Chicken bald back

[Couperwife]

we went to Argos to get some stuff for a fancy dress party

 

and the bit at the front where you collect your "treasures" was just life "wife school for children"

 

I know little people like to "play make believe" but we noticed:

 

remote control cars, helicopters, trucks for boys

 

for girls...?

an ironing board

a microwave

a cooker

a washing machine

a mixing bowl

a vacuum cleaner

 

talk about " plan for the future"

 

yes, I had similar sorts of things when I was little, but it just and amused us that it looked like "wife school"

 

cathy

x

[chick wiggle]

It is a nature V nurture thing isnt it. Having girls and a boy I really did try and treat them the same but always my girls wanted to play with typical girly things and my son wanted typical boy things. Theres some things you just cant fight! Although I am trying to fight it now I'VE grown up

[majorbloodnock]

Trouble is that the attitude is everywhere.

 

Shortly after my son was born, we had a phone call which I answered, which went as follows:

 

"Hello, is Mrs Bloodnock there?"

"No, I'm afraid she's unavailable at the moment. Can I help? I'm her husband"

"Oh. OK. Do you know when she'll be in again?"

"I'm afraid not at the moment; can I ask what this is regarding?"

"Oh. OK. I'm Mrs. So and So, and I'm the local NCT co-ordinator, and I was ringing to invite Mrs Bloodnock along to our next meeting now she's had a new baby."

"Ah, hello. Well, actually, we both had a new baby, but thank you for ringing. When is the next meeting?"

"Oh, don't worry; if you can get your wife to give me a call, I can give her all the details."

 

What's going on here? Is socialising with new parents a purely maternal affair? Surely this was just a one-off.

 

But no. As time went on, my wife and I saw it more and more. You don't get too many "Parent and child" groups; they all seem to be "Mothers and toddlers". When parents of nursery or school children organise get-togethers, it always seems to be the mothers who get the invitations, whilst on the few occasions when a bloke organises it, it seems to be a fathers-only affair.

 

In fact, the only significant change for the better that I've seen since becoming a parent is that more Gents' toilets are now equipped with baby-changing facilities. Stereotyping is still utterly pervasive.

 

Rant over.

[Space Chick]

No matter how hard my mother tried, she could not get me to play with dolls or "wife school" toys (Love the phrase Couperwife ), I always played with cars, trains, footballs etc.

 

She finally gave up when I was 3, she'd bought me a dolls house, which I refused to play with, although I did turn the box into a car

 

Thankfully when my sister came along she was prepared to play with dolls and kitchens and irons etc.

 

Fast forward 20/30 years , now I love cooking, and can clean (although prefer not too!), my sister can't even boil an egg and hasn't ironed since she left home at 18

 

Just goes to show that no matter what you play with when you are younger, doesn't mean you'll "play house" properly when you are grown up

[Cooks]

I too wasn't into dolls, apparently I preferred to play with my brothers action men... I even pulled the head off one of my dolls which worried my mum at the time

 

I work in a Nursery and have to say that the boys all play alongside the girls in all games, there really is no major divide in whats boys toys and girls and it really shouldn't be that way at all. We all play and enjoy ourselves, learning as we do so (notice I say WE there ) that's all that matters.

 

Thinking back I had a lovely football kit I used to wear all the time... not very girlie back then.

Edited November 14, 2009 by Guest

[Geoid]

When I was little, my mum bought be a doll and pushchair to play with (no stereotypes in my house ) and the first thing I did with it was, flip the pushchair over and oil the wheels.....

[Valkyrie]

I had lots of Matchbox cars and tons of Lego. Lots of teddies. Dolls tended to get their clothes taken off and were mostly left nude (I still have 2 originals still undressed upstairs) and one is tatooed with a ball pen. My pram was turned into a stagecoach and gave the teddies rides up and down the road (I was the horse). I was always climbing trees, falling over, falling off the bike etc.

I did love my dolls house though. It was a replica of my nan's bungalow and my dad made it for me. I probably did more redecorating in it than play with the families. Ooh and I mustn't forget my Airfix football teams and The High Chaparal(sp?) cowboys and my Battle of Waterloo Farmhouse. And the Britains Meadow Farm and all the garden bits and trees and animals. Ooooh. Memory lane.

 

OH's cousin wanted her son to have a mixture of toys, so she bought dolls for him. I don't think she liked how they ended up though. Especially when they found sticks to sword fight with.

 

I always wanted a Scalextric - did eventually get one for OH before the kiddies came along. Sadly everything warped in the attic one summer.

[Busybird]

The only time my daughter played with dolls was when her younger brother was born (she was 3). She used to 'breast feed' a doll and change it's nappy (insisted on using a proper one) when I did her brother.

 

I dressed her in boys clothes (handed down from my sister's boys and then on to her brothers) as they were available and practical. She always had a party dress but would only wear it to parties and not always then.

 

She did go through a brief 'pink' phase at about 6 years old - and her other brother (a year younger) followed suit. I have a lovely picture of them in Disney dresses - her as Sleeping Beauty and him as 'Little Red Riding Hood'.

 

Her younger brother liked her pram briefly and they all played with the toy kitchen and vacuum cleaner. She never joined in the boys gun or light saber games but played happily with Lego, cars and trains.

 

When her brother joined the local football club, so did she. When he joined Cubs, she wanted to (even though she was a Brownie - prefered the sound of the lively games to the constant crafts) so went on the waiting list. She is now a patrol leader at Scouts and enjoys canoeing, climbing, caving...

 

I don't know how much influence we have on our children's natures and free choices but I count myself lucky that she is not too much of a girlie girl as it wouldn't suit us as a family. Perhaps she has picked up on that and it has had more of an influence than I realise.

[Valkyrie]

I don't think so, my mum never influenced me - she's more wifey/girly than I'll ever be. I think it's all in the genes - I got most of my dads!

[Clur]

I don't know how much influence we have on our children's natures and free choices but I count myself lucky that she is not too much of a girlie girl as it wouldn't suit us as a family. Perhaps she has picked up on that and it has had more of an influence than I realise.

 

My daughter's nearly 5 and from the moment she could talk, refused to be dressed in much else than dresses and pink ones at that, despite most of her clothes being of the jeans and t-shirt variety. I cannot tell you what a shock it is to have a girly-girl after spending most of my life in jeans and covered in mud from the great outdoors! Our eldest child is a boy who is a stereotypical sticks, stones and dirt magnet. She even flatly refused to walk across a field as it had 'sheep poo' in it. She is a proper little Diva at times.

 

I am going with the flow on it now, but I tell you it was a shock She's getting a little better - she was playing 'armies' with her brother one day, though I've not seen many in our great British Army in a tutu, glitter shows and fatigues......

[Chucky Mama]

My 4 brothers saw to it that I didn't do the whole girly thing. They told me that if they cut the hair off my dolls that it would regrow. They cut all the hair off, stripped them of all their clothes and then hung them from the washing line - I cried, especially as Mum told me off for letting them do it and decided it was safer to play soldiers

[Valkyrie]

My brother has a Russian "Action Man" - it's female and he calls her Bob (from Blackadder) and she lives with all his other Action Men!

[Snowy]

at Fred oiling the pushchair wheels That made me laugh out loud!

My boys have also had opportunities to play with all variety of toys, but they are also typical sticks and stones mud magnets. But there aren't many female hormones in our house anyway. My best christmas present as a child was a red sports car

[Couperwife]

My best christmas present as a child was a red sports car

 

that would come quite high on the list of best christmas presents now

 

cathy

x

[Space Chick]

My best christmas present as a child was a red sports car

 

that would come quite high on the list of best christmas presents now

 

cathy

x

 

Somebody PM Couperman, we can help him with his Christmas shopping

[whoopsie]

Majorbloodnock, thankyou for challenging you NCT coordinator! I'm one and have the opposite problem sometimes - trying to INVOLVE the dads! Thankfully we now have a dedicated Fathers' Group and they're getting a bit more attention.

[majorbloodnock]

Majorbloodnock, thankyou for challenging you NCT coordinator! I'm one and have the opposite problem sometimes - trying to INVOLVE the dads! Thankfully we now have a dedicated Fathers' Group and they're getting a bit more attention.

 

He, he

 

No problem. I know the story makes me sound pushy and aggressive, but that's not really me. However, both my wife and I sometimes find ourselves being excluded from something because of other people's assumptions, and it's happened too often for either of us to ignore it placidly.

 

What I think irritates me most, though, is that all the gender-based assumptions we've been discussing on this thread are unconscious. It's bad enough to be at the butt end of active prejudice, but if it's active it can be challenged. Once it's so deep rooted to be unconscious, it's far more difficult to get people examining the problem.

[Seagazer]

My DD's best present was a blue bentley type sit in car when she was about 3. She absolutely loved it.

 

When YS was a toddler he spent a lot of time with a the daughter of a friend of mine, he loved pushing her doll's prams around. We bought him his own pushchair (blue) with a little baby doll. He loved it and would take it everywhere. One day an older man from my road said to me 'what are you doing letting him push a girls toy around'. I couldn't believe it, the sexist you know what.

 

My kids always played with whatever they wanted to. They've all had trains, cars, building stuff etc.

 

Actually DD has asked for some meccano for Christmas (she's 22 )

[chickenanne]

It's funny that kids pick these things up. Took my 3 year old nephew to the park last year, where there is this sandcastle building "machine" thing. By way of background, my sister (his mother) has a pHD in physics, can do all the impressive car-maintenance/roofing/etc tasks which are more traditional "boy" things (she's pretty rubbish on the housework front though!). Anyhow, he was playing with the sand thingy, and piped up "only boys can do this, becuase girls can't do building".

 

He's three! He isn't allowed to watch telly beyond a Sunday morning cartoon, his mother isn't exactly born-to-iron... yet he already has the stereotypical "boy job/girl job" thing.

[PurpleTree]

My 2 boys have a toy kitchen, and we're getting the matching microwave for Christmas for Oliver as they love playing with it. We've also got a pink pushchair with a doll which they've both enjoyed pushing around the garden.

 

Daniel is now very much into Star Wars, Batman and Spiderman, and whenever he sees an advert for a 'girls' toy or anything pink, he says to Oliver, we can't have that it's for girls. I'm assuming he's picked this up from school, as I've never said anything to him along those lines.

[Happy chickens!]

I think girls have it easier generally on the toy front though - it's seen as more 'normal' for a girl to play trains, than a boy to play barbies for example.

 

I loved all my 'boy toys' growing up, but also enjoyed my dolls. My two boys loved their play kitchen when they were younger, but the look of horror on my then two year old's face when his grandma gave him a boy baby doll with lots of clothes had to be seen....... I had warned her he wasn't interested in dolls, but she just thought I was being un pc.