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We are giving our son a play kitchen for Christmas.
Niko’s favorite room in the house is the kitchen. He’s always pulling out the pots and pans or playing with the food in the pantry. He loves watching me cook – he definitely know that’s where food comes from. When he is hungry he takes a piece of Tupperware out of the cabinet and tries to put in on the stove.
I see nothing weird about giving a boy a toy kitchen… although my MIL disagrees.
She thinks it’s a bit weird to give a little boy a “girl toy.” She asked what to get him for Christmas and I told her to get some play food for his kitchen. She asked what else she could get him….
My argument is that if you REALLY look at the culinary world, it’s male dominated. Watch the Food Network for about 3 hours and you will see that most of the stars/restaurant owners are men.
I also think that EVERYONE should know how to cook male or female – it’s a basic life skill. I don’t think that chores should be split up into a specific sex – everyone should know how to mow the lawn AND do laundry!
I have never understood why society separates toys into girl toys or boy toys. It seems that after age 1 all toys become either girl or boy specific. There are very few gender neutral toys.
Why is that?
If you go to the toy store right now there is a section for baby toys then it splits into boys and girl toys. I have always thought that was weird.
Kitchens and household toys are in the girls section and sports and car toys are in the boys. No matter what the child’s age or interests are – they are separated by sex.
Do boys/girls really like only playing with boy/girl toys…. or do we TEACH them to only play with boy/girl toys?
I have never thought that a boys playing with Barbie dolls or girls playing with Hot Wheels as weird – when you make a big deal about it then the child thinks something is wrong.
So Niko will be getting what society thinks are girl toys this Christmas. A toy kitchen with play pots, pans and play food. My guess is that he will love it.
What are your thoughts about how society divides toys? Big deal for you or your family? Do you disagree?
We don't tell our kids what to play with, but they do seem to gravitate towards boy or girl toys. It's been a while since he put on one of DD's dresses, but I didn't even worry about that too much. Who wouldn't want to twirl? And sometimes she wears his Bob the Builder undies. Even so, they definitely act their "parts" most of the time. DD will take a huge rubber tarantula and push it around in her stroller, or DS will take a baby bottle and turn it into a gun. I think some is natural, some is taught, and some is emulating mommy and daddy. Not that we shoot things or dote on tarantulas.I just noticed in the toy flyers all of the toys they have made pink for girls! Pink legos, pink guitar, pink ball popper. It is ok if my girls play with things that are red, blue and green!I remember when my oldest was little (he's 16 now), but he loved his babies. I thought it was great!! His dad, not so much. My thought was that if we were to have other babies (which we did several years later) that DS would have to know how to handle a baby. Besides the fact that one day, he will have his own bundle of joy, why not let him play with a doll and know right from wrong!When DD was born, DS (who was 2 at the time) "nursed" his bear while I nursed his sister. Not weird, although DH thought it was until I pointed out that he was just doing what he'd seen me do. Both of our kids played with all kinds of toys, but I don't really see it as weird that toys are divided by gender. That goes back a long, long way, to when girls were reared to be good wives, mothers, and homemakers, and boys were brought up to bring home the bacon and do "manly" chores and be Mr. Fix-It. The weird part isn't that the toys are categorized--it's that they are STILL categorized.Bo plays with his cousin Sophia's kitchen set all the time... I don't think it's weird... just don't get a pink one.The toy kitchen is one of DS's favorite toys! It is actually in his room right now. We let the kids play with whatever interest them and it changes from day to day so we have lots of different toys. Right now DD is prefering to play with the tool bench and DS is cooking crabby patties for her in the kitchen!This is one of my biggest pet peeves! I was at Family Dollar the other day and they have the shelves marked "boy" and "girl". The "girl" shelf has dolls and princess things and dress up stuff. Guess what was on the boys shelf? A chess set!! I guess girls can't play chess? I also think that boys and girls gravitate towards boy toys and girl toys because of media. My son used to play with dolls until he started watching TV. All of the doll commercials have girls in them. He now wants Hot Wheels and things that have commercials with boys in them. It's kind of sickening.My daughter and I shop in the "boy" aisles of the toy stores all the time. Just ignore the marketing and let the kiddos follow their bliss. When I was a little girl, I really wanted Matchbox cards, a race track and a garage but never could have one, because I was told it was a boy's toy. I also loved playing Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots when I visited my boy cousins. Shame on parents who keep their kids locked in toy gender ghettos.Great discussion! There are several boys in our family and friend circle who love the play kitchen. I want my girls to marry a guy who played kitchen when he was young! And if he played with dolls, even better. I want them to have a nurturing husband. But then I don't come from the school of thought that you can "turn" someone feminine if he's not (or vise versa with a girl.)I don't think it is a big deal for a boy to play in the kitchen...I remember my son pushing the pink shopping cart around when he was younger (lo and behold, he is quite the shopper)! It didn't last though, he found other toys, cars, action figures, etc. The new toy is the remote, wonder what gender that represents?LOLThe first thing my nephew Niko goes to when he comes over is to my dd kitchen. He loves opening all the doors on it. I will say be careful with that though they are not weighed done very good and he managed to tip it over.Can you get your store to DO ANYTHING about this? Where's the primary colors section? It's either pinky* girly* feminine* stuff or BLACK AND ORANGE TOUGH GUY stuff! Who can we write letters to?!?!?I loved my "boy" toys when I was little--I still have my favorite toy car around here somewhere, and I look forward to sharing it with DS. I had Tinker-Toys, Lincoln Logs, and looove Legos with a passion (note the present tense!). To be blunt, scr*w the marketing--kids should get to play with what they want, as long as it's ok with their parents and it's safe! Might I suggest also getting your son a little shopping cart? I didn't have play food, or at least not much, when I was a kid. My mom, however, let me push my little Play-Skool shopping cart up to the pantry and go "shopping" in the canned & boxed goods, and then I got to go 'cook' with them. It rocked--and it's one of my favorite memories from being a small fry.That wouldn't even be an issue for my family. My DH is the cook in our family (the (SAHD) stay at home dad, as well.) His father was the cook, and all his brothers are in the restaurant business. My DD of 3 LOVES her spaceships and rockets, and her "CARS." Basically anything with wheels on it. Currently she is soooooooo into Thomas & Friends. Jungle Junction is the latest addiction. This show was designed for her...! Her motto: If it's good, add wheels! Make it better! But I whole heartily agree that we do force gender separation on our kids. We have developed these ideas because when ever you look at a group of people you will see similarities that make that group different from other groups. As a general rule people in the south drink Sweet Tea. This doesn't mean we should only let people from the south drink Sweet Tea or that we shouldn't allow people from the North to drink Sweet Tea. It sounds silly this way, but this is what we are doing to our children. Just because more boys than girls like to play with cars. Cars are a labeled a toy for boys. But society in general is taking this to an extreme these days. We hardly ever go to McDonald's but once when we did they had Hot Wheels and Barbies. I plainly asked for a hot wheels happy meal. But I guess the lady wasn't paying attention or assumed I didn't know there was a barbie option. Anyway, fast forward to when I finally let my DD have the toy after an appropriate amount of apples and chicken have been eaten. And watch the tantrum ensue. We called McDonald's and they graciously let me exchange the toy the next day.
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