Among the numerous gifts my daughter received for Christmas were several baby dolls, a baby crib and a make-believe kitchen. I am still not sure how I feel about this. I suppose my misgivings are due to the sudden realization that I am indeed raising a girly-girl, despite my intentions.
In my life before parenting I always imagined that I would have a perfectly gender non-biased child. My kid, boy or girl, would play with dump trucks and dollies and be totally oblivious to gender roles or stereotypes. Now I actually have a kid who plays with dump trucks and dollies, except that the number of dollies far overwhelm the number of dump trucks. In fact, the dump truck she does have is pink and hauls around pretend diamonds.
I guess now I'll never know whether gender roles are truly learned or inherent. I've already polluted the experiment with frilly dresses and pink things. I'm comforted in my failure though by the sweet look on my daughter's face when she picks up her dolly and gives her a hug and pats her on the back. It doesn't so much matter whether I taught her to do that or if she picked it up on her own. She still has plenty of time to learn that her life does not have to be tied to the goings-on of a household unless she chooses it to be. For as exciting as it is to watch her explore her everyday surroundings, I am even more excited to watch her explore all the other possibilities that life has to offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment