disappointing experience about "gender specific" toy

[spsmom]

I guess this is more of a vent about something that happened at the store tonight.

My 3 yo ds has a doll. her name is michaela chris (yes, he named her himself!) he carries her in a sling, rocks her to sleep, and even nurses her when she is hungry.

he announced that his baby was getting old enough to start walking so she needed shoes. i told him we would look at the store for something and if they don't have anything, i would make some.

so we are in the doll isle of the store looking at clothing and a girl about 8 or 9 informs me that this is the girl's row and there are boy's toys on the next row. (i also had my 8 mo ds on my back)

my ds looked at her very confused. i simply told her that i knew what we were looking at, and that dolls are not just for girls.

how sad that already this girl has been trained to believe that dolls are only for girls.

i get so annoyed with the general population when it comes to "gender specific" toys and clothes. my ds also is into pink right now. which we had a little incident regarding paint and a woman trying to offer him green or blue instead. but anyway...

what is wrong with people?

[cheenya]

I agree that it is really sad. It also doesn't surprise me that an 8 yr old would have that reaction. DD (3) already will identify people as male or female based on haircut and color of clothing. Never mind that DH's hair is longer than mine will ever be and she has pleanty of light blue and no more than one pink outfit in her own wardrobe - and that this situation (long haired dads and not much pink in thier wardrobes) is true for most of her friends. Thankfully she hasn't figgured out that some toys are "supposed" to be for girls and others for boys. I keep her out of toy stores/isels partly for this reason, she'd start to pick up on it just from the gender groupings she would recognize and I don't want her limiting her play, currently trains are her favorite toy and those generally get grouped as "boys toys". I've also realized since I had a boy that I have gender issues of my own left to deal with. While I never had issues dressing DD in hand-me-downs from a little boy, I have trouble putting pink or flowery clothes on DS. Thank you for reminding me I need to work to be more open about what he wears as well.

[mamaduck]

I think many children go in and out of phases where they want to try to classify everything in their experience. It helps them to feel secure. Classifying by gender is a pretty normal thing for a lot of kids, even those who grow up in environments where this is not modelled for them. I doesn't mean that she always will, or that this was taught to her. It just means that its something she is working through right now.

[anarchamama]

I am shocked at how genderin people are. My DS has lonish hair and pretty gender neutral cloths, and people are always mistaking him for a girl. never bothered to correct people figuring he would do it himself once he caught on. I never dreamed people would argue with him about it! But they do, when he says "I'm a boy" they tell him he's confused, or isn't it all complicated etc......One woman even kept insisting on calling him Wendy when he was playing bob the builder. WTF? And even if he was a girl pretending to be a boy or Bob why would you feel the need to correct? This happens ALL THE TIME! It's awsomely ignorant:

[KaraBoo]

Keep on doing what you're doing: allowing your child to chose toys based on their interest, not their gender.

And yes, it's frustrating. My dd is constantly told, even by family members, that boys can't wear pink or wear dresses, women can't have short hair...it's ridiculous.

[Village Mama]

Sort of related... my almost 5 year old son was asked to draw a picture of a man and a woman (sort of for an evaluation to see where he was at) He finished and showed us the picture. They were exactly the same. I commented on how I noticed that they were so similar ... he said " Well mom... you know how there are women who look a lot like men? Well thats the type of woman I drew!
My sweet boys seem to do a lot of things that people seem tothink is gender inappropriate. I even had a mom lend me a book about how they should be more boyish... they are what they are. I am by no means a girly girl!

[ParisAnne]

Well I just want to say it's very sweet that your son carries his baby in a sling. I love the things kids come up with (sometimes) Though I hate in the past when my dd has said 'my baby needs a bottle, she doesn't want milkies."

I just remind her milkies are best for her baby. But she sees other kids with those stupid plastic milk bottles for their babies and she wants them.

I personally tried to keep a mixture of toys when dd was a little younger, she has a hard hat and measuring tape someone gave her, trucks, all kinds of blocks (not really gender specific I know) but she has always been drawn to the girly things so as we weed things out I've gotten rid of most of the boyish things as they are not getting played with and take up space.

[`guest`]

Originally Posted by mamaduck

I think many children go in and out of phases where they want to try to classify everything in their experience. It helps them to feel secure. Classifying by gender is a pretty normal thing for a lot of kids, even those who grow up in environments where this is not modelled for them. I doesn't mean that she always will, or that this was taught to her. It just means that its something she is working through right now.

Exactly my thought. My son sometimes tries to organize things in this fashion, I think it is appropriate for his age. Trying to get the world sorted out, of course I enforce gender neutrality, but he is becoming cognizant that there are inherent female/male differences, and accordingly attempting to order his world. it's a natural developmental process. Don't take it personally.

[mommy68]

She was a little girl. I would have brushed the comment off and kept doing what I was doing. Seriously now!

I truly do not think most kids are taught early on that dolls are for girls and cars are for boys. For instance, a lot of children are just naturally raised in an environment where mommy tends to their needs more or they witness mommy tending to baby siblings needs more and daddy is doing things that daddy's do. THAT is what shows a child the gender roles, not a person just physically or verbally telling them "girls play with dolls" and what have you.

Please don't blame it on the parents for 'teaching' their children to be this way because it's really not true. The girl was just a child and she was not bad for what she said...rude yes, but not necessarily bad. Had the comment come from an adult then you would have a reason to be upset.

[adtake]

When my first son was born I had a doll for him. DH was like..um...playing with dolls? I asked DH if we had a girl would you let her play with cars? Of course he said yes.. I said good, then your son can play with dolls.

I always said I wanted ppl to not know the gender of my children from their toys. Of course with 3 little boys now I wouldsay ppl can guess pretty easy... my world of cars and trains..lol

[L&IsMama]

: What's even worse is when people tell you that you are making your son gay because he has a doll.

[spsmom]

Wow, i didn't mean to suggest that i thought the girl was "bad" for doing this. or that i really blame her parents. i understand that kids are figuring these things out in their heads and understanding how the world works. but i do have to disagree with the comment that children aren't taught dolls are for girls and cars are for boys. i have spent my entire adult life working with kids and that is all i ever see. it's not always the parents, i know. it is obvious that it is the general population. kids will be attracted to what they are attracted to. it really shouldn't matter if it's pink or camoflauge. but it is society in general taht catagorizes these gender specific things. and in most cases, you give a boy a truck and a doll, and they instinctly go fro the truck. but not always. and i feel it is our jobs as parents to help our kids understand that that is ok.

i just felt sad for my son because her comment confused him. we run in a circle of families that are for the most part like minded so this is the norm for him (kids playing with whatever toy that tickles their fancy) and to have someone tell him differently took him off guard.

i just wanted to add that after a particular day where he was very loving and nurturing to his baby, i watched him banging her head on our slide outside. when i asked him why he doing that, he replied, "i'm squishing a bug"

yeah, he's all boy!

[L&IsMama]

Originally Posted by spsmom

but i do have to disagree with the comment that children aren't taught dolls are for girls and cars are for boys. it's not always the parents, i know. it is obvious that it is the general population.

I agree. It is the parents 99% of the time who instill in their children the gender stereotypes. When my ds is given the choice of his doll or playing with trains,he picks his doll. And you know what? I think it's great. He likes what he likes,and he refuses to be sucked in to gender-specific stereotypes.

[flapjack]

There's more ways of nurturing than with a doll, though. Both my boys have had dolls but preferred to cuddle and mummy soft toys- I can see their point really, a cute and cuddly teddy bear is far nicer to hold than a lump of unyielding plastic- which raised far fewer eyebrows.

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by L&IsMama

I agree. It is the parents 99% of the time who instill in their children the gender stereotypes.

yes and no.... our son's PASSION (and I do mean passion) for 3 years was garbage trucks. He played garbage truck to the exlcusion of almost anything else for a year, daily for another 2 years, and is just now at age 5 getting out of that. And moving on to trains and board games.

He's always had a range of toys to choose from - dolls, trucks, trains, stuffed animals, puzzles, cooking and cleaning toys, art supplies. He chooses trucks and trains, puzzles, and sometimes cooking. The ONLY time he plays with dolls now is when his little sister does. When he got a pretend microwave, he spent most of his time putting trains in it to watch them go around!

On the other hand, his favorite colors are hot pink and orange, he loved Dora the Explorer for a while (even when several girls told him that boys don't like dora : and don't wear pink ). He's had his nails painted. He did wonder when we bought him a pink belt why we were in the girls section. (He asked for a pink belt.)

What he hasn't learned from us is that "these are boys' toys and these are girls' toys". But he still gravitates toward "boys toys" and away from dolls and art. His little sister has more trucks and trains to play with than dolls (we've got a great set from her brother, I'm not buying new stuff), and she plays with them, but she has a greater range of play interests. She'll also play with dolls, pretend to change them, nurse them, put them to sleep. I never saw her brother do that, and we didn't model it for her. (I did, however, model it for her brother at times, just to see what would happen . It didn't take.)

I agree kids like what they will like. I detest the fact that all dolls are sold in the pink aisle and that legos are all sold in the blue aisle. I strongly suspect that dd will be more into legos that ds ever will be. (He has lousy fine motor skills, she's got great ones; he needs to act out his play, she likes to draw and build).

But some kids do naturally gravitate toward traditional gender toys and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's a choice they make and not one their parents make for them by restricting what they have access to.

[onlyzombiecat]

We take dd through all of the toy section and no one has ever commented that we don't belong in the car or action figure aisle. I would be bothered if someone tried to nudge us to the doll aisle but I would ignore them. We'll buy my dd whatever toy she likes as long as it is age appropriate and within our budget.

I know that my dh's little adopted brother had family members opposed to him wearing purple or playing with a toy kitchen. It was disappointing that they believed the type of toy or color would actually impact his masculinity.

I've never noticed a different color for the Lego aisle. I'll have to check that out.

[mahogny]

Originally Posted by L&IsMama

I agree. It is the parents 99% of the time who instill in their children the gender stereotypes.

When I was in college I would have agreed with you 110%. Gosh, when I was an undergrad, gender stereotyping among children was the topic of my senior project! But now that I have a boy and girl of my own, I fully believe that there are a lot of innate differences between boys and girls which influence the toys with which they choose to play.

My daugher loves dressing up, having her hair brushed and fussed with, hauling stuffed animals all over the house, and playing with her dolls. (Well, one specific doll.) She adores me tying playsilks around her waist, skirt-like.

My son abhors me fussing over him, prefers "action" toys, loves running and crashing, and has always been boisterous on a level that DD never has. He loves gun play (he's never had a toy gun or seen a violent movie or video game), and loves activities that require a lot of action, like sports. His favorite toys are his trains and his cars.

DD has never been overly drawn to the mountains of trains and cars in the house. (And beleive me, DS keeps trying to get her interested in them!) She really prefers cuddling dolls and animals and being nurturing.

DS has a baby doll, and every once in awhile will do something with it (it happened more more often when his sister was a baby) but now his baby just sits all lonely in the toybox! I'm sure DD will discover it soon.

DS (who at 4 1/2 is older and more verbal and more likely to say this...) has never mentioned that there are "girl toys" and "boy toys". But, he's just always chosen to go to the Matchbox and train section of the toy store.

I do remember when I bought my son his baby doll. He was very excited about it and carried to the cashier himself. The cashier made a comment about how it was a girls toy, : so I told the her that any body can play with dolls. (DS was right there! Why would she say that?) She agreed with me. But I will tell you that I was nervous as heck the first time that DS carried his baby doll with him to the grocery store. I was so afraid that someone was going to make a comment to him that "dolls aren't for boys" or something. But no one ever did. And DS was pretty cute carrying his baby around. But that just happened once or twice - he's just never really been drawn to that doll. But Percy the train came with us EVERYWHERE for months on end! I also specifically remember how annoyed I was that when I wanted to buy my son a toy broom b/c he was into imitating me, I had to go to the girls' section of the toy store; they didn't have brooms on the boys' side!

So, I'm not saying that ALL gender roles are innate - clearly there are societal expectations and pressures which play a large role, and more than there should be. For example, the brooms being in the girls section was a deliberate choice of the toy store, which does influence what children see as "mens roles" and "womens roles". And outside expectations of gender roles even affect adults in the work place - women earn 70c to the man's $1. But to say that gender stereotyping 99% learned from the parents is something that I don't agree with anymore. JMHO.

[L&IsMama]

Originally Posted by mahogny

So, I'm not saying that ALL gender roles are innate - clearly there are societal expectations and pressures which play a large role, and more than there should be. For example, the brooms being in the girls section was a deliberate choice of the toy store, which does influence what children see as "mens roles" and "womens roles". And outside expectations of gender roles even affect adults in the work place - women earn 70c to the man's $1. But to say that gender stereotyping 99% learned from the parents is something that I don't agree with anymore. JMHO.

I should have been more clear,lol. What I meant was that children will like what they like,but it's the parents and society who push the whole "blue is for boys" "only girls have dolls" stereotype,kwim? For instance,alot,if not most parents,will encourage little Johnny to play with cars and trucks,and wear blue shirts and jeans. And alot of kids simply aren't given an option. I have heard parents in stores chastise their sons for looking at baby dolls on the toy aisles. I am certainly not saying that *every* parent does this,though. And I know certainly not every little boy is like my son,who will go for the doll over the trains.