I bought a doll for a boy

[sashh]

So a new relative arrived a few months ago and I got to meet him a few weeks ago.

Like many others I had taken a present but the parents didn't have time to open them on the day. I'd bought a rag doll that I thought looked a bit like his dad.

A few days later, via facebook, I received a 20 second clip of new relative and his dad playing with the doll and both giggling.

I also received a really nice thank you message.

I just wanted to share because I have seen so many messages where dad's don't want their sons playing with 'girl's' toys.

My son loves his baby, it's one of his favourite toys! I've had mixed reactions, my brother told me I was giving him girls toys, my friend said I was just trying to be cool forcing gender neutral toys on him 🤷‍♀️ can't win! He just likes dolls!!

Good for you sugarbum and for your lovely DS

Your post has actually made me tear up a little bit. How sad that in 2019 a child feels embarrassed about the toys he loves

@BernardBlacksWineIcelolly thank you.

And yes it makes me tear up too, because he is a lovely child and his friends (mostly girls as his 3 best friends are girls) are also super sweet kids and I honestly don't think they would care one jot , but he is very aware that its not 'something boys do' and I would never force him to do something that embarrasses him.

Go on then pinkyyy

What is this culture that is so oppressive boys must not play with dollies

My DS has a doll and he loves him. (Sometimes ) I never considered it was a novelty to get a boy a doll.

sorry, essay to follow

@Pinkyyy states I believe girls' toys to be dolls, prams, play kitchens, princesses and so on. If I tried to give my boy a girls toy he would tell me it was for girls.

This is because you have raised him to think that way. You haven't allowed him to play with the full spectrum of toys available to children.
I'm not saying that given the choice, he would have picked dolls to play with. He possibly would still have migrated to, oh I don't know, trucks? footballs? swords? All great toys to build a childs imagination too. He might have picked up a doll to play with though, if he didn't know that his parents would shut that idea right down.

I refuse to enter into all this gender neutral rubbish. My boys are boys and my girls are girls. They will stay the same for their whole life. They won't suddenly wake up one day and be the opposite, gender neutral, genderless, or any of the other made up crap.

I don't think you completely understand sex and gender and the difference between them. I probably don't completely either to be fair. My life is pretty simple. I live with my husband and my boys. I have one transgender friend of twenty years who I have always considered a woman (which is a whole other hot debate on mn) and thats pretty much my only experience on the matter. What I do know is that her gender isn't 'made up crap'. How offensive.

However, my boys are boys. That is the sex that they are. They were both born male. My boys are like chalk and cheese.The youngest plays with both girls and boys, but his best friends are girls. He is full of confidence and loves life. The other is subdued, doesn't have many friends, and prefers his gaming to anything else. His choices are just as valid. I might also add that my eldest had a buggy when he was a toddler in which he proudly pushed a dolly around.

My youngest loves to play with dolls over any other toy. He also loves to play with lego. When he was little he loved to dress up. In all costumes. Animals, superheros, princesses, whatever. He likes car boot sales and trips to theme parks. My eldest would rather boil his head in oil than be dragged to a car boot sale.

Their gender is also male. Either may feel otherwise at some point. Or not. Maybe its already in their heads. Maybe it just doesn't concern them right now because we've never put such ridiculous ideas in either of their heads that there is something intrinsically 'wrong' with wanting to play with traditional 'girls' toys or wanting to dress up. Maybe they are a bit more secure in the knowledge that we will accept them as they are.

Maybe my youngest wants to be a fashion designer. Many men are of course extremely successful designers. How cruel to curb his ideas and imagination by not allowing to play with toys that allow him to express his ideas in this way.

What I'm saying I think, is that its about choice. We should be letting our children have the choice. My boys were raised the same way, in the same environment, but they are intrinsically different and we allow them to blossom in their own particular way. Their own ideas of how they should 'be' or 'act' of course aren't just shaped by us as parents but by the world around them, so all we can do is allow them the freedom to express themselves when they are young, support them, and hope for the best for them.

@sugarbum my children don't have a choice. Neither sex not gender are malleable, so they will remain as they are. I'm glad you're doing what you feel is right for your children, as am I.

Pinkyyy you are making children fit a definition rather than broadening the definition to fit the child. All of us who have boys that like dolls, according to your logic and narrow definition of what a boy is, do not really have boys. You know what happens to children who are forced to try and fit into narrow definitions like yours? They either do and they're happy or they don't. Those that don't are the ones who have to re-define themselves. Of all the parents with children in this thread, who are statistically more likely to "wake up" one day and thinking they are the opposite gender, or gender neutral or as you put it "other made up crap", I can hand on heart say it is much less likely to be the boys who are free to play with dolls.

Then I truly hope for all your sakes that all of your children are, and remain happy with the skins they are in.

Sugarbum your 9 year old and mine sound like they would be great friends he loves doing hair and dressing dolls. One of his favourite toys is a styling head. Incidentally he also plays football and is very much a “boyish” boy albeit in pink trainers because he liked them better than the blue ones. Pleasantly surprised he gets no negative comments for it.

Sugarbum - my 5 year old told me that when his friend came round, if he noticed the pink/purple/glitter/jewelled jewellery box, that I was to tell the friend that it was DS's sisters.

I have no girl children.

It is so sad when they start feeling they have to self-censor.

And who mentioned tea sets - I did get a bit of stick for buying that from a couple of people (just comments, nothing bad) but every toddler I've ever met adores making all the adults a pretend cup of tea, serving them and then pointedly standing in front of them, with a hard stare, until that adult pretends to take a sip and say 'mmm, lovely'

I reserve the right to judge cultures that bully children into small boxes of acceptable interests. I am not going to apologise for that.

@LooksBetterWithAFilter I shall never forget when his cousin gave him an Ariel styling head and he insisted on going to bed with it on his pillow. Not freaky AT ALL LOL.

also looksbetter and @butteryellow when DS2 broke his arm aged 4, he chose a pink cast (they had no rainbow casts) He was still young enough to not be aware of social stereotyping

When he broke his arm aged 7, he chose a blue cast. Not because he wanted a blue cast, but because he thought that kids at school would make fun of him if he chose pink. (not the kids in his own year, but the older kids at after school club) That made me very sad for him.

I never bought any "provocative" gifts for someone else's children.
For my own boys - they had Bratz dolls. DS2 was a massive Hello Kitty fan. I really gritted my teeth when McDonalds people would ask "do you you want a girls toy or a boys toy?" - CAN WE PLEASE HAVE THE CAT!!!

Loving all the boys with dolls, and styling heads, it really should not be controversial in any way in 2019.

We just had toys when the dc were little. They played with what they wanted, be it dressed up as batman whilst whilst wheeling the dolly around on the vacuum, my son.
Or
Dressed in a queen outfit with a gun holster on and carrying a bow and arrow, my daughter.

I didn't care one bit but older family members were concerned (I'm in my 50's). I refused to be of the same mindset as them.

Pinkyyy I know people from other cultures, my children are brown. The mindset is changing within that culture about traditional ideas of men and women. Ok it's happening slowly but it is happening.

Sex is not malleable. It is a biological truth.

Gender is socially constructed and the rules are set by people.

100 years ago pink was for boys and blue for girls.

Now it's the opposite.

Sewing was as much for men as it was for women; fishermen, sailors, clothes makers etc.

Gender stereotypes can be harmful. At its extreme end, young women are cutting off their breasts because they think they're Male because they like to do the things the gender stereotype for that sex, invented and perpetuated by people, create.

There are differences between the sexes, obviously, and this translates to different treatment where necessary and appropriate- maternity, gynaecology, Safe spaces for women due to male violence- but that's a sex based right.

A girl doesn't have a sex based right to have a pram any more or less than a boy does.

Ds had all my dolls and I bought him a buggy to push them round in. Dh raised his eyebrow for a nano second then got over himself

My DS has a doll. It’s been theorised that boys lag behind in language development because they play with toys that don’t speak, like cars and trains, rather than toys like dolls that they can talk to. His doll is quite a “boyish” one though, it’s a male rag doll with a beard!

DS got an all singing all dancing dolls house for his birthday because he asked for one.

He has a pram, dolls, kitchen etc.

He has the toys he is interested both ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ they’re just bloody toys. Who cares?!

I bought my eldest a dolly and pram for Christmas the year I’d had his baby brother, he was 2. He loved it. I also made him a sling out of an old scarf for him to carry around his baby. He was just mirroring the behaviour he’d seen his own parents doing nothing gendered in it at all. My dad did make some comment about it being a “girl’s” present though, which I ignored.

Ds has been really lucky tbh he’s had no stick about it and he’s very vocal about there being no such things as girls and boys toys. I did worry about the pink trainers but he said he didn’t care if anyone commented his favourite colour is pink and all the footballers wear pink boots.

We were at a school Fayre when he was still in preschool and there was nail painting. He was the first boy to get his done but ended up Roth a line of 12 year old boys behind him saying if he could do it then it must be ok for boys. Not because he was popular or anything it just took one even little boy to go first and others decided it was fine.

My boy had a doll which he used to push up the shops in his toy buggy. He often sat on the sofa with his t shirt pulled up, giving the doll 'mamma milk'. I loved the far away look in his eye he got while quietly sat there.

If you let kids be kids, they do things like that wether they're boys or girls.

Both my boys had a range of toys that would once have been considered 'girly'-
baby dolls (boy and girl), vacuum cleaners, kitchen sets, play food, tea sets etc as well as train sets etc. They are fully grown men, both blessed with empathy and compassion and both more than capable of doing their fair share of jobs around the house. One of them cares for his baby when his partner works and is a great daddy. Neither my family, not my husband's had a 'traditional ' view of toys for children. My dad and FIL both looked after their own DCs at a time when men often only saw their children at weekends and most never changed a nappy. My dad was the builder of many a cot / bed for my dolls and my ds's dolls.
I really don't understand why, in this day and age, there are still people, women especially, who don't want their sons to play with dolls etc.

I think a lot of males have issues with sons/grandsons playing with "girl toys" because if they continue to play with girls' toys past a certain age he may end up being seen as soft, girly and maybe gay by other children and picked on.

I'm male myself and love cars and did boxing as a sport etc but still have fun memories asking my mum for Polly pockets 25+ years ago which I loved.

I don't have a son but have a daughter and I dislike the idea of "girl toys" being little vacuums and mops as if it's practice for later in her life.

That’s a lovely thoughtful present OP that i’m sure will be played with a lot. The tea set is a very nice idea too.