I grew up as a bit of a tomboy, playing with a wide variety of toys from barbies to meccano, and everything else in between. My favourite toys as a child tended to be gender-neutral things such as lego or playmobil – toys that involved building or lots of imagination.
I’m keen for Georgie (and any other future children we have) to grow into well-rounded individuals, and not to swamp them in gender-specific toys and colours. I really don’t want to live in a sea of pink plastic and dolls just because I have a little girl!
Happily, Georgie adores the big tub of duplo she got at Christmas, and the wooden train set has been a huge hit too. She got her fair share of girly toys too, don’t get me wrong – but her tea set from Santa is nicely balanced out by the fun noise making hammer she got too. I don’t want to forbid toys from one extreme or another, but instead make sure she has a wide variety of toys that aren’t all pink.
Another example of trying to keep things balanced is evident in our latest Asda shop. With baby 2 on the way we headed over to stock up on wipes & nappies for Georgie so we’re not caught short in the next few weeks, as well as all the things I needed for my hospital bag, and a box of size 1 nappies to have ready when we bring the baby home. There are some great offers on toys and books while the baby event is on, and so we treated Georgie to some new toys in the 2 for £10 deal while we were there.. a dolls stroller and a CAT dump truck. You can’t get much more of an extreme opposition of gender stereotyping than that combination! Unsurprisingly, our easy going little girl loves them both…
Do you try to keep things neutral in your house or do you have a girly girl/blokey boy on your hands?
