Awful lot of boys "rescuing" girls going on

[RoxaneBergerac]

When I my little one started nursery I was surprised how prominent the theme of 'boys saving girls' seems to be. I certainly remember a lot of princes saving princesses type games when I was a little girl but I assumed it was now culturally dodo-dead. Not even Disney movies have that sort of plot anymore, right?

I'm not so PC that I'm against kids enjoying gender-stereotypical things. Even before nursery my son's interests were rather stereotypically boyish (dinosaurs, countries/geography, Sonic Hedgehog). I'm not even bothered in abstract by a boys playing at rescuing girls from bad guys but again the prominence to which it is enforced(?) by nursery and parents is a bit overwhelming and bizarre:

• Circle time games about the boys beating a 'monster' to save the girls.
• Preschool play where the boys are princes who save the girls as princesses from a witch etc.
• Even had a mum tell me that my son is a strong little prince who could save her daughter if she got kidnapped by a Disney villain (isn't that a rather grim scenario to imagine? Why would you?)

I recognize the fairytales and such are of course typical childhood fare but I thought at least this kind of thing would be balanced by girls getting to save boys etc in this day and age? Both the boys and girls seem to enjoy the "rescuing" but just seems in a word, anachronistic

Where on earth do you live? It isn’t like this at any of the nurseries or primary schools like this, and hasn’t been for at least 15 years since dd was a baby.

My point was that the other poster considered evidencing 'overreach', but I disagree as without evidence there's no oversight of any standards.

I was providing an answer of how they would evidence it, at an OFSTED inspection for example. Through the documentation they're required to do.

Ahh no I haven't. Mario is mentioned a lot generally so my son (8) was interested in playing, we just bought him the old Mario Galaxy games to have a go. (We haven't watched the film).

That Princess Peach is a bit wet.

In the game she is, agreed. She's properly competent and capable in the films though, my DD loves her. And I'm happy for her to want to be her given she's able to kick Bowsers butt thoroughly, by herself.

This might be just semantics about the difference between a
”requirement” and best practice that gets assessed against.

The actual requirement is phrased in much broader terms, as it should be. The nursery can then evidence how it meets it. That’s different from a requirement explicitly specifying acceptable mixes of roles and dominance and gender in play or stories.

The reason I think it would be overreach is twofold: I) an unworkable burden on staff to have to be micromanaged like this, II) overly politicised. There will be a reasonable measure of social agreement on high level principles, but much less on specific details. Thus the requirements should stay out of the specifics.

”Schools must promote an appreciation of fairness” vs “Schools must promote a socialist / hayekian / nietzschean conception of fairness”.

The requirements say things like provide: “equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported.”

You then provide evidence of that. But you should have a large measure of freedom in how you do that.

Nursery teachers as professionals with judgment, not production line workers with a script.

But dont most little girls want to wear a princess dress and most little boys want to dress as spiderman/Batman or whoever?
Some people are reading far too much into this. They are just small children doing what small children do. They grow up and learn for themselves what they are comfortable with. Grown adults should stop trying force gender neutrality or whatever the latest fad is, for making girls act like boys and vice versa.
Just leave them alone!!

I used to find boys often dressed up in princess type outfits, maybe attracted by the brighter colours although the dressing up clothes in my classroom tended to be more open ended than that. Nobody forced boys to wear dresses but sometimes girls might need extra help putting e.g. a train set together if they hadn't had the opportunity at home. It was about giving children the opportunity to do something they'd never tried before and not forcing them to play with something they didn't like.

I once had a Child Care student who did an Observation of boys playing in the Home Corner. They were playing at cooking, looking after baby dolls etc and she said they were playing at being Mums. I pointed out they were probably playing at being Dads which she hadn't considered.

As for story books, if a book depicts very traditional roles there can be discussion afterwards like 'what would you do if that happened?' Or 'that would your Mum do?'. The girls I taught certainly weren't passive little princesses.

Also, it wasn't the latest fad. I trained as a teacher in the early 80s and it wasn't a new idea then

Not most. Some. A large proportion maybe, but there's a lot of little girls out there who would rather be a superhero. And there are a lot of little boys out there who may well love a Princess dress but have always been told that they are "for girls".