Help with gender research study..

[chickaddict]

When my sons were 3,4 and 6 I was working outside the home. I came home from work one day to find a little barbie doll on the kitchen table. Until that day I never really gave a thought to "gender specific toys". There was usually a little bit of everything in our playroom. Mine were the only boy children in the family among many girl cousins. The forgotton toys at family gatherings landed in the same toybox and I never gave it a second thought.

Until that day. Staring at the little barbie on the kitchen table it occurred to me at the time, that even though there were girl toys in the house. I had never actually seen one of the boys playing with one of them. So I asked DH, "Where did the barbie come from?" He explained that he had purchased happy meals for the boys that day and McDonalds' had run out of "boy toys". 3 Barbies had entered the house inside happy meals.

Moments later my 3 year old came flying through the kitchen. The following ensued:

mom - wow!! Did you get a new toy today?
son - yup
mom - Does she have a name?
son - barbie
mom - What game does barbie play?

At this point the child grabs barbie by the hair, winds her up, and aims her for the nearest doornob.


The moral of the story -
It doesn't matter whether you provide girl toys to boys or boy toys to girls. They will play with them as they will.



Along those same lines - I never purchased toy guns for my sons and wouldn't allow them to be received as gifts. I thought it would show violence approval. I was wrong.
It just didn't matter, they started making guns out of leggos, sticks or whatever they could find. And I already told you what happened to barbie. I seriously doubt the makers of barbie intended for her to be a projectile missile.

The bottom line is -
If you don't get your son a doll and he really wants one - he'll improvise
If you don't get your daughter the gun she wants - she'll improvise
and not getting an easy bake oven, regardless of the sex of the child that wants it, will result in the child making mud pies in the garden

you can't force a child to become anything other that what they will become


one mom's opinion

 

[Mahonri]

DW and I would say, our 6 boys should not play with dolls.

 

[Moxiechick]

Does anyone remember this from "Free to Be, You and Me"?

Basically, the Grandmother decides it is ok for Willaim to have a doll, because someday he will be a father, and having a doll will better prepare him for the role. Something to think about...

 

[yomama]

Quote:
Very well said,

A person will be what they will be, regardless of what toys they play with as a child. (another mom's opinion

)

 

[silkiechicken]

The biggest skew of using online polling is that the target group are online forum and networking individuals, who are prone to spending time taking polls. Did I mention I hated both courses of statistics?

An idea poll would have a random sampling of the population. Of course, the best way to qualify a poll, is just say where the poll was taken. Ie. A poll among college students taken in the common area at x university.

 

[Kat's Silly Chickens]

As PineappleMama said if it was a GI Joe it would be ok to society, but I left my son choose what he wanted to have as toys and he didn't grow up to be anything more than a young man.
And yomama has a strong point, so society needs to allow children be who they wish to be and stop forcing them to be what we think they should be.
They will rebel, they always do in some way or another.

 

[growinupinfl]

Quote:
I understand what you mean. But I wanted a random population sampling from random people across America. To limit it to my college would be limiting the types of people that answer it. Then it could be stated that it was only answered by college students most of which are under the age of 24 and most do not have children yet. So they would be inexperienced in the aspect of raising kids. So I have done everything in my power to make this as random as possible. Because the proof is going to come at a random community event that caters to people of all ages, sex's etc... At that point my son's will play with dolls and we will monitor the random populations reactions to boys playing with dolls. So it will be interesting.

Thanks again everyone

And for anyone else new to the link that doesn't know the poll we are talking about the link is below

[url http://www.snappoll.com/poll/345106.php][/url]

 

[silkiechicken]

In this case, just say that this poll was taken among the members of online forums.