It does appear it’s more than a phase. As we look around our toy room strewn with Littlest Pet Shops, Barbie, My Little Pony, more Dora than Diego and various fairy coloring books, figures, artwork and coloring books, most people can safely agree without offending me that my two boys favor the “girl” toys.
I get a lot of questions about this, so I decided to write this blog to try to answer some of the questions that are proposed not only to me, but to my closest friends who know my family best as well. Am I offended, of course not! I realize that the genderizations that we place on the color pink or the type of play our children engage in is extremely hard wired into our culture, so much so that most people wouldn’t ever give it a second thought. I also understand that gender is hard wired to into an association of sexuality in our culture as well. I am bucking the norms! Am I trying to make my sons gay? Of course not and no one has ever suggested that to my face. In this regard however, because we (my husband and I) allow our boys to choose girl toys over boy toys if they so choose, we are trailblazers against the social norm.
I didn’t expect it to happen like this that is to be sure. I learned about gender issues such as this when I was earning my BA in Sociology at Cal State Hayward, easily one of the most liberal colleges in the world. I just had no idea how these ideas that seemed just slightly over the top would play out in my own experience as a parent. When my oldest was almost three, and youngest just over one I dropped them off at the gym daycare for a couple hours. At this age, their toys are all pretty gender neutral, but the daycare had a box of dress up clothes. My sons started pulling out the princess dresses and Snow White costumes, and putting them on with great delight. I simply giggled and left, only to find when I returned they were dressed as a fairy and a bride. The woman in the daycare said, “I tried to get them to wear the fireman outfits, but they didn’t want those.” I just smiled and thanked them. The next time, they went for the same outfits, and the other kids started to laugh. At this time, my guys are young, they just don’t know they are doing girl stuff. Momma bear comes out and I start telling the other kids how this is alright, they are little… and I ask the girls in the daycare if they can pay special attention to be sure my guys don’t get teased. This happened for the next two weeks, as I patiently waited for my guys to get over this phase.
When it didn’t pass, I found some used princess costumes-four for $10- and brought them home. My thoughts were that they would get to wear them at home, get it out of their systems and not play with the ones at daycare anymore where they might get teased. Little did I know, this was the beginning with no end. They not only wore them there but didn’t give up their dress up habits at the gym either. And when they went to a toy store, they were drawn towards the pink isle rather than that dreary grey and black boy isle. I can see why… girls toys are bright and cheery with more cartoon fun features, cute animals and built for pretend play which was developmentally a better fit for their age. So now their new favorite toys to buy were Littlest Pet Shops, which to me didn’t seem like “girl” toys at all, just cute animals. They certainly weren’t monster trucks or hot wheels however.
This was about the time, I started to look up current research on gender and toys. This is because as we were picking out LPS, the dolls and strollers looked really appealing too. Ok, I guess we already had a baby stroller and doll, and a play kitchen at this time. This was because our oldest son had a little brother coming and we wanted him to become familiar with ways to nurture a baby. The research I found said that boys that play with dolls will learn traits to become great fathers and men. It was also a great way to explain to him what would be coming into his world soon. So yes, they were already in our home, which if we had an older sister... would not seem odd at all. I get told all the time, “My brother played with our dolls all the time.” The difference in our home was there wasn’t a little girl to add some validity for our boys accidentally playing with dolls. We really were letting them make that choice.
It really was just all a natural progression from those early days of a doll and some dresses. The research all said that gender play had nothing to do with sexuality and that is a gross misconception in the American Culture. It made sense, because really, what four year old really has sexuality? It really is something we impose on our kids. I just wanted my kids to have choices, to not be hindered in their thinking of what they could do or play with. We always tell our kids when they get older, “You can be anything you want to be,” but tell them though societies rule that they cannot like pink or play with a doll? I can see don’t play with knives or jump off a roof, but really… I only found positive reasons why I should be giving them options in the toys they play with in childhood.
People were much more supportive of my kids playing with girl toys when they were younger. Clearly they didn’t know better, and people looked at it as if it was just going to be a cute antidotal story one day. I am sure I probably thought the same thing. But as time progressed, and my now six year old showed no signs of converting to traditional gender norms, the view started changing. It appears my son is now old enough to know the social norm, and I assure you he is very well aware. This does cause both adults and kids to take pause. It’s not that my boys are only attracted to girl toys, they like both. They will watch Barbie in a Fairy Secret, and the next movie will be Defenders of the Universe. It’s just that when the feminine end of the spectrum arises, people don’t exactly know how they feel or how they should react.
The kids are very resilient at this age. My kids close friends, simply know they like girl toys and accept it as different but a fact. If a new kid will say something taunting such, it’s usually my kid’s friends that will very matter of fact fill in the new kid, “Yes, they like girl things,” and they move on with their play. It’s all pretty matter of fact, yet it’s acknowledged and gives that moment of validation to my kids that even though it’s not a normal choice, it’s still acceptable. At birthday parties and Christmas, our kids are given more girl toys than boy, because the kids pick them out and know that’s what they will like. It’s very thoughtful and in fact, right on target.
The real surprise is the adults’ reaction to not my children, but me. There is a lot of curiosity around our parenting decisions to let our children choose their own toys. A lot of times people don’t realize the extent to which our boys are immersed in a co-gender toy world, and the reactions will be to a particular story or picture. If we didn’t take pictures of our kids in fairy dresses, we’d have no pictures of them from ages 3-5. They lived in those dresses and there were more than a few tears when they finally ripped and were entirely too small to wear anymore, and had to be retired. People would see the dresses in the consignment shop and wonder, why did Heidi have these? They might come to a party where my kids would get out the dresses complete with shoes and tiara’s and dress up not just themselves but their friends no matter what the gender.
Oh yes, the fathers would flip out at the sight of their son in a pink dress with a fuzzy crown. The veins would pop as they had to control themselves from ripping the dresses off their kids, and I could literally hear the teeth crunching as they grappled with their own masculinity of watching their Mr. Princesses run around enjoying the story of being a princess for everyone at the party to see. I have yet to see a father actually rip the dresses off their sons, but oh yes you know they wanted too. I wonder often, what force it was that stopped them? Could it be they respected my husband and I, and didn’t want to offend us by showing they didn’t approve? Could it be not wanting to stop that fun that their sons were having and potentially cause a scene? Could it be the taboo of rejecting feminization as being chauvinistic? All plausible and all probably true. Whatever it is, it’s a strong force to contend with that amount of vein popping teeth grinding uncomfortable tension brewing inside a 280lb good ol’ Kentucky born and breed huntin’ man.
My oldest, recently inspired by Barbie in the Fashion Fairytale, has decided he wanted to become a fashion designer. He’s quite an artist and loves to sketch things in his notebook. He wanted me to take him to some fashion shows so he could, “Ya know, get some experience.” After emailing all the New York designers I could find, I ended up unsuccessful. Something about fashion designers and their corporations don’t really cater to the six year old gender bending I suppose. There was a charity fashion show close to home however that I was able to secure tickets for, and my oldest son went as my date. He was so popular, I felt like his body guard. These women knew who he was as soon as we stepped off the elevator. Everyone was telling him how handsome he was and he was going to be famous someday. One woman practically ripped his notepad right out from his hands when he was trying to sketch the design he had picked out that would be perfect for his principal Dr. Megan. I realized right away, that is really wasn’t because my son is so adorable, which he is… but it was because he was my son. Had I brought my daughter to the event, no one would have batted an eye, and might have even made an off handed comment about how this is not a children’s event. My little artistic bug however, was breaking the mould, and these made us feel like we were making history. My son is a little on the shy side, but he handled very well by saying, “I have a brother. He’s four…” and he’s whisper to me, “I sure wish he was here right now.” My son also made a very astute observation at this event, where we were experiencing this onslaught of attention. He said, “Mom, there are a lot of old ladies here.” It was a good little reminder for me to note this age and population for our life as we experience it as a social experiment in gender. While these ladies were certainly surprised at the intense interest that my son shared for fashion, and the diligence he presented when sketching the fashions, they were all very kind and very accepting, recognizing they might be sitting with the future Calvin Kline.
Now that I have covered how other people present their observations about my sons perceived tendencies towards girl activities and toys, I will attempt to address the most common question that and my close friends are posed. What does my husband think?
I would be lying though my teeth if I said that my husband is totally comfortable with all that goes on in our home, in regards to gender. The reason why my husband is totally awesome however, is he supports our sons to the best of his ability. The other day, we went to the shoe store to get new tennis shoes. Our oldest son looked over all the choices and then sat quietly on the couch holding back his tears. I asked him what was going on, I saw no reason for tears over tennis shoes. He shyly said that these shoes were all boring and he didn’t want any of them. When I asked him what he wanted, he pointed to the other side of the isle, where on display were rows and rows of shiny sparkly girls shoes with neon paints, glitters and lots of other wonderful frilly attachments to make them as whimsical as possible. I explained that he would have to wear these shoes to school and those were in fact girl shoes. He didn’t care, he loved those and hated all his options, even the shoes that lit up with lights. Any bland shoe on that side of the isle was going to have to shoot out bubbles with each step to compete with the ones in the girls section. Long story short, I told him he was going to get teased. “They probably won’t even notice, Mom.” He said happily that I was even considering this purchase. “I don’t care. I will just walk away.” I asked what he would do if he couldn’t walk away, like if he was in line. Then I even started to taunt him a little bit, like I was a kid at school. “You’re wearing girl shoes,” I said in a snotty voice and pretended to laugh. This is when my son amazed me. I realized his strong character, his confidence and sense of individual was so well developed. He looked me straight in the eye and smiled as he said, “I don’t care. I like ‘em.” I helped him pick out the most demure pair of sparkly shoes we could find, and he was happy. Now, where was my husband? Oh, he was there. But first, my younger son.
My younger son is a bit more well balanced gender speaking, he plays with little people, cars, little ponies and train. He understands and accepts peoples perceptions and knows how to play into them and is willing to do so more than my older son. At school he plays with blocks and at home he plays with fairies. He found a pair of shoes that were not to be ignored however. They were on sale he pointed out repeatedly, because for him they were a must have. Bright pink Hello Kitty slippers.
I explained that those were house shoes, and he was even more in love with that idea. “I can just wear them at home, and it won’t matter that they are girl shoes.” This doesn’t stop him from wanting to wear them to school every once in a while, but he does seem to appreciate the norms perhaps more than his brother or even his mother. Terry watched as he picked out the slippers, but not closely enough to realize until we got home he got the wrong size, and simply said alright. As dearest hubby realized older son was about to get girl shoes, he walked into the men’s department. I looked to him as to ask for help, but it was clear I was on my own. I really did try to talk him out of girl shoes, and I prepared him for the inevitable taunting, but he was not to be dissuaded. I was looking at Terry, to slam the foot down like most men would. Just say no, no way, enough is enough… but he didn’t. He also refused to be anywhere nears us when we paid, and made me use my card. Just something about having to pay for his son’s girl shoes was asking too much, even though he was right there in the store. But he stayed quiet and supported his son in his decision.
Later that night, I asked him about it. He has a great sense of humor about it all. He even took pictures of the boys’ new shoes and put them on his facebook in a very funny way. I suggested that he even start his own blog about it, and he refused. He said, he doesn’t want his sons to read it later and feel that he was anyway disappointed in them, making fun of them or not happy with whom they are whatever they turn out to be. Well, he’s much more thoughtful than I, for sure. There again is another gender difference. While people might have trepidations to ask me about our family gender habits, I can express my pride in my kids being well rounded with great ease, and my sexuality is never called into question. My husband however, feels he cannot even though, he is proud of our sons and believes they are going to grow up to be wonderful, caring , supportive, smart and successful men. There is that fear however, that gay fear, that fear of the overt approval of feminization, the crossing of the line from metro to homo that cannot be ignored because it is hard wired into our culture. He even admits if one of our sons turns out to be homosexual, he doesn’t feel he can handle it well, but he will handle it none the less. It’s just unfair that even in his approval that he feels that pressure of questioning sexuality, much more I dare say than I feel it. This is why, my husband is so great. His friend asked him why he let him get the shoes, and he said, “How could I say no? How can you tell your six year old son, no to something he wants to badly?” Terry wasn’t thinking about the consequences of bucking gender norms, he only saw that his son was being denied something that there was no really reasonable explanation as to why he couldn’t have it, especially since he showed he knew the consequences.
He did wear the shoes to school, and I did go to the school and check on him. The teacher reported back that they did have a conversation but everything seemed to be fine. Aiden said there were some kids who laughed at him, but they were still his friends. Some laughed in a mean way, but he expected that to happen, then he was more than happy to tell me his friend laughed because she had the same shoes. He now switches back and forth between shoes depending on his mood and how long it takes him to get them on. His bright blue crocks with green straps quickly made it to the top of his favorite shoe list, but his girl shoes are simply just … shoes.
I get quite a few questions, but oddly enough it’s my close friends that get even more. Most people are afraid that I will take offense so it’s easier to work out their questions and ideas on our gender friendly household with friends who might know, rather than taking a risk of offending me. And there is a good majority of my friends that love it! There are a majority of people that approve but say their husbands would never allow that, and they won’t even drink from a pink straw. I am honored when people ask me or want to talk about it with me, because it means they are not closed off and are willing to explore the question “Why, or why not?” I have seen some people feel ashamed, because they feel like they missed out on offering their sons some really good life skills when they hear my reasoning. Some people realize they did play have these opportunities because they have a sister in the home to validify any accidental playing of non gender correct play. I have had some people just shake their head but respect my views none the less. I have had people tell my husband, “Wow, I’m so glad I just have girls and don’t have to deal with this stuff.” The most common reaction is wondering how my husband deals with it all and to that I just say...like a champ.
