To think that people who worry about gender stereotyping their kids are a bit OTT

[ilovemonsters]

I've Nc'd so if I get flamed/biscuits the shame won't stick

So I know this is a hot topic and I might get slandered here but I've seen a lot of posts in threads where parents are worrying about gender stereotyping their kids and I've just seen a post on a Facebook page saying "my daughter loves playing with a scratty old hand me down doll at my parents house, is it appropriate for me to buy her a nice new doll or am I gender stereotyping her?"

I really want to post and say "oh FFS your kid likes dolls let her play with a damn doll!! Not every frigging toy has to be rainbow coloured and gender neutral for goodness sake!!!"

Or am I horrendously out of date and crushing my daughters' souls by just letting them play with whatever they like playing with whether it's a doll, a ball or a tea set?!

But it IS a problem in real life. I know lots of families whose little girls are forced away from boyish activities towards ones considered girlie. I have seen these mothers take barbies off their boys and trucks off their little girls. Ears pierced at 2 months old, enormous bows on heads so that people know shes a girl (like they cant guess from her tutu baby grow and baby pink cameleon 3) and all this while the child is unable to even roll over.

"You don't want a pink teddy, darling. People will wonder about you!"

^How many times has my DS heard that. I just say wonder what? That he likes a COLOUR.

Similar experience to Madeup. Have certainly heard fathers tell their daughters that they must not play with cars and their sons that they must not play with dolls. The car play mat I once bought for a friend's daughter got a rather icy reception. Perhaps it is a different demographic from some MNers?

For full disclosure I'll add most people assume my DS2 is a girl as he has gorgeous long curly hair and is quite pretty.
If it's relevant to the situation I sometimes correct them, and they often get in quite a tizz that they got it 'wrong'. I really don't get why it matters so much.

For full disclosure I'll add most people assume my DS2 is a girl as he has gorgeous long curly hair and is quite pretty.
If it's relevant to the situation I sometimes correct them, and they often get in quite a tizz that they got it 'wrong'. I really don't get why it matters so much.

eggy There's not a problem at all with you buying pink instead of yellow at all, the problem comes when you go to buy clothes and the choice isn't there. Having to actively look for an alternative to the sea of pink/blue newborn clothes rather than having it just there.

I try to not stereotype my DC based on their sex, both having access to the same toys, my DS will gravitate towards toys with wheels, and DD prefers things with faces (including Thomas the Tank, which gets made to kiss a teddy, but then she's 18 months old). It's not about not letting my DD play with dolls, or enjoy princesses or whatever, it's about giving them the choice to do what they enjoy without feeling that they're doing something wrong - which society often does - see comments about boys playing with dolls, etc.

Sorry for my double posts! Dang wifi playing up.

DS2's favourite colour used to be pink ('abink' ) - that stopped within days of going to nursery.

It goes well beyond colours; the colour thing is just symptomatic about ingrain gender prejudices.

Girls are less encouraged to be active, are more reprimanded when they are noisy/assertive/physical; boys still are discourage from showing emotion/being quiet/liking to read/not liking, I dunno, football. It is ridiculous.

This week I've seen a boy (P1 in Scotland, so around 5) fall in the local park, bloodied knees, I'm sure it hurt even if it was not the worst injury in the world. Parent picks him up, gives a cuddle and appropriate sympathy, then says "Aw, stop crying, you are big brave boy, not a girl's blouse". Now, I am all for down-playing overemotional milking of parental attention (I too have a Drama Llama amongst my lot) and calling him a 'brave boy' did not stick in my craw, but the 'girl's blouse' did

DS2's favourite colour used to be pink ('abink' grin) - that stopped within days of going to nursery. Oh I know Pacific.

My DS has just started his last year of nursery before going into P1 and it's awful.
"My friends are boys. Not the girls."
"I like red. And the boys like blue. And orange. And green. Girls like pink and more pink."
Both things I've heard him say when he talks to himself while playing, since term started back a few weeks ago.

Yes of course to clarify I do think it's a problem that society expects women to be a certain way and men to be a certain way and there are often slurs against said person if they don't conform.

My point was that parents are now actually worrying about allowing their children to play with certain toys in case it seems "gender stereotypical".

I don't care if boys love dolls or girls like monster trucks. It's also fine if girls want to be princesses and boys want to smash things.

Allowing your kids to choose their own preferences is fantastic. I don't believe however that a girl who likes monster trucks has "male tendencies" or a boy who like dolls "identifies as female".

I think we should stop analysing everything our kids do and allow them o be kids with no strings attached or political agendas to flaunt around Facebook. It's really irritating I think.

My dc have a selection of toys and play with whatever they want to, so long as it's age appropriate. Same as I did. I do think there is strong gender stereotyping on advertising and in shops/packaging but actually dc seem to see through this once the toys are unwrapped an in the home.

And if someone says 'look my girl is playing with a boy's toy' then they are sort of perpetuating it, even if they are saying it with pride. But I don't think many people do say that...I've not heard it. Then again I've never heard anyone call themselves 'crunchy' either so have no idea what that is, but it sounds like pigeon holing and in life I tend to enjoy un-pigeon holing people. I think it goes to show that someone might have a set of beliefs and believe them to be under an umbrella but then realise that other people under that umbrella actually think in a slightly different way. Facebook seems to reveal that in a way life didn't before - we never got to hear the inner thoughts of people that much before.

Considering the state of things, if some parents advertise being against gender stereotyping, it can only be a good thing.
We can easily skip over those FB statuses.

Just as long as they don't prevent their children from playing with whatever they like, I don't care.

I feel, like you do, that the woman in your op, was being silly. Widening - not narrowing - kids choices is of course the important thing.

However, do I think we need to stop analyzing or challenging the messages or 'political agendas' our children are receiving? No, certainly not. We should analyze and challenge MORE.

My cousin is very much like this with her boys. Boys don't need toy kitchens as they don't need to cook apparently, they will never use that skill, it's for girls to look after their husbands. I said her DS's would starve if any of them grew up and took a husband who was never taught to cook either....

It's just as counterproductive as forcing the stereotypes IMO. I don't get the angst with baby clothes either, how many adults do you see wandering around in clothes of the opposite sex ?

All the time, although generally not so much with men, as it's generally seen as a bad thing for men to show inferior girl traits.

But I'm female. I usually wear jeans, boots, and a vest top. Once exclusively male clothing, when trousers on women was considered indecent. i dont dress in pink, or skirts/dresses, which is what I usually see little girls in.

Men do wear jewellery, earrings, scarves, have long hair etc increasingly now though. Im sure more would wear skirts and dresses (although see the scots, and indian/muslim traditional clothing) is a) they weren't scared of being ridiculed or b) get labelled as transgender.

I don't get stressed about it, we have 2 boys and a girl. Eldest DS used to love kicking about in a tutu and sparkly heels at nursery and they tried to make him stop. I told them to get a grip. DD is very very girly in the sense that she loves pink, unicorns, hair bows, princesses etc but also loves ninja turtles and helping her dad when he's tinkering with his project car (she has her own boiler suit, pink of course) and youngest DS is obsessed with Thomas the Tank and also the toy kitchen and cleaning trolley we have in the living room. It's when kids are forced to stop playing something they enjoy (whether it's to conform to stereotypes or to deliberately not conform) that I think there's a problem.

It sounds like a current trend to overthink the gender stereotyping.
I have b/g twins, they share all toys, they both play with trains, they both have a doll with a buggy. They both go to football classes and to dance classes. These to me are the important things.

However, when I buy sippy cups, sleeping bags etc, I often buy the same item, one pink one blue. And yes DD gets the pink one and DS the blue one. I don't do it because it HAS to be this way, I just find it cute. I fail to see how it will harm them.

And yes DD gets the pink one and DS the blue one.(...) I fail to see how it will harm them.

It doesn't, and it shouldn't, in principle. But, it easily could, if a boy starts thinking that he should be a girl if he likes pink (or other things that are traditionally associated with girls).
Or he's forced out of things he would like because otherwise people would think he was girly.
And vice versa for the girl.

However, when I buy sippy cups, sleeping bags etc, I often buy the same item, one pink one blue. And yes DD gets the pink one and DS the blue one. I don't do it because it HAS to be this way, I just find it cute. I fail to see how it will harm them.

because you are dividing the world into 'boy' / 'girl'. It starts with clothes and toys and ends up with the pay divide / unequal childcare / unequal housework / devaluing 'girly' activities / low take up of STEM subjects for girls and many more insidious inequalities from sterotyping.

I have both a son and a daughter, close in age, both toddlers. And I am trying to bring them up with a "toys are for everyone" approach.
We do the same with dressing up clothes. So what if my son wants to totter around in play heels, and a sparkly tutu?! There will come a time when society will tell him that it's not the done thing, but for now he's just a typical 2.5yr old, with a love of pretty things.

I have a boy and a girl and they have both loved pink and dollies and also cars/planes etc. I've never given it much thought. They are just awesome little people.

This thread made me think of this story
Parents told they were expecting a boy so fill nursery with 'boy' things such rugby club baby grow then she gave birth to a girl so they had to dash out to get 'pink jeggings' and a 'purple spotty dress'. Now I think the 'dashing out' might be a bit of journalistic imagination but the very fact that it makes the news that this poor couple accidentally brought their foetus the 'wrong' clothes shows just how ingrained the division is.

Living, you could give them a green and a yellow cup

It's not about what colour you give your twins, it's the insidious suggestion that there are 'boy' and 'girl' things. And because this is all around us, it gets to the point that blue = boy and pink = girl seems the natural choice. Ask yourself why you find those two colours 'cute'?
It's brain washing IMO (and I am not immune to it by any means).

Somebody in my nct group said to me "Well if he'd been a girl she'd never have worn pink" as if pink is the devils colour.

f1fan2015 really? My boys have blue/green cups and my girl has pink/purple cups. It's easier to keep track of, and they like those colours. It's not some kind of evil, subconscious gender stereotyping! Funnily enough given your username, DD wants to be an F1 driver when she's older and DS1 wants to be a stay at home dad and run the home. Not much stereotyping going on in our house despite the evils of colour coded cups 😂