Putting kids in a box

Today's rant isn't about food. Sorry. I flipped casually through the coupons this morning and didn't manage to get mad about anything. Perhaps I was distracted. Perhaps the coupons were more boring than normal. I do have a couple of weeks of backlogged rantiness hanging around here, cluttering up the table, but I honestly might never get to it.

Today's rant is about Toys R Us, and their rampant sexism. I had to go shopping today... my first non-doctor-related outing since the baby was born. My older son's birthday is coming up, and I didn't feel like clicking around Amazon. I wanted to see things in person. So there I was, with my list of ideas I'd come up with, plus ideas he'd come up with. And I noticed for the first time that they (the store) had made official something I'd jokingly referred to for years... the "pink aisle" was now truly pink. I had reserved that term for the Barbie aisles, usually, but it could be used to describe any of the very typically-girly zones of the toy department. I have a daughter, but she was rarely interested in the items in the pink aisle. I suppose she played outside the box. When she was three her favorite take-wherever-we're-going items were plastic snakes, Buzz Lightyear, and fuzzy stuffed snakes. No dolls. She eventually went nuts for Polly Pocket and then My Little Ponies, but that was the extent of it.

I said I was shopping today for my son, though. So why was I in a pink aisle? Why did I notice that the end caps of the aisles literally spell it out in painful sexist detail now? ("boys" and "girls" as if the blue and pink weren't enough.)

Because my son wanted a toy coffeemaker for his restaurant. Last year I bought him the un-pinkest play kitchen I could find, because he loves to cook. He prefers real cooking, and would almost certainly prefer a real coffeemaker, but sometimes a mom has to insist on harder-to-break plastic. So I had to shop a pink aisle for him, and hope he doesn't mind a glittery purple coffeemaker. He probably won't. He luckily has no idea whatsoever that he's supposed to like certain things and not others. He has all the "right" boy toys- sturdy metal Tonka truck, balls, Indiana Jones play set, Star Wars blasters, football helmet, and Duplos. But he also has a little shopping bag, play food, his own apron (another thing that was hard to find in not-pink), and this Christmas he asked for and got a Littlest Pet Shop adoption center. It's pink. With frilly bits and flowers. He loves it, no matter what Toys R Us thinks.

How dare they compartmentalize our children? There's already enough societal bias and strong messages about what's "right" to play with, without them being so damn blatant about it. Ads with girls playing with dolls and boys playing with trucks make it very clear what Everyone thinks about things. We don't need to smack our kids in the face with it. My son can read already, and if I took him to Toys R Us, I'm not sure what he'd think about those labels. On the one hand, he's a strongly-opinionated boy, secure in his rightness... so he may just think they're wrong and move on. On the other hand, he very much likes to learn how the world works, what the rules are... so I can easily see him boxing away his own interests just to match what some stupid corporation thinks he should or shouldn't enjoy.

I find it very ironic that cooking is a pink aisle thing, anyway, considering the rampant sexism that still exists in the male-dominated world of professional chefs. Gah!

I'm not sure what to DO about this. If I were a more organized woman, I might try to organize a boycott or some such thing. But I honestly have no idea how long they've had those infuriating labels up. Possibly years. I don't go to Toys R Us much.

I just know that they really pissed me off. How dare they tell my children what to play with? How to correctly have fun? My kids get to be whoever the hell they want to be.

Oh, my daughter was with me today, and nicely asked for a little play set with a horse, some accessories, and a little girl. I was surprised with her choice and tried to talk her out of it... she never picks toys with people in them. She agreed that she usually doesn't, and said her room currently has a "shortage of humans." I laughed at the funny way she'd said it... and then really laughed when my darling daughter further explained why she wanted the little girl in the play set. Food. For the wild creatures the inhabit my daughter's playtime. A feeder human!! So, my girl has finally found a use for little dolls... ha ha ha!

Pot Roast

I know I didn't post a coupon rant yesterday... believe me, there's a good one in the works, whenever I get the chance to sit, type, and think all at the same time. See... I had a baby on Wednesday, so I'm a bit busy. :-)

I did, however, stubbornly cook dinner tonight. Just couldn't help myself. It wasn't exactly strenuous. I made pot roast, and it smells divine. Stuck some potatoes alongside for a nice slow bake and I'll probably end up delegating the grilling of a couple of cheese sandwiches for the kids, since they tend to think pot roast is TOO tender and therefore poisonous.

And sorry, no pic... the camera is full of baby pictures.