You take the test. You go to the doctor. You get the confirmation. You start your preparation.
You are pregnant! Instantly, you begin to plan. Around twenty weeks, you have the big ultrasound and find out, either at the doctor or in a cupcake, if you are having a boy or a girl. You are almost instantly flooded with a sea of pink or blue. Even in your head, you know a baby doesn’t care, but there it is. Blue trucks for the boys and pink unicorns for the girls.
I didn’t find out the gender with either of my two kids. Not because we were really taking some big social stance, we just wanted it to be a surprise. I could not believe how many were almost upset at us for not finding out. Most of the time their logic was because they didn’t know what to buy us. (On the plus side, we ended up with things we actually need and not a closet full of clothes).
Flash forward, I now have a 6-year-old boy and an almost 3-year-old terror girl. Even though we feel like we have let them follow their own interests, we have a boy that loves science and dinosaurs, and a girl who can’t get enough pink and sparkles. For the most part, we have two kids who are each into gender normative stuff. Sure my daughter will sometimes play with my son’s cars and dinosaurs, and my son even will ask to play dress-up at times. Which by the way is fine with us.
We are fortunate to live in a world where we specifically tell our girls that they can do anything. Girls can play with cars and trains.
But what I’m struck by is that the same still doesn’t seem to be true for our boys.
Nobody blinks an eye if a girl wants to play with trains or dinosaurs, but a boy wants to put an Elsa dress on and that’s weird. Gender is a construct we created. Cars do not have a gender. Pink does not have a gender. To kids, it’s just playing. A boy might be into the pink paw patrol character because what he really likes is airplanes. Or maybe he just likes pink.
For young children, it’s so important for them to be able to play freely. That doesn’t just mean time, but also materials. It doesn’t have anything to do with gender. It’s about exploring play. When we tell boys or girls they can’t play with certain things, we are the ones putting gender constructs on kids. Even the stores feed into it. There is a girls section and a boys section. Blue side, pink side. Firetrucks, unicorns.
I would encourage you all, to the best of your ability, to just let your kids play. Let them explore new toys at school or at a friends house. Just let them play.
Let them be kids.
