A daycare suggested these parents dress their daughter more ‘girly’—and they had the best response

steverold/Reddit

Steve Rold and his wife, Jessica, are the parents to two children, a 2-year-old son and a 1-month-old daughter. And apparently, the fact that their kids are different genders is a bigger deal to some than others.

When Jessica went to pick up her son from daycare, she had her infant daughter in tow, and she received a comment that was quite surprising. Her husband told Babble all about the incident:

“A few of the older teachers at the daycare made suggestions to my wife that we should think about dressing our girl in more dresses,” he told Babble, “or putting bows in her hair so that the other kids would know that she was a girl when my wife was there with her to pick up our 2-year-old son.”

The parents seemed to find the notion of needing to dress their child up in a way that was more “girly” slightly absurd — and they had the perfect response. According to a picture that was originally posted to Reddit, this is how the mom dressed her daughter the next day:

How my wife dressed our daughter the day after the teachers at daycare told her we should really be dressing her more like a girl. from r/daddit

She simply dressed her in what she normally would have: a gender-neutral Jayhawks top. But this time, she also added a Post-it note with a hand-drawn bow right on top of her head, almost as if to say, “is this girly enough for you?”

How great is that?

To hear the parents tell it, they don’t give too much thought to whether or not the clothing they’re putting their kids in are gender-specific.

“We never bothered to find out the genders of our children ahead of time,” the father of two told Babble, “so most of what my daughter wears at the moment are hand-me-downs we bought before we knew our son was even going to be a boy.”

Reactions From Other Parents

Other parents are applauding this couple’s reaction to the daycare employees’ comments and even sharing similar stories of their sons who love princesses and daughters who love Hot Wheels.

“My four-year-old loves pink,” Reddit user Duckie17 commented on the post. “All his friends are girls and they all love pink, MLP [My Little Pony], and princesses…. so my son loves to wear pink (he has exactly one pink shirt that he wears the moment it is clean), he begs to watch MLP the moment he gets home from school, and he talks about princesses all the time.”

Reddit user sqweexv commented in a similar vein, writing:

“I have a 5 year old girl. She loves Pokemon, Minecraft, and has said she wants a Hot Wheels track set for Christmas.”

via GIPHY

And then there was Reddit user Ih8YourCat:

“My 2 year old also loves pink. He has a Palermo soccer jersey thy was gifted to him by his Italian native uncle and he loves that jersey. He also has 2 girl cousins around the same age and he’ll occasionally play “princess” with them. This is where they all put on dresses.”

Reddit user MrTomDawson summed it up perfectly:

“Turns out if you don’t tell your kid something is meant for girls or boys, they just enjoy it for what it is. Who could have predicted?”

The moral of the story is that kids should be free to wear, play with and enjoy whatever they see fit. Because boys don’t have to like “boy” things and vice versa. Parenting — and life in general — is not that black and white, and that’s a good thing. Because how limiting would that be?

Family & Parenting, Good News, Humor & Funny, News, Parenting
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About the Author
Augusta Statz
I have a B.F.A. in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’m an avid writer with a genuine sense of curiosity. I feel the best way to absorb the world around you is through fashion, art and food, so that’s what I spend most of my time writing about.

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