preference for dad, gender stuff

[tvmum1976]

Our 2.5 year old DS has recently started expressing a strong preference for daddy in the last few weeks. It started off with "I like daddy best. I don't like mummy" but recently has said a few times things along the lines of "I'm a boy, I need men, daddy is a man" or "i'm a boy so I need my daddy" or "daddy is a man, I like men."
I am wondering what if anything this means. He seems a little young to be thinking about gender role models etc (my cursory googling of this, plus a bit of study into it at university seems to suggest this is something kids go through a bit later, but maybe not??) It may be something he's heard from somewhere and is repeating but I really struggle to think where- definitely not from DH or me and it sounds a bit odd to be coming from a preschool teacher but maybe it has? Any thoughts on what this might be all about?

[alwayslateforwork]

It sounds like parroting from somewhere, but most toddlers do go through stages of heavy preference for one parent or the other. It'll be some crapola tv programme or other, or a well meaning but slightly ancient aunt. They do pick up on the slightest things and magnify them by a million, leaving you mystified.

One of mine once declared in all seriousness that he didn't want to get married because of all the cooking and cleaning, and his sister (god preserve her) said 'but the cooking and cleaning would be your wife's job'. This is a kid in a house where dh does literally all the cooking, all the ironing, and a damned good proportion of the cleaning.

It's ridiculously insidious. But it will pass, as long as you just laugh and ignore it, and redirect to more appropriate responses.

That said, I'd also be tempted to milk it for all it was worth and get dh to do all of the childcare for as long as possible... So that they can, y'know, bond, over bath time, and dinner time, and bedtime, and playtime, and snack time, and breakfast time, and... Grocery shopping. Yes, definitely.

And you can, y'know, go and do girl's things, like fixing the car, or swigging beer and watching the football.