Babies Tale

I don’t usually get time to wander in the store, but yesterday was the exception to the rule. As a writer, I normally get sucked into the stationery/home office aisles (I can’t help it, I love the smell of paper), but as a woman with a very loud uterus (I refer to her affectionately as Thorina), I inevitably end up in the toy aisles sooner or later.

It wasn’t long before I noticed again the phenomenon that happens in the toy aisles of just about every department store. Dark blues and greens turned pink and shiny, and remote control cars gave way to plastic tiaras. Legos were replaced with soft, cushy baby dolls, and military action figures became plastic tea and dish sets.

Gender roles are taught to kids through all kinds of things-toys are just one of them. When a little girl takes care of her “baby” (doll), she’s not just playing; she’s actually learning her gender expectation. When a little boy receives toys that mostly have motors and require batteries, he’s learning his gender expectation, too.

Does anyone else find it ironic that we as parents spend all this effort and money trying to mold our kids only to watch much of it disintegrate over time? Men are staying home with the kids. Women are joining the army and making big bucks in lucrative full time careers. Unisex items are more popular than they’ve ever been.

So why do we do it? Why do we continue to doll up our little girls and make workers out of our little boys? I’m not saying that we as parents should send our sons to school in dresses or shave off our little girls’ luxurious bright blonde curls. What I am saying is that if we want to teach our children to really be themselves, we can only determine who they will be so much. What’s so wrong with letting our little boy join in his sister’s game of taking care of “baby”? (Aren’t we always yelling about deadbeat dads?) What’s so wrong with letting our little girl play with a GI Joe? (Don’t we say that we want to have strong women who can look out for themselves?) Besides, anyone with more than one kid knows that toys get stolen and broken by siblings almost before they’re out of the box, and if you buy unisex, your kids have more toys with which they all can play. Kids don’t care what it is unless we teach them they should care-they just want to play.

Changing social constructs isn’t easy. I know that, and there are honestly some things for which women are better suited and some for which men are better suited. Even so, I think that as parents, we seem to be feeding a sort of double standard to our children when it comes to gender roles-we tell them when they’re little what it means to be a “boy” or “girl”, and then when they get older, we encourage them to defy that. What gives? Do we want them to be boys and girls or not? It’s something to keep in mind next time you have to face the toy aisles again.

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