Teacher said DD is half boy half girl.

[Dorange]

My 6 year old told me today that she is half boy half girl. I asked her why and she said that her teacher said that because she likes and can do girls activities and boys activities.
Now, I am very proud of my daughters flexibility, her girly side and tomboy side, but I could see she was confused by the 'half boy half girl' 'label' (or vive versa) and I think that at 6 year old she can understand more mature language...
Or am I being PFB?

[LadyBigtoes]

Daft teacher, but this sort of thing is very common. Sexist attitudes are so deeply ingrained ina lot of people, including teachers.

I remember seething when DS started school and all the coat hooks had name tags with little pics of flowers, fairies and butterflies for girls, and rockets, tractors and footballs for boys. ESPECIALLY as there is a huge tomboy in the class - how must that make her feel? Not to mention boys who like flowers and butterflies. What a shit message to start them off with.

Now I shrug my shoulders, as if I seethed every time the "this is boys' stuff, that is girls' stuff" message gets bandied around I'd never do anything else. I just try to redress the balance at home and talk about how some people think, or used to think, some stuff is for boys and some stuff is for girls, but with very few exceptions, actually everything is for everyone.

[Dorange]

Well, my daughter actually corrected me yesterday...

I am always surrounded by kids and I am always telling them:
"well done boys and girls"

So DD turns to me and say:
"well done girls and boys"

Exactly.
Why boys first?
Feminist form an young age

[DoodleAlley]

I've just realised I say "girls and boys" but "men and women".

Im becoming a lot more aware of these things since having a daughter (also have DS) It feels like society and especially consumer items want to, or feel entitled to, make assumptions about girls more than boys.

Your daughter sounds great and I hope my DD is as balanced and observant!

[LittleSporksBigSpork]

Very odd thing for a teacher to say.

I'd likely tell mine that it wasn't appropriate for a teacher to say that, and get into a generally discussion about how we can't determine a person's sex or gender by what they like, that only a person themselves can know what they are and it isn't nice to tell others what they should be by what we think of what they do, and general discussion of intersex and genderqueer if they were interested. In fact, I had a similar discussion recently involving most of that with mine (8 & 6) though I don't recall what brought it up.

[FannyMcNally]

Please don't tell me they have girls' activities and boys' activities at your school?

[Pozzled]

Really weird thing for the teacher to say. It's not difficult to get the message right- people like (and can do) all sorts of things, and it doesn't matter if they're male or female.

[bluegiraffe]

the word "sexist" was in DD's reading book the other day, so she asked what it meant and it allowed useful discussion

[Dorange]

I don't know if there is different activities for boys and girls, but DD gets on very well with the boys, she likes playing power rangers with them and she likes drawing monsters. She also do all the other glittering stuff and loves to accessorize and won't wear trousers....

[overthemill]

Did teacher actually say those words or is it your dd's interpretation of what teacher said? If you are upset or confused then ask teacher for quick word.