Mum called out by another parent for "enforcing gender norms" – do you agree?
- Replies 13
A mum has been the talk of the town after offering children "gendered" lunchboxes filled with party food at her six-year-old daughter's birthday party.
On the popular forum site Reddit, she asked for opinions from fellow users if she was being unreasonable or not, since another mum called her out at the party for buying the girls lunchboxes with ‘Frozen’ on the cover, and Spiderman for the boys.
The issue began at her six-year-old daughter's birthday party. The mum was initially thinking of what to give the young guests and save on expenses at the same time.
That was when she found these cute lunch sets that came with a lunchbox and water bottle on sale. "Instead of having plates of food set out and the kids grabbing stuff, I thought it'd be fun if each kid got a lunchbox filled with food and juice in the bottle, and they could take the box/bottle home," she explained in her post.
"I bought Frozen lunchboxes for the girls and Spiderman for the boys.
"The day came, all the kids had a blast and when it was time for lunch I gave them the lunch sets," she continued.
"I did grab a couple of extras in case the kids wanted the other lunchbox (so if a girl wanted Spiderman, or vice versa) but no one said anything and they all seemed over the moon with it."
The mum was slammed for handing out Frozen and Spiderman lunchboxes. Credit: Target.
But the problem began when another mother noticed the boys and girls carrying lunch boxes.
"She asked me if I did that on purpose, to which I replied, 'yes, I bought Frozen for girls and Spiderman for boys because I thought it'd be cute'," the mum later explained to the guest.
However, she was called "stuck in the 1900s" and accused of "enforcing gender norms" on young children instead.
"I was a bit baffled and said that was not my intention at all, and if her daughter wanted the Spiderman set I would be more than happy to give it to her since I had extras," the mum defended herself.
"She said that's not the point and I shouldn't have been giving out things based on gender in the first place."
When the woman told the guest that she was reading into things a little too much, they took off in a huff, ending the conversation. After that, the mum was left wondering if having 'gendered' lunch sets was a really bad idea.
She reiterated that she never forced the children at the party to get the Spiderman one for boys and the Frozen one for girls. She even had them made a line to retrieve their lunchboxes, and gave them the choice of which one they wanted.
"All the girls went for Frozen and the boys went for Spidey," she recalled.
"The reason I handed them out instead of leaving them out on a table for them to grab was that I didn't want the kids to fight over one another to try and get food, I thought it'd be easier if I gave them out one by one."
Thankfully for her, many others on Reddit came to her defense, claiming that the parent who was having the problem was being "ridiculous."
"You didn’t really enforce anything – the kids had choices – you just offered things in the way that was the least likely to make waves," said one user.
Another agreed and added: "You can’t really win when somebody is looking to be upset. I’ve done kids' events where parents were upset that things weren’t gendered enough. I wouldn’t worry about it."
What are your thoughts, folks? Was the mum unreasonable for handing out 'gendered' lunchbox sets at her daughter's birthday party? Or was the other parent being ridiculous for accusing her?