Opinions on gender-neutral toys

[mumzylou]

Hi guys I would like everyones thoughts on gender-neutral toys concerning development of skills, is it more beneficial for a child to play with toys designed for their specific gender?

Thank you.
Louise

DC1 is 18 months and can't talk yet. I base what we get for him on what he likes to do (spin stuff and wheely things) and what toys he picks to play with at nursery or baby groups. I don't hand him toys, I put him down and see what he goes off to play with.

He has a kitchen and vacuum, also has a garage and construction stuff. I haven't based any of it on gender but will base colour choices on whatever is the most neutral to avoid steering him in one particular direction. He particularly enjoys his shopping basket at the moment for carrying snacks around in.

I don't really care what he plays with as long as he's happy and it's not those bloody TY toys that he shouts and reaches for in shops and then ignores once bought.

Can you tell us why you are asking?

Mine just wants more (to add to the already ridiculous collection) Playmobil. Think as toys go that's fairly good in terms of gender neutrality - apart from their fairies and princesses range - neither of which my kids particularly like (the wings fall off the bloody fairies constantly).

Most of our stuff isn't very strictly gendered - we've a train track upstairs which doesn't seem to get used much (might see if school can use it) these days, Lego in its "bucket of bricks" incarnation (as opposed to "specific brick number 3242354 which is used to form the left rear indicator on model 232523523" stuff), marble run and things like Buckaroo and Pop up Pirate and the like which tend to be the bulk of the stuff they play with. We've got a play kitchen but it's not one of the very very pink girl-oriented one (it's the good-old Ikea indestructible wooden one).

Even my eldest who loves pink sparkly unicorn shite goes for the less strongly-gendered toys.

Is this some kind of marketing survey or research for an article?

Toys are toys. What the hell js wrong with people.

@Chinesecrested I really, really hope your post is a joke.

@incarnations I love that

I agree that all toys are gender neutral. That’s not to say I don’t know a lot of people who won’t buy a doll & pram or anything for their son, but I really don’t ageee with that at all. My dn wished for doc mcstuffin toys for his birthday but his parents wouldn’t let me buy him them because ‘theyre for girls’ - I really can’t underatand their thought process at all.

My dd3 likes superheroes and cars and we have been asked lots of times when in a shop if she’s buuing for a brother, or friend. It’s really sad that some think this way.

*anytihing pink that should say

@systemlakeland The abstract says that the older the children get, the more they all prefer 'boy' toys.

@jammiebammie That reminded me of when I went to buy a game for my console. I went to purchase it and the man behind the till went "You know this is an 18 and it isn't appropriate for a child's present don't you?" It was for me! Really annoyed me as he then went on to explain the reasons why it was an a18 after I said it was for me.

@gummy I actually find that too in our local game store - as in us mums can’t be gamers too and must be buying for our children

@Incarnationsofunderstanding sums it up perfectly!

I am less likely to buy a “girl’s” toy for any child of either sex as they tend to be - imo and in general - much less fun. Hence DD’s large collection of building blocks and jungle animals.

okay i think I'm coming across too journalistic here and i don't want to give the wrong impression, I'm a student studying design, i chose to do my end of year project about children toys and this forum is a great way for me to gather valuable, first hand information from real people. You have all been really helpful.. disclaimer: i am not making any money from this, its all educational :)

So why not explain that at the beginning then OP? This forum is about mutual support, not helping people do their homework.

@JessieMcJessie i posted a few weeks back explaining that i was a student wanting feedback about the subject and nobody was interested so i decided to go undercover

@Incarnationsofunderstanding

It's interesting because when I pick my 3 year old son up from nursery three little girls were all playing with baby dolls and the boys were either drawing or playing with cars. The nursery lets them pick what they want to play with. Just an observation.

Not sure you managed to go deep enough undercover OP! You should have posed as a Gran with a DIL who insisted on gender neutral toys or something.

OP you should be warned that whilst I personally agree wholeheartedly with the MN “Let toys be toys” ethos, it is not necessarily representative of the UK public in general. MN has an unusually feminist and gender-sceptical slant, so if you are trying to get a sample of parental opinions in general you might want to gather alternative wrong opinions from other lesser parenting fora.

My 20 month old son’s favourite toy is his pink teapot. I suppose it might be aimed at girls as it’s pink but boys do make tea in the real world so I wouldn’t consider it gender-specific. His Granny bought it for him, that’s interesting as she is in her 70s so you might expect her to be more “traditional”. I admit I probably would not have chosen a pink o e given the choice.

NB I am a girl and I absolutely as a child wanted a scaelextric more than anything else in the world. I also loved my Sindy house mind.

On the subject of toys though, my main criterion these days is toys without safari or zoo or farm animals on them-our house is overflowing with zebras and lions and sheep and books about animals and I am fed up with them!

To be the person who made the comment about skills relating to future profession; when discussing toys for small children, the development of skills would mean things like fine motor skills, language, literacy, you know, all the stuff covered in EYFS.

OP, it might be interesting for you to ask on gransnet as to what toys they had as children and were encouraged to play with. I would say this dreadful pink/blue divide has proliferated since the 1990s and its basically a marketing ploy to manipulate parents into buying toys twice. Go back to adverts in the 70s and you will see a plethora of colours in toys. I have no idea about gender divide though.
The whole limitations of pink and blue really annoys me. There's a load of other colours out there but it seems the only way to access clothes or toys that aren't subject to this is to spend lots.

I have 2 girls. I tried really hard to avoid pink first time around as I wanted to be more gender neutral. (I know pink doesn’t have to be for girls too, I also really don’t like pink and I don’t really like blue either). I managed it til she was about 18 months. ELC did lots of things in a green colour or we would get wooden things too. I loved the happy land sets as we had lots of general sets such as families and animals, school, shops etc. Other people did buy her things like a princess set but they weren’t overly gender suggestive. When we went to toddler groups I’d set her off to play and she would make her choices. She was obsessed with babies and often went for those, or dressing up. It was the same with clothes. I allowed her to wear pink if people bought it but I avoided pink. Her favourite colour is yellow and she’s now 9 and has had this preference since around 2. Many things we buy in yelllow come from the ‘boys section’ on shops. Minion themed toys have been good but the girls clothes have had the pink and the little girl character. She’s also liked pokemon due to the yellow one so has ‘boys’ onesies, tshirts etc as they are yellow. Her bike and scooter are from the ‘boys’ collections as they’ve been minion ones and other people have commented we have bought ‘boys toys’ but I’ve told her to ignore them. She does have a preference to dolls, crafting, jewellery making, etc and has been in a shop and refused toys as they are ‘for boys’ in her words which haven’t come from us. So we’ve never had dinasours and construction/cars/diggers etc as she jist isn’t interrsted. We had a wooden train set from ikea that was ignored. We also had a pink garage with cars as a toddler (present from family) and she wasn’t really interested.

So my thoughts are that you can be as gender neutral as you like but girls still mostly end up going down the dolls etc route while the boys opt for the cars. I’d never stop my daughters from obeying or playing with cars, trains etc but they’ve never shown an interest. By the time I had dd2 (now 5) I chilled out on avoiding pink and girly things. She’s had a similar upbringing with exposure to the same mix of toys but has pink as a favourite colour by choice. She was even bought things like rocket ships and pirate ships for Xmas so as not to duplicate toys which we’d kept first time around but they were ignored in favour of dolls.
The male and female brains differ in a lot of respects and the types of toys children opt for are linked to this. It’s the same with occupations. No one says men can’t be teachers or nurses but we get a lot less of them than females. Same with occupations such as construction workers and drivers etc. Some jobs require a strength women jist don’t have, or require the type of problem solving brain a male tends to have.
I’m glad my children are older now and the can make their own choices around toys and clothes.

The male and female brains differ in a lot of respects and the types of toys children opt for are linked to this. It’s the same with occupations. No one says men can’t be teachers or nurses but we get a lot less of them than females. Same with occupations such as construction workers and drivers etc. Some jobs require a strength women jist don’t have, or require the type of problem solving brain a male tends to have.

@celticprincess no they really don't.

require the type of problem solving brain a male tends to have.

That really is outdated stereotypical bollocks, you know. I have a very problem-solving type of job. I don't have a 'male brain', I have my 100% female brain thank you very much.
Physical strength- well, yes, there are still some manual jobs which might need more strength than most (though not all) women possess. But probably not too relevant in childhood (girls and boys are equally strong before puberty). A toy spade is more likely to foster an interest in horticulture than a desire to be a ditch digger.

Currently doing a masters in psychology. A lot of research shows that male and female brains differ in many areas and also how different hormones can impact too.