I’m bringing up a boy. It’s new to me (more or less) and he’s different. I have no idea if he is a typical boy, or atypical or where he fits in in the grand scheme of play. I’ve only watched girls closely before and my experience of boys (many of whom I know pretty well) was to shudder slightly at all the hurtling around and wrestling that went on. Or x-boxing; I could cope with that. I’ve watched four girls though, all feeding off each others habits as they grew up side by side. They had all the toys, in all the combinations – when you have 4 children there are a LOT of birthdays and Christmases.
They had cookers and castles and picnics and trains and cars and dolls and ogres and princesses and pirates and books and Lego and Playmobil and bikes and prams and anything you can think of that wasn’t mentioned in that list of traditional toys. We own a toy shop. That’s what happens.
Fran dressed up as princesses, in pink, loving Dora, determined to be Wendy, always playing Mummy. Maddy was always Peter Pan, loved Lego, wore blue, played with the boys, seemingly determined to counterpoint Fran’s utter ‘girly-ness’ with blue. She was grudgingly sucked into The Princess and the Pauper and flirted with the blue dress rather delightedly for a while. But she is the one who accompanies Daddy to car races, likes to find out how things work. Amelie and Josie did not fulfill such poll opposite stereotypes, for whatever reason. I use the word with intention – Fran and Maddy, despite a free mix of toys, options to play equally (and given their home ed world it was a more than averagely gender equal environment) and parents who offered up ballet and rugby perfectly cheerfully, simply fell down on two sides of an age old divide. They outgrew it by and large and don’t appear to be anything like so different now, but it was clearly there when they were children.
To be clear, I have singing, dancing, gymnastic, taekwondo-ing, rugby playing girls who almost entirely dress in trousers. From his first 2 years, Bene seems to have leanings towards dance, gym, singing and ball throwing, with some added kicking and hitting thrown in (no inclination to skirts so far but given he never sees anyone in one, probably not surprising). I’m calling that upbringing, a range of activities offered up on an equal basis and taken up as per inclination of self, not gender role playing.
I hate gender specific toys and resources – I’ve written about it before and I stand by it. I may sell toys but I despise ‘pink for a girl’ – my son uses the pink pushchair we happened to have in the house for his doll and my girls have had non gendered dressing up as often as Disney dresses. I’ve never uttered “that’s a boy toy” or “that’s a girl toy”. I wouldn’t. It doesn’t interest me. At every trade fair I go to, I talk long and hard about suppliers steering away from PINK. I believe in PinkStinks.
BUT.
They play differently. MY CHILDREN play differently. The girls DID have variations in play; some have been more maternal, some less imaginative, some more boisterous, some with leanings towards traditional perceptions of gender specific play. But within a range, their play was broadly similar – like it or not, if I look back I know our trains tended to play in train families, the Lego tends to make homes and families, the dolls are parented and sent to schools, the oven is well used to play cooking games (though god knows they never see me cook!) Little toy cars were mummy and daddy car and sticks still become Swallows and Amazons camp fires, tents and flags. All that said, Katniss and the Amazons are firm favourites as role models for games, as are Annabeth and Zoe Nightshade.
And Bene is different. He crashes cars. He makes the longest train possible and then drives it off the stairs so it crashes to the bottom. He throws EVERYTHING. He kicks EVERYTHING. He is obsessed with pirates and has 15-20 words for vehicles. He’s insanely good at jigsaws with an uncanny knack for spacial perception that far outstrips anything I’ve seen in any other toddler, never mind my girls. But without any apparent schooling, in a house where most of the toys are his sisters’ toys and in a house filled with films his sisters picked out and filled, on a 5/2 ratio with women, he slides outside the tolerance of difference his sisters range across. Sticks are for hitting things with and in the basket full of plastic castle figures, only the knight, the ogre and the dragon are interesting. I didn’t teach him that. There are relatively few outside influences to do so; he doesn’t watch much TV and nursery is set up to allow neutral play.
If I post a picture like this, captioned “
It’s not a political statement as such, it’s just an observation.
My 3 1/2 yr old has a 6 1/2 yr old sister & DD has never shown an interest in dollies & pushchairs (even though my mum insisted on buying her them, over my dead body)! I too hate gender specific toys & most of DD’s toys have been Happyland toys from the ELC, Space Rocket, magnetic cars, train set, which is great as it is gender neutral & DS plays with them too. They have never really shown much interest in any of the toys they have been bought, stuff does get played with and one of my little boys favourite toys is his sister’s Happyland fairies. “Where’s my fairies, where’s my fairies” is most often heard from him. When asked which sticker he wanted after having his pre-school injections, he chose (and I could have put money on this), was the pink fairy princess sticker. DD is not a girly girl at all & I hardly buy any toys for ds as I did for his sister, mainly because they just never get played with. I don’t think either of them plays more like a girl or a boy, although they do like to wrestle each other & chase each other around!
It’s funny watching boys and girls grow up. There are definitely some things which seem very gendered (e.g. my boys fascination with tractors/diggers etc, and daughter’s predeliction for pink stuff) but other things are not at all, e.g. the older two dress up in all sorts of things, (Buzz lightyear, firefighter, witch, lion). DS1 once came into town with me wearing a purple and green witches dress. He asked an elderly chap if he liked his outfit – the chap obligingly said yes, it was very nice!
DS2 is now one, and really likes playing with balls. Not long after he learned to stand I saw him using his foot to move a ball – not just kick it. It will be interesting to see how he develops! I have already decided that I wont mind being a professional footballer’s mum, if I have to.
On spatial awareness – DS1 is hopeless at jigsaws; DD is much better than her brother. But, they both like lego, although I DETEST all that pink/purple friends lego nonsense DD has (but on the plus side it is easy to sort it out among all the star wars lego bits)
Two of my favorite stories:
First, when my brother and his wife were expecting their second son, my mother said that my older nephew (14 months when the baby was born) really should have a doll. My brother said, “No way! My son does not play with dolls!” However, when the second baby was born, my mother bought a doll (the cheapest she could find, in case my brother really wouldn’t let him have it…) for my older nephew anyway. This 14-month-old boy who had been raised to be very stereotypically BOY immediately held the doll carefully against his shoulder, patted it gently, and said, “Me daddy.” My brother melted and relented. Dolls are not “girl things”!!
The second story is about my own son, 21 months younger than my oldest daughter. I’d fought hard against the stereotyping, the only two toys I’d bought her in her entire first year being a car and a ball. (Those are actually close to the only toys I’ve ever bought ANY of my children, in 17 years…) But when my son was 10 months old, he grabbed a doll and pushed it along the floor and said, “vroom, vroom.” (In his defense, he did breastfeed his own dolls for quite a long time, always conscientiously giving them both sides, as he had always preferred himself. He was eight when he ceremoniously presented his favorite doll to a younger sister and charged her to take good care of it, and he’s now 15 and just a week or so ago I heard him telling off one of his sisters for playing too roughly with that same doll, reminding them that this had originally been HIS baby.)
No change in toys but definitely a gender thing. Boys are so much harder.
2 girls mostly pink, houses, families etc 1 boy and everything is a weapon or violence and high competition. Thankfully has stopped breaking furniture.
This made me chuckle. I only have a boy to go on, but in our NCT group there are 5 boys and 2 girls. We’ve commented that ever since they were about 18 months you could see a marked difference in their play, their concentration levels, everything. It’s so interesting. I love trains and cars, but monkey is just as happy having a teddy bears picnic as long as it’s on a building site!!
I’ve raised 5 boys (two big and three small) and 3 girls in-between (as you know). I have never bought ‘specific’ toys according to gender, but I have allowed a freedom of choice.
The boys have definitely had access to ‘girl’ toys and vice versa. E.g.When eldest son was a toddler I bought him a buggy and a baby (when I was expecting number 2) because the buggy was his favourite toy at toddler group! I did buy blue though I must confess ~ it was less icky than the pink and there wasn’t another choice! The girls have had access to all the ‘boy’ stuff and more, and the littlest boys have at their fingertips a plethora of gender neutral and more gender ‘aimed’ toys. They play with it all, but they do play with it differently.
By and large I would echo your observations Merry. My girls make families and try to keep everyone happy (although DD #3 does like to make the parents die a bit too often for my liking, but I think (hope) that’s more to do with wishful thinking regarding independence than anything else!), whereas when the boys do play ‘family’ games (when they join in with them anyway) they most often divert it into a shooting and maiming game before very long!
With the boys, as a general rule, cars are lined and crashed, Castles are smashed to smithereens ~ everyone dies & indoor games are rough and loud too!
I haven’t ever interfered in any of the children’s play (or their spats) ~ it’s just the way they are. I guess they influence each other too, but I can’t help that. Certainly my eldest had few influences other than us and playgroup, and be as he is a fairly ‘gentle’ young man (as is his Dad a gentle man), he is still very much a ‘lad’!
I remember a time when DD #1 decided that pink was just simply horrid (she was about 6) and would have nothing pink at all. I think she was fed up with all the options for ‘girl’ toys being pink. Then one day (aged about 11) she decided it wasn’t so bad after-all and now hot-pink is her favourite colour. She still not so keen on pale pink though ~ better be striking, than sickly!
DD#2 would opt for red every time and is probably my most gender-neutral child ~ loving everything from Barbies to Rough & Tumble, she’ll muck in with any of the boy’s or girl’s games quite happily :). DD#3 – my most girly-girl (albeit a slightly vindictive one!) would most often choose pink and is my most ‘sassy’ of them all, but even she doesn’t wear much pink these days 🙂
Me ~ I loathed pink most of my life, until I had a little baby girl and then something in me flipped and I loved it for a while. The novelty has pretty much worn off now though 😉