My boys and their (de)gendered toys
In the past few days, two recent conversations have gotten my mind venturing beyond Christmas and house-guests and struggling to get two overtired and overexcited children to bed when all they really, really want to do is take one more hit of the Christmas Spirit and ride out the high until way-past-bedtime o’clock.
One was a real-life discussion with a real-life friend, and the other was an online discussion over at The Feminist Breeder’s blog. And both discussions (like many great ones elsewhere) revolved at least in part around kids, toys, gender, and feminism.
I’ve probably mentioned a couple (hundred) times that I have two kids–M (4) and A (19 months). They are biologically male, or, as I like to abbreviate, boys. (They also have full names, but I’m sort of protective of their identities because when you write about riding crops, vaginal birth, inverted nipples, and funny stories involving hernias, you get some REALLY WEIRD PEOPLE searching for REALLY WEIRD THINGS to get to your blog.)
In any case, for the most part I’ve tried not to assume much of anything about my kids based on the simple fact that they arrived on the planet with male sex parts.
I’ve tried not to assume that they are inherently “more aggressive” than their female playmates.
I’ve tried not to assume that they are hard-wired to like playing with dump trucks and cars and to dislike playing with dolls and toy kitchens.
And I’ve tried not to assume that their particular ways of playing are specifically boy ways of playing.
These efforts aren’t simply a matter of trying to practice feminist parenting. For in addition to wanting my parenting to be informed by my feminist values, I also want the decisions I make as my kids’ mother to be informed by my very real respect for my children.
For just as I “listened” to my children’s needs when they were infants–when they needed to nurse, when they needed to cuddle, when they needed to sleep, etc.–I’m trying to listen to their interests and unique personalities as they grow older. And part of that effort involves making a conscious effort to “de-gender” their interests and ways of playing.
My four-year-old son, for instance, has an enormous verbal strength and loves to arrange and organize and “make up movies and plays” with his toys. Sometimes he’s setting up an array of pirates in his pirate ship, other times he’s talking about his love of ocean animals, and still other times he’s “making up movies” about fairies and unicorns.
My 19-month-old son, on the other hand, tends to favor more physical play that involves building and constructing and using tools. Sometimes he’s playing with the plastic hammer and drill at the kids’ workbench, other times he’s pretending to use a vacuum cleaner or a broom, and still other times he’s playing with my make-up brushes.
As I see it, M and A’s general interests and ways of playing seem devoid of any gender-stereotypical significance. Sure, the objects they play with are often associated with “girls’ toys” or “boys’ toys.” The objects represent socially constructed gender roles and they illuminate the various socially constructed gender cues that send little boys (and their parents) down the TRUCKS AND WAR GAMES aisle and little girls (and their parents) down the VOMIT-OF-PINK-PRINCESSES-AND-PONIES aisle at the toy store.
But as I see with my own kids, a boy who loves arranging and organizing can do so with pirates and fairies, and a boy who loves playing with tools can do so with a toy hammer and with his mom’s make-up brushes.
My own boys have ways of playing that they like and prefer, and I try to give them the space and freedom to explore these ways of playing with lots of different objects, whether or not they are traditionally associated with “boys’ toys”
And allowing them to be themselves in this way is one of the best things I can do to respect who they are and what they like.
