I Wonder...

[Robyn Jodie]

I have read several stories on other sites of teenage boys in the UK being "put back in short trousers" and treated as a much younger boy ("age regression") as a humiliating punishment.

That has me wondering...
Up until World War I, nearly all young boys wore dresses. They "were breeched" (meaning they graduated from dresses to trousers, usually short trousers) after being potty trained, usually sometime between ages 2 and 6 years, although some boys' doting mothers kept them in dresses till 8,  10, or even older. What I am wondering is whether "being petticoated" (i.e., forced to dress in girls' clothes) wasn't also a form of age regression--so the boy was not being feminized as such, but being regressed to an even younger age. Please be aware that in cases where this was the goal, things like makeup, high heels, and other paraphernalia of adult femininity would be off-limits.

Anybody have any thoughts about this?

[TaylorJackson]

Great question, I believe you are correct “dresses” were consider children clothes up to about a hundred years ago. Based on limited research I done over the years the age a boy was breeched varied based on the family wealth. In a poor family children were put to work early on in life so boys needed to be breeched ASAP, even girls were breeched if the family had a limited number of boys. In wealthy families there was less need to breech a boy until later. I heard over the years the idea of “petticoating” was a common practice in wealthy families who had governesses.  I have to imagine if a boy got out of line a governess had little trouble convincing the mother to use petticoating.