jewelry, hairdos, nail polish etc for boys ?

Dd is getting to the age where she always wants to have her hair done, bows, necklaces, etc. Super girly!! The other day we were at Goodwill & they had some cute little necklaces for $0.50, so I picked one out for her......ds is watching us & says "Where's my necklace??" So I looked for one more boy-ish looking & found a blue & white one that we got him. He was thrilled. I'm not sure sure that Daddy would have been, though. I know lots of men wear jewelry, but my dh just isn't one of them. Part of it's being practical; he's a plumber and any jewelry on his body has the potential to get him hurt.

But I feel bad, like ds is getting left out sometimes. Dd always wants to paint her toenails, so ds does too. The once I painted them, dh flipped out. So now I just use clear. When dd & her cousin play dress up, all the stuff is princess!! I don't care if ds plays princess dress up, honestly ...... but I'm feeling frustrated lately, like there's so much more emphasis on STUFF for girls. I'm feeling sad for dd, too, like she's just growing up way too fast. Already she's asking me when does she get to have "boobies" !

If you have boy/girl twins, how do you deal with all the gender differences? I absolutely love seeing their differences; it cracks me up how opposite they are. But how do you teach that some stuff is for girls & some is for boys w/o making them feel left out? I probably wouldn't even care, except that some of it bothers dh.

 

My DS plays dress-up with construction hats and tool belts, and halloween costumes like batman or dinosaurs. For jewelry, we buy the craft kits and let him put together his own necklaces. They aren't girly or boyish, just kiddy. We gel and spike his hair when we are fixing DD's hair. With DS being the only boy with 3 girls, we definately try to help him feel pride in his boy-hood, like setting up daddy-dates for "just the boys" to work in the yard or go to home-depot. We have a few movies that he picked out- Kung-fu panda, ninja turtles, ect. that we call his "boy movies." I understand about the stuff for girls, but my boy doesn't care too much for stuff any way, he wants action!!

 

We used clear fingernail polish. We were also able to find on Ebay necklaces in the dog-tag style. Timothy has a Mater the tow truck dog-tag that he wears. He also has his watch which he wears everyday. He uses old Halloween stuff for dress-up. Something Timothy really likes is dressing up for church. So I make sure that we get the ties that match the shirts along with some of the matching sweater vests and socks. He gets to look just as good as Sarah does and he really enjoys the special time shopping for those.

Marissa

 

I am lucky in that way my husband is not like that. He just says let them be kids while they can. I paint dd and ds finger nails, we usually use a crazy color ex. blue, black simething like that. As far as hair pretties, I just tell him girls use these. I let him help pick them out for her to buy and sometimes to wear. If we stay in the house I will let him wear a barret or something in his hair.

I never thought about the girlie stuff or her being different yet cause I have not experienced that yet (they just turned 4). I don't know how I will handle that.

She also is the same way, she wants to dress like him somedays. Which is ok, we let her. Other days she wants a dress and I usually have a special outfit for him then. I let her have a car if she wants it.

I just treat them the same. I don't know what I will do if someday I have to experience what you are going though now. Hopefully they just grow up and not care about getting the same thing.

 

Also as far as dress up we bought dress up boxes at sams club one for boys (cowboy, fireman, cop ect.) one for girls (mostly princess stuff) but you never now who will be wearing what. They just have fun with it.

 

We try to treat them the same as much as possible. They both like having their nails done, and that's fine with me. DD does NOT like having anything in her hair, but DH sometimes does. I tell him it's fine around the house. When he was smaller he always picked out pink sweaters to wear, and that was fine with me too. He stopped that on his own, so I'm glad I didn't give him a hard time about it. His hair is getting pretty long and DH wants me to cut it, but he doesn't want it cut, and that's fine with me too (DH had long hair for most of the past 20 years until cutting it short last year, so I don't know what his problem is with the hair).

Both my kids go to ballet and gymnastics. They each have a babydoll, although neither one plays with the dolls much.

Basically, I want him to make his own decisions about how he presents himself and what he plays with. He'll figure out soon enough that society wants boys to be one way and girls to be another, and hopefully he'll be strong enough to figure out what he wants, rather than what other people want for him.

Rachel

 

When i paint sophies nails i let jack choose the colour for mine so he feels like he is involved. AS for dressing up sophie has girly fairy and princess outfits and jack has more boyish one likes coyboys or bob the builder lol . But they both share their dressing up outfits and thats fine withme. Whatever makes them happy!! x

 

QUOTE(joyful noise @ Feb 21 2009, 10:28 AM) [snapback]1199380[/snapback]
My DS plays dress-up with construction hats and tool belts, and halloween costumes like batman or dinosaurs. For jewelry, we buy the craft kits and let him put together his own necklaces. They aren't girly or boyish, just kiddy. We gel and spike his hair when we are fixing DD's hair. With DS being the only boy with 3 girls, we definately try to help him feel pride in his boy-hood, like setting up daddy-dates for "just the boys" to work in the yard or go to home-depot. We have a few movies that he picked out- Kung-fu panda, ninja turtles, ect. that we call his "boy movies." I understand about the stuff for girls, but my boy doesn't care too much for stuff any way, he wants action!!


This is kind of the approach we take too. For hair: Hannah gets her bows in her hair every morning, and Ben gets his gel in his hair every morning. I paint Hannah's nails, and he gets to paint mine. For dress-up, Ben has a bigger box than Hannah full of old costumes and accesories (fireman, cowboy, pirate, Power Ranger, Hulk, Spider Man, tool belt/hat). He used to dress up in Hannah's stuff until he had his own. For jewelry, Hannah has several necklaces, but Ben does too (one with a surfboard, one with a wave bead, etc.) and they do make a lot of their own bracelets, etc. with beads we have.

Hey, don't feel too bad...when potty training starts and DD realizes she can't stand and DS CAN, that trumps everything else!!!! :laughing:

 

I have two boys...but the past year or so they have been really interested in mommy's makeup, jewelry, etc. My husband gives them a really bad time when he sees them wanting to put my makeup on. I let them put on powder with my powder brush when daddy isn't looking.

We have been encouraging them to "do" their hair with daddy's hair gel, and daddy lets them wear his cologne. They feel special when they're getting to do things that daddy does.

Now, their Zoe dolls are a whole other story...they take these pink dolls with them everywhere we go. My husband doesn't say too much about those...but it is starting to get embarrassing. At least now when they pretend they are the "kings" in their castle, and Zoe is their princess. It's really cute.

 

I am so happy to read this post and the responses. I was going to post a similar question today. With boy/girl twins, I thought I had the best of both worlds - truck and dolls and all that. Lately, my DS just wants his sister's stuff. He will wear barrettes and bows in his hair - he loves headbands! (She, by the way, does not tolerate them as well). DS is now asking for the pink sippy - in fact, he choses pink stuff over everything else. He loves to wear my shoes and yesterday insisted on wearing Abby's pink hat outside - I didn't want to fight, so he wore her hat - she wore his.

My mother took the kids shopping and Parker picked out a pink shirt with a kitty on it, so she bought it - for Abby. When I got them dressed yesterday, I explained to him that he could see the kitty on his sister's shirt all day long (he is also obsessed with cats at the moment). He practically was tackling her trying to pull the shirt off saying, "kitty" "mine."

I'm not REALLY worried because I know that it doesn't mean anything and my DH is pretty good natured about it as wel....but how do I get him to stop focusing on the girly things so much. For those of you with other boy/girl twins...is this a stage? Do I just smile and laugh and take photos for when he's older? He really can crack me up with all his antics. His sister is so good natured and does whatever, but when he gets something in his head - he is insistent.

Oh, and Parker is also obesses with cars and wheels...so there is boy in him somewhere!

These kids.....

Jessica

 

I know that some of it in our case is that Sarah is so good about fussing, squacking, shrieking and in general having a very noticeable reaction when Timothy wants to get into her stuff. It also gets reactions from any adult that is usually around. I think with Timothy it is truly not so much about the stuff, it's about the reaction he gets from anybody and everybody that is around. And the more I act very matter-of-fact about it, he leaves her stuff alone. And also that he sees me trying and finding things like dog-tags for him.

Marissa