As we were trying to decide what to get Grace for Christmas this year, I came across a number of articles about toys and gender, such as these:
I recalled reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter and wondered if we got her princess-themed toys if she would ever be able to excel in math or science.
We haven't pushed the princess thing, but we haven't gone out of our way to avoid it. Grace seems to have picked a lot of it up by osmosis. And she loves it - but it's not about specific characters or princes to her, it's about spinny dresses and fun fairytales.
Grace doesn't watch much regular television, and we never watch commercials (in fact, while watching a recording of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, she would get really annoyed if I didn't fast forward through the commercials fast enough and say "ammercials!") so she's not really aware of all the toys she could be coveting. However, we were running errands recently and she and Steve wandered the toy aisles while I did the shopping. When I bumped into them, she was seriously perusing the truck aisle. A while later, they came to find me and she was carrying a Snow White duplo set. She ran toward me full of excitement and asked "Mommy, can I ask Santa to bring me this?"
The next day we stopped by the neighbors to drop some things off and within two minutes of being in their apartment, both girls looked like this:
So, I don't know... do we fight it when it brings her such joy so that we can feel self-satisfied by giving her gender-neutral toys? Or, do we say, it's Christmas and this princess stuff delights her and find a balance? During the rest of our life, we spend a lot of time going to the science museum, hiking, visiting the library, playing outside, going to the playground, drawing and building train sets. After feeling really ambivalent, we got her some princessy stuff, and some other gifts that push other interests and skills. I finally realized that a few princess toys as part of a rich life full of a lot of influences won't ruin her future. That's giving all that pink and purple too much credit. It's far more about what we teach, model and expose her to. Right?! Please say I'm right.
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