Yes, the whole ‘pink is for girls and blue is for boys’ thing bothers me. It didn’t, necessarily, until I had my son and I had to have all those conversations with myself about the kind of parent I hoped to be.
I hoped to be the kind of parent who was fun. I hoped to be the kind of parent that my kid respected, but didn’t fear. I hoped to be the kind of parent who allowed my kid to be themselves, no matter who they were born to be.
If my son wanted to play with a pink toy (which he often did), was I going to snatch it from his hand and declare loudly ‘No, son, that’s just for girls!’? No way. I was going to let him play with it and warn anyone else on the verge of saying ‘No’, that it wasn’t their place. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s only a colour. Now at five years of age, Jacob happily shuns TV ads for ‘Frozen’ with a turn of the head and a scoff of, ‘That’s just for girls!’
And then we had a girl. Little Miss Eva. She inherited a playroom full of trucks, Lego, toy planes, tractors and infinite numbers of cars. Eva loves all of that, and lots more besides. She’s two-and-a-half and dancing is her thing at the moment! Along with her arrival, a few ‘girlie’ items have crept into the house such as her pink all-singing, all-dancing Minnie Mouse and her pink talking teapot and cups. That is also fine. She’s happy so we’re happy.
Then the kids and I went to a toy shop last week and at one point, I just had my hand on a lovely pink toy vacuum cleaner that I was going to pick up for Eva. And then I changed my mind. Now, both of my kids help me out at home. When it’s time to vacuum or it’s time to polish, everyone gets a job to do and we all have a bit of fun doing it. But I never saw a blue toy vacuum cleaner when Jacob was growing up, and furthermore, it would never have occurred to me to buy him one. So I put the pink one back. I just didn’t want to send my daughter that message. I didn’t want her to think that the females in the house are the ones who are responsible for the household cleaning. I didn’t want her brother to think that he and dad were off the hook for hoovering, because the hoovering apparatus doesn’t come in ‘their’ colour.
If the toy had come in green, or grey, or brown – anything that wasn’t pink – and both kids wanted to share it, then I would definitely have bought it. But just for the girls? I don’t think so.
How do you feel about ‘gendered toys’ mamas? Let us know your thoughts in the Facebook comments.
