Gender oriented play

[Bumperlicious]

Ok, so despite having several qualifications in psychology I never bothered to listen in Child Psych as I found it soooo boring (at the time!)

Anyway, my point it I should know the answer to this question, but I am just wondering about gender oriented play. At 14mo DD has latched on to a baby doll and carries it around, patting it on the back going "Ahhhh" and feeding it from her bottle or cup. It seems rather early for this sort of behaviour and I guess even if we consciously can't remember, we probably taught her to do these things. I'm just wondering if this is an innate thing in girls or whether given the same opportunity whether boys demonstrate the same nurturing behaviours towards dolls, especially at such a young age?

I thought it was really funny, too, and also very sweet. It was his most precious possession.

My borther (many moons ago) used to walk around in a pink negligee, high heels, and a lovely gucci knockoff bag full of trucks and guns......go figure.
Now trying to think back to uni also, I can't remember a great deal about child psych but in regards to gender specific play it was very much a social issue (as in gender being a social and cultural label as to the label of sex which is biological. Piaget was very much the pioneer in regards to play theories but really he looked at the hows and whys not the whats. My theory is let the kids play with what they want. I loved my lego and my Mr T and Incredible Hulk dolls and im fairly normal