Teaching children about gender is a funny thing. Of course there are differences between boys and girls, both physical and as a mommy to both and previous childcare teacher, I can say there are definitely behavior differences too. But does that mean they should be treated completely different?
Our culture is constantly placing gender labels on everything from toys to movies to clothes (have you seen the “neutral” baby clothes selection?!?!) and it makes it hard to help children understand that things are just things; there are no “boy things” or “girl things”. It is everywhere but I’ve always encouraged my kids (both at home and work) to play with what interests them and make-believe whatever they want. It’s generally understood in the realm of early childhood that children learn by doing, pretending and creating their own understanding. All a boy pretending to be a “mommy” means is he is assimilating what he understands about mommies.
The controversial Goldieblox is a great example of this gender branding. I’ve watched the Goldieblox ads (on silent, of course, so as to not draw the unwanted attention of my own little goldies) and while I might have missed something without the dialogue/music/text, all I could wonder was: why can’t girls just play with legos? Why do they need their own set of GIRLIE blocks to encourage their inner-engineers? I mean, I can’t argue with books that talk about different kinds of people doing lots of different great things, but why pink and purple blocks? How are the pink and purple builders any different from all the pink toys the girls are getting rid of in the ad?
As a mommy of two little girls, I’m not worried about the stat that Goldieblox is based on: only 11% of engineers worldwide are female. Ok. Well, only 2% of early childhood teachers are men but I don’t see anyone inventing a “Bobby Babysitter” doll and accessories aimed at boys. I don’t think the problem of women are not becoming engineers is a matter of what they play with, In our culture I think it’s just a matter of women liking and wanting to be other things more (I realize worldwide, this may not be the case and women in other places may not have the opportunity to delve into this career path). I’m good at math and love building and designing things but I loved dance and education more so I chose to follow that path. It’s not that I don’t think I could have been a successful engineer; it’s that I didn’t want to.
I think we’ve just gotten too engrossed in the differences between boys and girls and the assumptions of what it means to be a boy or a girl and have forgotten that all children are just that: children. Doodle likes pink sparkly high heels as much as the girls (though he prefers to nibble on them whereas they like to stomp around in them).
Honeybun saw a commercial awhile ago and made the comment “EEW! Skylanders are for boys.” And I said “why? Girls can play with them too. If you wanted to play with Skylanders that would be fine. And if Doodle wants to play with Barbies, that’s fine too.” And not five minutes later I handed Doodle his favorite squeaky toy: a pink piggy. As he played with it I thought “should we bring that on our trip? Maybe not, it’s very girly” and then I stopped myself. Who the heck cares? I just told my five-year old that it doesn’t matter and here I am thinking it!
So, I’m clearly not above the cultural pull that plays such a part on gender roles in our country, but I’ve now seen that I need to try harder. And I am doing better. While out a few days ago, Sugarplum saw something that she thought was “only for boys.” So we had a long talk about how there is nothing that is just for boys and there is nothing that is just for girls. That anyone can play with anything they want. And together, we settled on the new family saying “Princesses are for people.” I’ve had to remind the girls of this phrase a few more times (once when Sugarplum proclaimed that we needed more boy toys for Doodle and again when Honeybun asked why her friend’s brother was coming to see Frozen with us too) and it’s something I intend to reinforce over and over again with my children.
I truly don’t care what my children are when they grow up, so long as they are happy!
As far as toys go, I love this graphic and will be basing all future toy purchases on this idea:
(I don’t want to steal someone else’s idea and am not sure who the original creator of this is, so here are a few different versions I found: The one I used is by Kristen Myers found on Huffington Post. She credits Cy and Eva with the original. Then there’s this one that credits different sources but I wasn’t able to actually track the original image down!)
