Oh, for cryin' out loud. This sort of thing annoys me SO BAD. And the worst part is this crap actually works on a lot of parents, aunts & uncles, grandparents and so forth, who would never dream of buying toys for their kids that aren't the proper, socially approved color!
I don't think I used to believe that early childhood upbringing makes that much difference, until people in my age group started having kids and I started noticing the incredible, obvious differences in the way they treated their little boys and girls, from the time they were tiny infants.
My 3-year-old niece is at that age where she loves making things move, turn and come apart. She adores Legos, and anything else that works similarly, including all kinds of machines, and she's really bright at figuring out how to make things go and move and turn on. Her parents (my cousin and her husband) are pretty cool and I know she's getting a bunch of Legos for Christmas, but even with all the good intentions in the world, I can't help thinking that if she were a boy, she'd be getting a lot more encouragement of her "taking things apart" tendencies, especially from her grampa, who's a carpenter. But since she's a girl, she's getting a lot of encouragement to do her other favorite things -- quiet things like drawing and having books read to her. Her mom asked me to get her some books for Christmas -- which I was happy to do; always happy to encourage a budding bibliophile *g* -- but I also hope that she gets encouraged in her spatial-perception, fitting-things-together tendencies.
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16/12/11 00:16 (UTC)I don't think I used to believe that early childhood upbringing makes that much difference, until people in my age group started having kids and I started noticing the incredible, obvious differences in the way they treated their little boys and girls, from the time they were tiny infants.
My 3-year-old niece is at that age where she loves making things move, turn and come apart. She adores Legos, and anything else that works similarly, including all kinds of machines, and she's really bright at figuring out how to make things go and move and turn on. Her parents (my cousin and her husband) are pretty cool and I know she's getting a bunch of Legos for Christmas, but even with all the good intentions in the world, I can't help thinking that if she were a boy, she'd be getting a lot more encouragement of her "taking things apart" tendencies, especially from her grampa, who's a carpenter. But since she's a girl, she's getting a lot of encouragement to do her other favorite things -- quiet things like drawing and having books read to her. Her mom asked me to get her some books for Christmas -- which I was happy to do; always happy to encourage a budding bibliophile *g* -- but I also hope that she gets encouraged in her spatial-perception, fitting-things-together tendencies.