As a parent I try (though I often fail) not to make a big deal about the differences between boys and girls. It's sort of a pet peeve of mine when people say "oh, she's such a girlie girl" or "he's just such a BOY!!" (as if that word alone conveys SO MUCH meaning). I think it goes back to awful sex-discrimination work experiences (as we know women can't succeed as both mothers and lawyers because we have "babies on the brain", a phrase which will haunt me for life). It just seems odd that we spend so much of childhood emphasizing the differences between girls and boys and then we expect our children to enter a workforce where these difference are assumed nonexistent (and when differences are acknowledged it is often in a way that minimizes women's worth in the world).
All this being said. Boys do love cars. They just love them.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!! SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!
LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:
*If you're looking for something to do this weekend KidFriendlyDC has lots of great suggestions (as always).
*I failed the 1980s theme song quiz (I'm still disappointed in myself) - click here and try it for yourself. Talk about nostalgia.
*I'm loving these beautiful and haunting photos of Detroit's ruins (link via Fine Ting Og Sjokolade).
*For any Murakami fans out there, turns out Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead is composing the score for Norwegian Wood (I'm so excited). Get the info here.
*Wow this blog is cool. I just discovered it and I could spend hours in the archives. Hours.
Interesting topic Darcy and however bad it may be, I am fascinated with the differences between boys and girls. I’m actually shocked at how noticeable the difference is (between my kids at least). I thought Soren might be a ‘girlie’ boy (and I was okay with that) because he had an older sister. I was picturing him playing with babies and Barbies and dressing up as a princess. Not so much… Soren can’t be in a room with a ball or truck without gravitating towards it. And he does play with Barbies by taking their clothes off and ripping off their heads (which I find just a tad disturbing). He can already dribble a soccer ball and catches and throws as good or better than Sophia. On the other hand, he’s been far more needy. Sophia was and is an independent sassy little thing who looked at you like ‘so what’ when you tried to play the game of leaving her at a restaurant/store/etc. Perhaps these differences would be just as noticeable and fascinating with 2 kids of the same gender, what do you think? As for the comments at work, I wonder if lawyers think they can get away with discriminating comments because they have so many people around to defend them, that is really just sad. I thought engineering would be bad, but it isn’t at all.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that there are real differences between the sexes (lots of them). I just get nervous that my kids (and society) tend to put too much emphasis on those differences. P actually says "pink legos are for girls and blue legos are for boys. I play with pink legos because I'm a girl" (which infuriates me, they're LEGOS - the whole point is everyone can play with them). Or when F took soccer class she said something along the lines of "sports are for boys", which really annoyed me (despite the fact that I actually hate sports). I just feel like kids are told so often "oh that toy is for boys" or "girls should like pink" that they make decisions based on what they think they should do rather on what they want to do (though honestly I can't see F ever playing sports with any enthusiasm). And maybe this all goes away as we get older, but it makes me nervous.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I do agree with you there. I was furious the other day when Sophia came to me and said that boys are supposed to protect girls. I asked her where she learned that and she said that Miss Brough (her teacher) told her that. I couldn’t believe she would say such a thing. I told Sophia that she was responsible for protecting herself and that mommy and daddy would try to protect her as best as possible, but that she better learn to be responsible for herself. It’s so funny that you say that about pink and blue because Sophia is in love with blue right now and I’m not sure when it changed from pink. It does cause lots of arguments though because both her and Soren want the same color glass, plate, toy and sometimes there is only one. I think Soren would want a pink plate though if that’s what Sophia wanted. I also agree that if we all did what you said and made decisions based on what we want to do vs. what we think we think we should do that the world would be a better place. A lot of factors weigh in to that though, not just gender roles. The question is, what is the best way to try to make sure that happens? Won’t we always have some influence on their interests simply based on where we take them, what we do with them, etc.
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