Parents Confused About Daughter's Gender-Neutral Toys Policy

[conuly]

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: We have five grandchildren, two from one of our sons, and three from our daughter. We can buy anything reasonable for our son’s kids, but our daughter has forbidden us from buying any gender-specific toys for her girl and two boys. They’re only little kids, the oldest is five, and when they visit with their cousins or come to our house, they play with all different toys. It upsets our daughter because she says it will warp children to be around girl toys and boy toys.

Seems our own kids grew up just fine with gender-specific toys. How do we convince our daughter that there’s nothing wrong with the age-old practice? --- TRADITIONAL GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

DEAR TRADITIONAL GRANDMA AND GRANDPA: You may not agree with your daughter’s ideas, but she is the parent, and so long as her beliefs and policies don’t directly threaten the health and safety of your grandchildren, you need to respect her wishes.

Personally, my experience has been kids get the most out of toys when they have the freedom to choose what they want to play with — again, so long as safety comes first.

https://www.uexpress.com/ask-someone-elses-mom/2020/1/28/parents-confused-about-daughters-gender-neutral-toys

Comments

[conuly]

I actually have no idea what's going on here.

Either LW's daughter and son-in-law don't want their kids to be exposed to dolls or trucks AT ALL or LW wants to give the kids nothing but toy make-up kits and the more realistic style of toy gun and doesn't like being redirected towards Legos and play-doh.

Could go either way, honestly.

[likeaduck]

Maybe one of the kids actively dislikes or feels invalidated by getting assigned-sex-at-birth-coded toys and the parents fear the grandparents will not take gender-nonconformity well so "how about no gendered gifts" feels like an easier converation to have?

[kiezh]

That's a good point - the mom might be running interference so her kids don't have to confront their grandparents and get invalidated in person. Mom is in better shape, as an adult, to push back against "respect your elders means take whatever I decide to hand out."

Given how much they invalidate their daughter's concerns in the letter, and how dismissively they say "only little kids," I'm sure they'd argue that a little kid is too young to be aware of/hurt by gender stuff, even if the kid themself is saying otherwise.

[jadelennox]

There's also the issue that kids live in the world, and so by the time Grandchild is 5, they'll have been exposed to countless messages telling them they must love (blue and trucks | pink and bratz dolls), and the LW's daughter might want LW's house not to have and trucks or bratz dolls, to avoid the kids playing with the toys they feel societal pressure to prefer. (Which is probably a losing battle unless LW's kid is a homeschooling hermit with no books, television, or internet, but as the response said, it's her rules.)

(I say this only from having seen so many friends try to raise their kids in this way -- which I don't disagree with -- only to be horrified when the four-year-old says, with confidence "I know you're a girl because only girls have long hair" or "I can't wear a dress, silly, I'm a boy!" or what have you. Gender is like glitter; it gets everywhere and it's hard to vacuum it all out of the carpet.)

[cereta]

I always get a little suspicious when parents talk about "gender-neutral toys," because what we often see as gender-neutral is actually masculine-coded.

I dunno, maybe buy a toy kitchen or broom and encourage both boys and girls to play with them?

[redbird]

Meanwhile, the LW is assuming that "my kids grew up okay" means that their daughter thinks every aspect of her own upbringing--including gender-coded toys--was fine and shouldn't be changed, rather than that she came out okay even though her parents, like everyone's, were imperfect. "I want to do this differently" doesn't mean that she's accusing them of abuse, neglect, or even incompetence. They want to know how to convince their daughter that she's wrong; have they given her the chance to explain why she thinks they are?

Like conuly, I find this unclear. If, when the kids are at LW's house, all the children play with trucks, dolls, and blocks, I wonder what their daughter is thinking/objecting to. Or, when the kids are at their house, all the available toys are gender-coded, possibly with a side of someone telling the boys they shouldn't play with dolls or paint their nails.

[kiezh]

Yeah, that "my kids grew up just fine" is incredibly defensive and I have only ever heard it as a defense from people who are so deeply invested in their self-image as Good Parents that they react to questions (or other people's choices) as a personal attack. It is not actually a mark of a good parent.

I think it's extremely telling in this case that they complain about their daughter taking issue with their attitudes toward gender, but not their sons. And that they're completely uninterested in her reasons and dismiss anything she says on the subject as ridiculous.

The toys, as usual with the stated issue in an advice letter, are a red herring - it's about family power dynamics and who gets to decide What's Acceptable.

[purlewe]

this. I feel like there is more to this story.

[xenacryst]

An unreliable narrator? In an advice column? Well I never!

[conuly]

Usually. I suppose there's gotta be a first time for everything. I doubt this is it, but who knows?

[lavendertook]

Yup, that's it. it's not hard to parse this is what they're about with their "age-old practice" assertion and desire to control their daughter.

[kiezh]

Gee, I wonder if the underlying issue here isn't about toys at all, but about the grandparents' attitude that Tradition is Good, the traditions they're familiar with are of course age-old (o rly?), and that their children clearly took no harm from them (O RLY??).

Also there's the usual power-dynamics issues of "we want to do stuff to/with our grandkids that their parents don't approve, hey advice columnist, tell them they're wrong and should obey their elders unquestioningly!"

(I wonder how their daughter felt... about her parents' aggressively gendered attitudes... about how they treated her differently from her brothers... about what kinds of pain she experienced that she wants to save her children from. I wonder these things. The LWs do not wonder these things. They do not ask these questions. Everything Is Fine And They Were Great Parents. Such Ungrateful Children.)

[minoanmiss]

Yes, this. Ergh.

[teaotter]

"How do we convince our daughter that our way is better?"

I mean, if both ways are okay, then why should the daughter have to change her parenting?

I'm very suspicious of that phrasing about being able to buy "anything reasonable" for the others. So their daughter is being unreasonable (by limiting what they can buy for the grandkids)?

[tielan]

1. Seems our own kids grew up just fine with gender-specific toys

Considering LW's daughter - according to LW's phrasing - thinks that gender-specific toys 'warp children', then I would say the daughter did not grow up 'just fine with gender-specific toys'. There is obviously an objection there.


2. I am guessing that the daughter is trying to keep the specific gifts to individual children from being gendered. eg. From the LW, Grandson #1 gets Boy Toys, while Granddaughter #2 gets Girl Toys, and Grandson #3 gets Boy Toys. These toys then belong to the individual child, with attendant possessiveness of 'you can't touch that, it's mine!' And the possessiveness of 'my toy - MINE' is an effective barrier for play with non-gendered toys.

[conuly]

Considering LW's daughter - according to LW's phrasing - thinks that gender-specific toys 'warp children', then I would say the daughter did not grow up 'just fine with gender-specific toys'. There is obviously an objection there.

Yup.

[laurajv]

It’s classic Missing Reasons, isn’t it?