Do you think they were right to ban him?

AGUS [got it right this time] I do rather like Shania !

How do we even know the child is aware of the publicity, other than having his photo taken?

Perhaps if he'd just worn an ordinary dress, and ordinary shoes meant for girls, it would have been acceptable by the after-school club. It does seem that he went fully rigged-out in trailing net and high heels, tiara and all.

Maybe the organisers wanted to avoid 'dressing up competitiveness' among the rest of the children? We'll probably never know...

Only if you promise to sing the song all day Nonu

I can't stop singing it myself now!

Goodness me, it doesn't matter how hard I try to be good somehow I always manage to wind things up completely unintentionally.

1. I don't care how many dresses he has 1,000,000 if they want and can afford them. All I said was my three DD's didn't have 100 dresses between them and they probably still don't. I made their clothes under sufferance so a little had to go a long way.
2. On the face of it I don't think he should have been banned but there is probably much more to the situation than I know or want to know for that matter.
3. Mostly I am shocked that a mother would put her son through this. Yes, she has the right to so do, but how could she?

Its quite amazing really, my family won't allow photographs of the children on FB or here in case someone 'not nice' sees them yet other mums go completely the other way.

Off to hide under my duvet for a while

I guess I prefer a more tolerant and easy-going acceptance of eccentricity if it isn't intrinsically harmful, which this isn't.

Does anyone else remember the story about a boy who wore a skirt to school as a protest because although girls were allowed to choose to wear skirts over bare legs in hot weather, boys weren't allowed to wear short trousers? There was no rule, quite rightly imo, that boys couldn't wear skirts.

And then there was a similar protest in Norway or Sweden where train drivers wore skirts in hot weather for the same reason.

Girls can wear 'boyish' clothes in pretty much all circumstances nowadays but the reaction to this boy's preferences shows that we don't extend the same freedom to boys. I ask why not?

I daresay similar arguments were put forward when women first started wearing trousers for practical reasons as are being put forward about boys wearing dresses. Why should wearing a dress when you are five matter when you are a grown up? Why should males wearing dresses matter at all?

Why shouldn't a boy wear a dress to playgroup one day a week? Why should he limit his dress-wearing to at home? Sorry, but I don't see a good reason; I only see prejudice.

As for the publicity now mattering when he's an adult, it's possible, but it's also possible that it won't matter in the least. By then he might just laugh about it (if he even remembers) or he might have decided he's a woman.

100 dresses is certainly a lot. I expect the queen and a good number of celebs have more and that very few people mind.

I guess in the end I find the judgmental negativity on this thread the most disturbing thing.

AGUS ,

can you ever forgive me ??

Must get on too. GD's 5th birthday today and plan to see her soon.

Have fun with your DGC Aka

I think most of the common sense posts say it all really. If a little boy likes to wear dresses, sense tells us that only allow this at home.If he doesn't grow out of it in a year then perhaps it's time for a talk with your GP.Some boys are really girls [if you know what I mean] and they need to confide how they feel to the parents.By making a big show of it at this age the Mother is doing him no favours at all, poor kid.It's a recipe for much future bullying.100 dresses indeed! Most girls don't have that amount, or anything like it.Makes you wonder about the parents.

Good point Agus

Now I'd better get back to childminding. Granddad needs to take GS out to play football while I bake with GD

Agus and Aka - good comments

Thatbags - I worry about the emotional welfare of children whose parents seek to put them at the centre of a media storm. This boy is too young to give 'informed consent' to being the subject of this kind of publicity. We can only speculate about the family, but we wouldn't be doing that if this unnecessary publicity hadn't taken place.

Unfortunately, the person at the centre of this is only 5yrs old, far too young to understand what issues and rights are about.

I am not asking the mother to do anything to conform to society, but she is an adult and can make her own choice. Just stop and think what implications this will have on her little boy who needs guidance to accept that we can't all just do what we want.

So all this fuss is for a once-a- week session??

So let him wear his dresses the other six days FHS!

You are the 2nd one this week to call me Angus Nonu not an issue! just funny

I'm a woman, W O M A N, I'll say it again as in the song

The father is quoted as saying he's fine with his son dressing up and doesn't see a problem, Aka - and the after-school playgroup is only held once a week (although £1 is still cheap!).

I agree with those who think there may be more to this story than just the clothes issue.

Good posts angus & aka , must admit my thoughts exactly !

So why not negotiate a compromise? There are those whose whole attitude is 'no-one is going to tell me how to raise my child' and off they dash to the press who glorify in this sort of publicity. What a storm in a teacup.

So where is Dad in all this? And how will little Romeo feel in 10 years time when he comes across these photos of himself because they will always be 'out there'.

This mother is very lucky to find an after-school club for a £1 a week but she's willing to give that up so her over-indulged son can wear one of his 100 dresses there! He wears boys uniform at school. If he was a member of Beavers (or Brownies! ) he would have to stick to a dress code.

Let him wear his dresses at home, in the street, going shopping, anywhere but if she really cared about her son, how this makes him look splashed across the red tops, then she would have tried to reach some compromise with the after-school club.

I am wondering then bags if they also picked up on what I have and had concerns for the child.

There will no doubt be another side to the mother's story and we don't really know what that is.

I know the 100 outfits is not the issue but I think it is all,part of the unhealthy undertone.

I am only going on my instinct,to this story and it is not something I would have exposed my 5 yr old to.

The OP asked if the playgroup was wrong to ban the child. My answer to that question is Yes, they were wrong to do that.

The 100 dresses, etc, etc are other issues.

I agree about the weirdness of the story, its apparent 'unhealthy' aspect, but that's not what I'm taking issue with.

I don't feel the mother has done her little boy any favours by exposing him to all and sundry by taking this to the media. Has she thought about what is lurking out there?

I dressed up as a cowboy at that age and also longed to be an Indian squaw, a nurse etc. but I didn't have a hundred outfits for each character.

There is an unhealthy undertone to this story which is not just about a child enjoying dressing up.

And if you don't mind proesting publicly and making a big noise, then why not? Plenty of people protest publicly about plenty of things. One doesn't have to agree with them to defend their right to protest as loudly as they wish. She's not harming anyone.

Not if that came after the ban. It seems to me that her publicising is a consequence of the ban, not the ban a consequence of her publicising her child's dressing-up. In other words, one can see it as a reaction, a protest against unfair treatment. Why shouldn't she?

This is not saying it's how I would behave in similar circumstances but it is saying that I can understand someone else doing it. The ban is chock full of sexist prejudice. It's right to protest about such things.

Nothing to do of course with the mother blasting it all over the media so what was a fairly private matter between her and the after-school club is now a matter of speculation on this forum?

Oh silly me