You Shouldn't Play with Girls

She was probably trying to make you feel bad for commenting and being SAFE!!! I agree, nutjob!! Good for you for loudly explaining to her that she did nothing wrong. I like to comment loudly when I'm in places and other kids are doing something they shouldn't to my kids "That is their parents choice to let them do X. I choose to not let you do that, but I cannot control what their parents do." I would have huggged her and loudly proclaimed "Good job listening and following directions. I know you wanted to hold hands because it's fun, but you were right in making a safe choice!"

There are lots of weird, controlling and uptight parents in the world. Thank goodness they are not the majority!

My son's 'bestest ever in the world' friend is a girl two years older than he is. :) Zero problems with it.

That mom WAS crazy!

"And Sally, never play with boys whose mothers are sexist and ridiculous."

I love it. It takes all kinds I guess. I played with my friends.

Then puberty struck and I became much more selective with those I played with.

About 10 years after puberty hit me upside the head and knocked me for a loop, I selected one girl I wanted to play with for the rest of my life. And I've been playing with her exclusively for almost 40 years.

Gotta love it.

Good luck to you and yours.

Not in my neighborhood, most of my daughter's friends are boys and we are all okay with that.

Heck I was actually talking to the mom about when her son came down to ask Genna to play. She looked very much girl and for a moment that oh he is going to do something to my daughter ran through my brain. Oh, Genna is 11 so hitting that age where they don't know if they want to be friends, date, or hit the boys. I asked the mom, do you think that is strange. She said not at all but then when you look at them play clearly they are friends. Worked for me. :)

grrrr....women like that make me want to pull my hair out, making your daughter feel like she did something wrong by just playing with her son.

No, my son's playdates have always included girls, and sometimes even just girls. We are fortunate to be friends with a few couples who are raising their girls with the same values as we do and these little girls are so sweet, respectful and all around happy.

I'm not sure how anyone can construe your actions as OVERreacting...????? Seriously? It's like you yelled at the woman or berated her or her son!! People who act like this really make me angry because those kids then grow up to be not as accepting of differences in other people. IMO.

*chuckle* I probably would've followed her around for the rest of the day just to see her squirm... Actually, I probably wouldn't have, but it would've been funny!

Sounds weird. Her nuttiness probably had nothing to do with you or your daughter. Something else must have been at play here that you don't know about (like Momma L suggested). You never know what's going on in someone else's head. Try not to take it personally.

He's a BOY!!!

Sorry... Just thinking up fun responses to crazy.

You did the right thing. How is not saying anything "overreacting"? I'm confused. You were advising your child on how to be safe, not telling her she couldn't play with him anymore. Some moms are so freaking dramatic & imbalanced.

I hate parents that force weird gender roles on kids like that, that poor boy will pay the price for it. So sad.

Uh, no, you are NOT overreacting. You didn't do anything, other than worry about the safety of the kids, then she stepped in with her nuttiness. How sad!

Both of my girls enjoy playing with boys. My 8-year-old plays with the boys almost exclusively on the playground, because they play soccer at school, while the girls are doing 'girly stuff' that my daughter isn't interested in.

I have a son and daughter.
They play with either gender.
I see no big deal about it.
They have friends of both genders.

That woman, has her issues.
Ahem.

It's a good thing we don't enforce that stupid rule with our son!!! His little sis is his best playmate!!!!

Boys, Girls it doesn't matter who they play with as long as they want to. I have an 8 year old son and a 5 year old daughter. They play together and with eachother's friends. When they're at the park they will play with whatever kid is there. Gender should not matter.

All I can think of is that her son is a rough and tumble kind of kid and has hurt girls in the past, and she's sick of getting fussed at by moms of girls. If it's not that, and she doesn't like girls, than she's just a wierd person and I thinking shooting her a look is fine.

Dawn

I know someone who practically launches herself on "girl toys" when there is a gathering because you know her son might catch something from Barbie. And now she has a daughter...I'm curious to know how that will work down the road. Mutual friend thinks that they are avoiding their family now that family B has a daughter who would want to play with the boy. Personally, I find the whole thing sad.

I used to play with the boys because they had better toys. Barbie gets too much sand in her hair.

I think that you did what you could here and you should just encourage her to move on when a playmate (any playmate) doesn't work out.

I don't think the problem really was that your daughter is a girl, I think she was just offended because her son initiated them going down together and you told your daughter not to do it anymore. Like the mom took it personally.

Pretty silly if you ask me. Glad your daughter found another friend and had a good time.

"Really?! Have fun when he turns 12 and puberty hits and he has no idea how to properly treat girls."

Personally, I'm with you, it's odd. I can't think of a legit reason why someone would object to their child playing with a member of the opposite gender at that age. Unless he has a history of not playing nice with girls?! Maybe he plays like a girl and not just with girls?! She's afraid of him "catching the gay"?!

Who knows, it's a shame. I always preferred boys too, yeah they were dumb and goofy, but they had neat toys and played in the dirt. :)

Well I guess she didn’t want him catching girly cooties. She should have done the cootie shot, circle circle dot dot now you have a cootie shot, ha ha.

I would have looked at her strange too. I don't know why someone would have a problem with it. My daughter has always played with her cousins (two boys and a girl) and never had issues, she is also good friends with two boys at school.

You couldn't keep me from playing with the neighborhood boys.
Their toys were more interesting and girls stuff was boring.
I built my own tree house when I was 7 yrs old - I had my own hammer.
There's no telling what's going through this other mom's mind.
I wouldn't worry about it.

Ugh, don't you know that letting little boys play with little girls means that they'll all catch teh gayness cootiiez? Sheesh. Come on now, people.

:-) Lady sounds like a whackadoodle.

My son has always enjoyed playing with girls. When he was preschool aged his best friends were girls. Now at age 8 he still has some really good friends who are girls and will play with them regularly. His very best friends are all boys now though. He asked me last year why most of the other boys don't like playing with girls like he does. He gets teased sometimes by other kids but he laughs it off and loudly defends his choices. I told him, oh, don't worry, by high school all those boys will want to play with girls again. ;)

That's very sad and lame. How's a man know how to relate to women and be kind to them, if he can't be a boy who plays with them? Obviously, my children can play with whoever they make a connection with on the playground. I'm around and keeping an eye to make sure they're safe. I have seen some things from other parents that made me think "Wow" before.....as a mother of little boys, I'm more sensitive to the sexist mess society tries to stick on boys. It's just sad.

I would have just said "Aww, they were playing nicely, I just thought they could get hurt if they went down the slide at the same time"....because I wouldn't want the boy getting fussed at for playing with my kid (and something I said), and I wouldn't want her thinking I was being passive-aggressive like I was trying to say "stay away from that boy" or something. Then it could be in the mom's court if she actually wants to reiterate that she doesn't want her son to play with girls. If so, she's a nut job and that's entirely on her.

I had a neighbor once who was weird like that with her daughter. The daughter was 6, and a boy I babysat was 6, and he thought she was so pretty (because she was). We would play kickball or army dodgeball together and she'd join in (until her mom said she couldn't). One day while the little ones were napping, I pulled out sheets of paper and paints, and I painted with the 6 year old boy. I said "Let's paint things we like to do for fun" and I painted a girl reading a book at the beach. He painted 2 little boys (him and his brother), a black dog, and a little girl (the neighbor) playing soccer. I thought it was adorable. He was leaving and saw her outside, so he gave it to her. The mom seemed really miffed about it, which was weird. Like, she didn't want boys playing or talking to her kid.....but this was a very good, polite boy...as good as anyone could hope to babysit for. It was very strange. Can't help stupid, I suppose.

It sounds like you are major overreacting. She reinforced what you said, just more strictly. She can tell her son not to play with girls, perhaps he has a history of getting to rough that you don't know about.

I suppose she was doing it very obviously and over dramatically to upset you, but that would just be weird and I doubt that. I wouldn't waste my time thinking about it.