Boy Toys
We've been shopping a lot recently. It feels like Christmas all over again!
April is one of our busier months for birthdays. I always thought July was a busy month, and it still is, but I think April has now easily surpassed July. In April we have 4 adult birthdays and 4 kid birthdays, plus many others that we hold in our hearts and minds. The highest concentration of birthdays falls within the last two weeks of the month. The girls have been extremely interested in assisting with the entire process.
This week we set out on a shopping trip for three specific birthday friends, two boys and one girl. As we discuss who we are shopping for and what we might look for, Ellie adamantly tells me that we need to look for "boy toys". She further explains that there is a whole section of boy toys, and that is where we must go.
Now... in our house I think we've done a decent job of not stereotyping. I fully realize that we have a lot of "girl" toys, but I think we have a fair amount of "boy" toys. Mostly I think we have a lot of gender neutral toys. For us, we see that boys and girls get a lot of fun play out of all the toys, regardless of their gender stereotypes. Spencer, for instance, is having great fun with the dollhouse that was added to our toy collection at Christmas time. Ellie is a huge Cars fan and has collected quite a loot of Cars memorabilia. Abby always stumps me. She has varied interests and does a lot of pretend play with whatever she has access to.
Needless to say, it was quite shocking to hear Ellie talk about "boy toys". That evening over dinner they also initiated discussions about Star Wars and guns. They really know nothing about Star Wars so we talked about a few characters. Abby's summation was that it was an "adult show". They both know that guns are dangerous, we don't point guns at people, we don't play with guns, and we don't allow guns in our house.
On to shopping... Sure enough, we hit the boy section of the toy department. We ended up with one distinct "boy" item that went along with a few other "neutral" items for one friend. I personally was looking for a "girl" item for that friend, but their selection of princess stuff was disappointing. We ended up choosing other gender neutral items for our other friends, though we chose a boy version and a girl version of that item. In that situation, the girl would not have been pleased to receive the boy version and vice versa. In our home, I know Ellie would have chosen pink but I could see Abby going either way.
We finally select our items and leave the store with our loot. Sure enough, all three kids thought the "boy toy" was the deal. To make it fit in the box we were using, we had to open the toy to wrap it, which led to kid testing of said toy. They all clearly gave it thumbs up. I was beginning to wonder if it was actually going to make it in the box!
The girls were eager to participate in the wrapping of all the gifts. We totally blew bedtime in favor of their participation. We got one package all put together, taped up, and labeled for the post office. They helped with all phases of that project, including a short break so they could make their friend a card.
Then they wanted to wrap up their other friends packages as well. For those we had picked up a couple of gift bags. The gift bags were identical in design, but one was pink and one was blue. Ellie, in her tired state, really objected to us using the pink bag. Thankfully we quickly realized that she wanted us to save that bag to use for her gifts! We assured her that we would get more bags and we'd get a pink one for her. So we asked Abby what color she would like, from the available options, and she chose green. After that was all settled we got on with our wrapping. The girls put the items in the gift bags, they opened up the packages of brightly colored tissue paper, and then we had tissue paper everywhere. They were stuffing the packages full of tissue paper. It was so hilarious that both Carie and I ended up laughing so hard we were holding our stomachs. The project was finally complete, or complete enough that we could move onto bedtime.
Not to miss a step in the whole process, the girls requested to help take the package to the post office. They, together, carried the package into the building and helped send it on its way. We then continued our conversations about how mail and packages are delivered from place to place. They've been extremely interested in the details of how it all works.
April is one of our busier months for birthdays. I always thought July was a busy month, and it still is, but I think April has now easily surpassed July. In April we have 4 adult birthdays and 4 kid birthdays, plus many others that we hold in our hearts and minds. The highest concentration of birthdays falls within the last two weeks of the month. The girls have been extremely interested in assisting with the entire process.
This week we set out on a shopping trip for three specific birthday friends, two boys and one girl. As we discuss who we are shopping for and what we might look for, Ellie adamantly tells me that we need to look for "boy toys". She further explains that there is a whole section of boy toys, and that is where we must go.
Now... in our house I think we've done a decent job of not stereotyping. I fully realize that we have a lot of "girl" toys, but I think we have a fair amount of "boy" toys. Mostly I think we have a lot of gender neutral toys. For us, we see that boys and girls get a lot of fun play out of all the toys, regardless of their gender stereotypes. Spencer, for instance, is having great fun with the dollhouse that was added to our toy collection at Christmas time. Ellie is a huge Cars fan and has collected quite a loot of Cars memorabilia. Abby always stumps me. She has varied interests and does a lot of pretend play with whatever she has access to.
Needless to say, it was quite shocking to hear Ellie talk about "boy toys". That evening over dinner they also initiated discussions about Star Wars and guns. They really know nothing about Star Wars so we talked about a few characters. Abby's summation was that it was an "adult show". They both know that guns are dangerous, we don't point guns at people, we don't play with guns, and we don't allow guns in our house.
On to shopping... Sure enough, we hit the boy section of the toy department. We ended up with one distinct "boy" item that went along with a few other "neutral" items for one friend. I personally was looking for a "girl" item for that friend, but their selection of princess stuff was disappointing. We ended up choosing other gender neutral items for our other friends, though we chose a boy version and a girl version of that item. In that situation, the girl would not have been pleased to receive the boy version and vice versa. In our home, I know Ellie would have chosen pink but I could see Abby going either way.
We finally select our items and leave the store with our loot. Sure enough, all three kids thought the "boy toy" was the deal. To make it fit in the box we were using, we had to open the toy to wrap it, which led to kid testing of said toy. They all clearly gave it thumbs up. I was beginning to wonder if it was actually going to make it in the box!
The girls were eager to participate in the wrapping of all the gifts. We totally blew bedtime in favor of their participation. We got one package all put together, taped up, and labeled for the post office. They helped with all phases of that project, including a short break so they could make their friend a card.
Then they wanted to wrap up their other friends packages as well. For those we had picked up a couple of gift bags. The gift bags were identical in design, but one was pink and one was blue. Ellie, in her tired state, really objected to us using the pink bag. Thankfully we quickly realized that she wanted us to save that bag to use for her gifts! We assured her that we would get more bags and we'd get a pink one for her. So we asked Abby what color she would like, from the available options, and she chose green. After that was all settled we got on with our wrapping. The girls put the items in the gift bags, they opened up the packages of brightly colored tissue paper, and then we had tissue paper everywhere. They were stuffing the packages full of tissue paper. It was so hilarious that both Carie and I ended up laughing so hard we were holding our stomachs. The project was finally complete, or complete enough that we could move onto bedtime.
Not to miss a step in the whole process, the girls requested to help take the package to the post office. They, together, carried the package into the building and helped send it on its way. We then continued our conversations about how mail and packages are delivered from place to place. They've been extremely interested in the details of how it all works.
posted by Sonya at 10:13 PM
1 Comments:
It's amazing how, no matter what you do to avoid teaching them roles and stereotyping, the world will do it for you anyway! lol
I know that will drive me nuts too, so I'm trying to accept that kids pick up things, and I can do what I can to balance that perspective.
Sounds like it was fun!
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