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| multitasking momma and new baby |
T has named her Baby Beluga and has also suggested the same name for "the baby in Mama's belly". She arrived at our house after a long trip from Florida, and a very knowledgable set of Facebook friends who identified her for me when T found a similar baby doll at the kids' hair salon.
Baby dolls typically creep me out. The "lifelike" ones never look real, they just look scary. The run of the mill cheap ones you find at Target or Wal-Mart are just ugly, and I don't feel much better about the expensive American Girl baby dolls either. But Baby Beluga is super cute - very cartoony looking but I don't freak out when I see her lying on the floor.
I hate the gender implications - most baby dolls are dressed in pink and marketed towards little girls specifically. I don't buy T any toys I wouldn't buy for a son and I usually avoid the "pink" versions of things unless I've asked T to choose and she picks it. Unfortunately while the original Baby Beluga at the salon had a purple outfit, the only one I could find to buy was pink. I can live with that.
T still loves her stuffed animals, though. She's got far more animals than dolls (by design) and I'd like it to stay that way. I'm uncomfortable about the idea of being deluged with baby dolls, or worse, Barbies, and all the pink accessories. It's not the things themselves (I have other issues with Barbie and her proportions/coloring) but that I don't want to reinforce the idea that T can (or should) only play with "girls' things" or that there exists a separate world of "girls toys" and "boys toys" like Target seems to believe.
I'm not stressing about it (yet!) because as far as I can tell, when given a choice, T doesn't always gravitate to the "just for girls" thing. She picks what she likes. I'm sure we'll go through a "girl stuff only" phase and it'll drive me nuts. But for now, I'm trying to focus on complimenting things other than how cute she looks, giving her all sorts of different toys, and letting her choose clothes and shoes from both the "boys" and "girls" sections.
It's a long road ahead.
I'm smiling to myself as I think of Charlotte's room with her 'Hello Kitty' curtains and 'Barbie' duvet cover! (she's 8 and it shows!) BUT, she did share a room with her 2 brothers so I'm letting her off. I was very much of your mindset when my eldest daughter was born but I found it a lot easier to bring up a more gender neutral child in the UK rather than the US. It seems to be more accepted there than here in the US. I'm not passing judgement on anyone that goes one way or another, just observing.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the UK being easier about gender neutral stuff. Do you think that's still true?
DeleteYour daughter is 8 so I'm sure she has definite opinions. I figure while mine is still small, I can restrict her options to ones I like :) I know that time will be over soon!
I'm fully convinced it's harder to raise a girl than a boy. Strikes me every time I go to the toy store to pick out a gift for girls' birthday parties that A gets invited to from preschool. The delineation between the boys' sections and pink-saturated girls' sections is disturbing. Not sure how you do it :) I always write parents to ask what specifics their kid (or they) like/dislike in a birthday gift just to get some guidance and they seem to appreciate that. I had one girl's parents say her girl liked everything, but please NO DOLLS, and another one say she liked everything related to Barbies, Tinkerbell, princesses, etc. To each her own :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know about *harder*, but maybe just more annoying to avoid stuff. I mean, I wear makeup, love sparkle, get my nails done, etc etc. so it's not like I am ignoring my femininity. I just don't want T to feel like the only RIGHT choice is the pink one, you know?
DeleteI personally worry more about our kids thinking that being brown is not normal and having white dolls. Luckily, I usually buy on clearance which means the more diverse babies are all I have left to choose from anyway. Nandini never had a baby doll for over a year from sheer lack of thinking about it. She loves to play blocks, draw, kick and throw a ball. But she also loved her first baby doll in a way Avi never was interested in stuffed animals even. Just take what comes I guess and treat them as individuals, not too far in one thing like you said.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with you re: only having white dolls. I buy T both white and brown ones since she's mixed-race anyway :) I love that her Little People (white) fireman is married to the (brown) woman. So she is paying attention though she rarely says anything about it. I bet we'll have some great conversations about it in the next couple of years!
DeleteI love that picture with the baby in the sling. Reminds me of B when G was a baby. =) I think it depends on the kid, too. B was all about the princesses, and baby dolls, and Barbies. G has always been much more interested in her stuffed animals, especially the numerous monkeys. She has a baby doll or two, but never plays with them. Just like she has one Barbie, I think just because B has them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, T is definitely starting to choose pink when given a choice, and like me, she loves sparkle. But we still push the legos, the Castle Logix, etc. :)
DeleteI'll be emailing you every 5 min once I get to know new Baby X' and figure out she's totally different from T. Not sure what the heck I'm going to do with that :D