That's For Girls!

We got a toy catalog in the mail today, called “Back to Basics.” I happen to love this catalog, because it contains all the toys that I remember from my own childhood. Things like the “Sit n’ Spin” and “Lite Brite.” Remember those? Ah, the good old days.

So Noah saw the catalog and wanted to look through it and pick out all the things he wants to get for Hanukkah. (Note to self: we really need to start working on teaching him the real meaning of the holiday, and shift his focus off of the eight days of presents!) So he and I sat on the floor together, looking at all the pictures, while he oooohed and aaaaahed over pretty much every toy. We got to a spread that had two pages of kitchen sets, doll houses, even a mini washer and dryer toy. On every other page, he’d picked out at least 5 things he wanted, but when he saw this page, he said, “That’s for girls!” and turned the page.

I was more than a little surprised to hear him say this. He’s only three, and while I remember from graduate school that preschool children are often pretty absolute in their conceptions of gender while they are trying to figure things out, it still took me by surprise. I don’t think that my husband or I fill his head with limitations on what’s for girls and what’s for boys, and there’s not much about the way we live our lives that he would see traditional divisions of labor in our home.

But then I was thinking back on some of the things that have surprised me about having sons. When Noah was about one, he turned everything he touched, from the remote control to his little stuffed monkey to the phone, into a car – pushing it back and forth and going, “zoom, zoom.” This was before he could even talk. For his second birthday I bought him a doll (in a determined effort not to limit him to “traditional” boy’s toys!) and rather than cuddle or nurture her, as I'd seen my friends daughters do, he immediately grabbed his toy screwdriver, flipped her over, and started trying to unscrew the panel on her back that had her batteries! So I know that boys and girls can often have differences in their play, and differences in their learning styles, and all of that. It just makes me a little nervous that this young, he’s already aligning himself with outmoded stereotypes about girls and boys. What’s a mom to do?

Until next time,
Tia