Friday, January 13, 2012
Dolls or rocket ships?
This was something we started to discuss in class, so here is more fodder if you would like to continue. So, should parents accept the natural inclinations of their children or try to get them to be more flexible and develop other parts of their personalities? What would you do if you were a toy manufacturer/marketer?
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In my opinion, unisex toys are a good idea. I think there should be more freedom of choice both for children and their parents. This way, when the commonly boy-aimed toys would take up a new appearance, I think parents would be keener to buy such toys for their girls. And that is the point in manufacturing gender neutral toys - reducing sex differentiation and artificial gender roles, which is at least a bit old-fashioned, in my opinion. The result would eventually be that girls, who naturally seek more beauty than usefulness in toys, would play more with for example Lego’s Friends collection, which would certainly improve other skills than bare imagination when playing with barbies.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there always are girls who prefer to play with cars, for example, and vice versa. Unfortunately, I observed, at least from my surroundings, that boys playing with dolls or even teddy bears are thought to be homosexuals. And this is the root of all parental misunderstanding for their children, Well, even if their son was a gay, I think a lot of research revealed they can’t possibly do anything about it apart from making their son feel guilty and embarrassed about his preferences. In my opinion, parents should firstly consider whether they want to prepare their children into some kind of a gender-role by buying them only one kind of toys or they would rather let their children make their own choice and thus create a room for their natural development. I think it is important to make children prepared for their future life, which would certainly require something else than simply a gender role.
Furthermore, the article states a very interesting observation that children with cross-gender friendships are prone to have healthier relationships in the future. Even though parents can’t choose friends for their children to play with, playing with gender neutral toys or playing in a bigger company would make them more confident with the opposite sex. As in my case, I had a best friend in the kindergarten – a boy. And probably it is the reason why I still make friends with boys easier than with girls. Moreover, I am a live example of a heterosexual girl who played with cars and dinosaurs. As a child (or even up to now), I hated dolls and avoided their presence because they disgusted me. Well, now I realize how lucky I was to have a little more benevolent childhood, that my parents understood me and let me free in my choice.
All kids are different, and have different interests. We should not force girls to play with dolls and Barbies, and boys to play with cars and airplanes. I think each child has a right to choose what it wants to play with. My parents never forced me to play with anything, and I think that is the best option. I agree with Kika, that it is completely normal for girls to play with cars and boys to play with dolls. When I was younger I played with such toys too, and I really loved it. I also had more friends who were boys at kindergarten, and it was very prospering for me I think. I can easily make friendship with boys and girls too. When I was small, I always loved to play with toys, which were not really for girls. I founded them as interesting and nice as the toys made for girls. I never swathe difference when I was smaller.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Kika with her statement that parents often don’t let the kids to play with the toys made for the other gender. I think that when a boy plays with dolls, he doesn’t have to be homosexual. And even if he would be gay, his parents should be the ones who would support him the most. If we cannot depend on our family, whom can we depend on? We should not discriminate our kids, when our kid wants to play with dolls and he is a boy, well then he should play and have fun.
Unisex toys are a good idea as well. I support this idea. I like them because they really show that kids of both genders can play with similar toys, and that’s why it makes the difference between the genders much smaller. It is good for children to have also such toys.
So in conclusion, parents should let their kids to play with whatever they want and they shouldn’t try to change their interests. They should accept their children as they are.