When Boys Play with “Girlie” Toys!!

As a mother of a 4.5 year old boy, I get to hear a lot from everyone, how boys should be tough & only play with “boy toys” viz guns, cars, robots, balls & bats. This had created immense pressure on me & my little man about forcibly overlooking his choices & pretending to like the so called “BOY TOYS”. My boy absolutely loves & adores his cars, he is a car fanatic but then he also likes many other things, one of them being utensils. He would sometimes hide & play with a kitchen set that was lying at home. It broke my heart to see him look at others for approval whenever he wanted to play with his kitchen set. As a mother I abhorred the situation my child was forcibly put into. I put my foot down & decided to let him do what actually makes him happy. There was no way I was going to let anyone act as a deterrent in my son’s happiness. He now plays with whatever pleases him be it his favourite cars or books or boxing gloves or balls or kitchen set. He is happy & I am doubly happy.

Zefan playing with the kitchen set with Zoe

It is quite sad that our society is fanatical about labeling everything & anything, so obviously there are labels for toys too. Cars for boys & dolls for girls, guns for boys & kitchen sets for girls, mechanical sets for boys & Jewelry making for girls, so on & so forth. To quite an extent, it is fairly acceptable for a girl if she plays with “toys that are meant for boys” but if a boy ventures into a “girl toy” territory then God save him. He is termed feminine & looked down upon.

At face-value it might sound just about “regular” to “hush” boys whenever they exhibit inclination towards “girlie toys” but deep down this might have a bigger damage than what is normally visible. Research shows that children who are constantly stopped from expressing whatever they feel strongly for, end up lacking the ability to self expression in life.

Why is a little boy’s rowdy behavior accepted without batting an eyelid whereas his sensitive side is looked down upon? Why is his choice of toys translated into a gender role?

I would like to quote an article I had recently read where the author wrote that

“However in my opinion, a child playing with dolls or trucks doesn’t make one more or less masculine or feminine it just means they are engaging in activates that they find pleasure in.  In that same aspect instead of this normative idea that boys who plays with dolls are feminine one should think this boy could grow up to be a nurturer. It’s less likely for people to label boys who play with dolls as potential fathers but more so like potential sissies.”

So let your boy play with whatever makes him happy. At the end of the day, his joy is what matters most, isn’t it?