls played football, the boys road ponies and all did gymnastics. Our family and friends were keen to avoid pigeon holing their children into gender stereotypes.

I agree with MaizieD about the pink princess issue and the fact that so often the boys toys department seems more likely to encourage wider interests than dolls, makeup and hair.

I do worry about the so called celebrity culture and its influence on children. I'd hoped we'd moved away from the casual sexualisation of girl children, it seems not.

I had a similarish upbringing to MOnica. In the 80s, when our children were young, I think I and my friends were positive about not bringing up our children with gender stereotypes.

I am certainly horrified by the current trend for making girls into unrelieved pink princesses but I think we might have to wait a few years to see how that plays out. For all we know it might be giving the girls lots of confidence as princesses can surely do anything they want.

I think we still have a very long way to go before society as a whole changes its attitudes to women in power. They are still subject to far more sexist abuse than any man gets and, as Riverwalk points out, women are still very much judged on their looks and their clothes; even by other women