Ask Amy: A Toy Kitchen Brings Up Stereotype Questions

[minoanmiss]

. My husband and I have a daughter, “Emma.” She is 3. We are thoughtful and responsible parents (at least we think so).

We have a question about gift-giving.

Our daughter goes to a nursery school program a couple of mornings a week, and it’s going very well. While at school, she loves to play with a miniature kitchen set. It’s got a little sink and a pretend stove with pots and pans.

We told my sister that we are thinking about getting a version of this for our daughter for Christmas (my sister also has children), but she is strongly disapproving because, as she says, this sort of toy “reinforces gender stereotypes.”

Now we feel weird about it and decided to seek your take.

WONDERING PARENTS

A. Many parents are concerned about reinforcing gender stereotypes … right up until that moment when their toddler son really loves to play with his cousin’s toy bulldozer, or their daughter falls in love with a Tiny Tammy doll.
Are you willing to deny your child the joy and learning experience of playing with an object she really loves in order to please your sister, or to pat yourselves on the back about adhering consistently to your powerful ideals? I hope not.

In my opinion, you have absorbed the very real issue of gender stereotyping in a sideways fashion. The idea is not to deny your child toys that are stereotypically associated with their gender, but to expansively offer them toys and experiences that are typically associated with any gender.

You might think of play (like gender) as occurring across a spectrum that the child has the power and autonomy to determine as they go — not the parents (or, for that matter, the marketing departments of toy companies).

And so, if your son wants a Tiny Tammy doll, he should receive it and be encouraged/allowed to play with it, and if your daughter chooses to wash her toy bulldozer in her pretend kitchen sink, then more power to her.

The boundary I would draw (this Christmas and on into the future) is around toys that encourage violence or mimic weaponry. (And yes, we all know that your daughter can pretend her wiffleball bat is a gun, but at the end of the day, she knows it’s a wiffleball bat.)

Comments

I have Opinions about this one

[minoanmiss]

Is Sister one of those people who lives on protein bars and views cooking as suspiciously libertine? FFS.

1) There seems to be a trend where people try to give a child a gender-neutral upbringing by expunging everything feminine. There was a letter here awhile ago where parents anguished over their tiny daughter's love of sparkly fluffy dresses. Femininity Is Not The Enemy. The DENIGRATION of Femininity is one of the enemies, though.

2) The idea that giving a girl child a play kitchen dooms her to becoming a tradwife pisses me off.

3) Not least because I value my knowledge of cooking, I personally think as many people as possible should know how to cook. Toy kitchens for ALL THE CHILDREN! Maybe I'll start a foundation when I win the lottery [1].

[1] I don't play the lottery.

Re: I have Opinions about this one

[ioplokon]

Yes, I think the answer is to make sure the husband takes his turn doing the cooking and dishes in the toy kitchen... And the real one.

Re: I have Opinions about this one

[castiron]

1) Yes! This reminds me of the Dorothy Sayers essay "Are Women Human?" where she points out how women are treated as if their only opinions are those that arise from being female rather than those shared by all humans. Her example is someone saying "Men like to sit on this side of the bus because it's more comfortable with how the bus tilts with the camber of the road, while women sit there because they get a good view of the shops", as if women don't also find those seats more comfortable for the same reasons men do.

Re: I have Opinions about this one

[minoanmiss]

I love that essay. It's the Marked Group thing. People also assume that of other qualifiers like race and religion. I once said to a coworker, "eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you all day." He asked me if that were an African-American saying and I replied, "No, I got it from Terry Pratchett[1]." ahahahahaha.

[1] I didn't, actually -- it turned out when I Googled it to be by some French author. I think I heard it at a SF con where I also discussed Pratchett, hence the confusion.

[mrissa]

Everybody loves play kitchens. My godson was absolutely smitten with his.

[cimorene]

Yeah, I think all small children she's interested in play kitchens until enough messages from society penetrate for the boys to start shaming each other away from it.

[cereta]

In my opinion, you have absorbed the very real issue of gender stereotyping in a sideways fashion. The idea is not to deny your child toys that are stereotypically associated with their gender, but to expansively offer them toys and experiences that are typically associated with any gender.

Yes, yes, yes. I hate SO MUCH the definitions of feminist parenting that amount to "none of that icky girl stuff." No fluffy dresses; you can't climb trees in those! My daughter doesn't play with Barbie; she plays with cars and trucks! As if the whole message of Barbie isn't that you should be able to be a mechanic and wear pink if you want to.

And now I have to go watch the dance scene from Barbie.

[conuly]

As if the whole message of Barbie isn't that you should be able to be a mechanic and wear pink if you want to.

Barbie movies for kids - not the recent movie you're referring to, although that too - can be amazingly feminist, even the ones with all the princesses and stuff.

They know their audience, I guess.

[cereta]

Oh. Oh. I have SO MANY icons. I (re)fell for Barbie in a hard way when my daughter was part of that audience. They were like the anti-Pixar: movies full of female characters with maybe a random male love interest here or there.

PS Wanna see my feminist analysis of Barbie: Princess Charm School?

[azurelunatic]

At least one of them was written by Diane Duane. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450982/?ref_=nm_flmg_tp_t

[green_grrl]

The only benefit I’ve seen of sexism is that women (or very IDGAF men) who use pink tools don’t get them stolen or “accidentally” walked off with.

[harpers_child]

I know someone who works construction who spray paints his tools pink because he doesn't care and no one will steal them.

[leeshajoy]

A lot of people think that sexism is "this thing has no value, therefore we'll leave it to the women," when it's more often "this thing is associated with women, therefore it has no value."

[minoanmiss]

makes a note

[conuly]

All toddlers and preschoolers that I've ever met love toy kitchens.

Funny story: This is way back when my niblings were about 4 and 2. I was at a semi-structured event at the SI Children's Museum and some woman said something to me about how, gosh, her son wouldn't have any idea what to do with the toy cooking set in the room!

I turned my head halfway around and saw the kid playing with a toy skillet for a second before then putting toy food on a toy plate into the toy microwave.

And yes, I did point that out to her, but strangely she didn't really have a response.

[cereta]

Toy companies have gotten savvy about this. Toy kitchens are no longer marketed solely to girls (although there are stereotypically "girlier" versions, often): they're made in primary colors, with boys on the boxes. Even little cleaning sets have more gender-neutral versions. I suspect that a rise in organized day care has contributed to this: little boys are presented with toy kitchens absent a lot of the gender-panic parents can have, and if there's any force more powerful than gender-panic, it's parents' need for things that keep toddlers busy.

[ethelmay]

When I was a kid, a lot of classic toys weren't packaged in boy/girl versions because they were "obviously" for a boy or a girl already (and when I was a bit older there was a market for consciously gender-neutral stuff as well). So the toy kitchens were often in primary or natural colors then, too. I got my kids a secondhand toy sewing machine from the 1970s. The brand was Junior Miss and it had a girl on the box, but it was red and white and the girl was wearing a red turtleneck or something. An early 2000s equivalent would have been pink/purple/sparkly, which is all very well in itself, but as a signifier of Not for Boys makes me ill.

[movingfinger]

Of course toy kitchens are beloved of all children! The gendering problem happens in the real kitchen when Daddy doesn't do any cooking or washing-up or packing of lunches.

While the toy kitchen is pending, I hope they have a nice tupperware cabinet or drawer with some cheap plastic measuring cups and spoons and things the kid can play with.

[melannen]

LW, if your sister really wants to help your kid resist gender stereotyping (because yes! Her love for the kitchen very well may be based on teachers and other kids pushing the girls in that direction!) then what she should do is buy her some toy trucks to go with it. "I can do boy stuff too" is a much better message than "girl stuff is icky" anyway.

[azurelunatic]

Exactly!

And the parents might do well to ask "What are some of the things you want to play with at school but you don't get a chance to?" because that may turn up some of the "boy toys" but without leading the kid in any particular gendered direction.

[minoanmiss]

Her love for the kitchen very well may be based on teachers and other kids pushing the girls in that direction!

Or maybe she's interested in cooking? At that age 8 is a fair bit older than 3 but that was when I taught myself to cook because I've always found the process of making food interesting. I definitely played at cooking younger than that.

One of the great things about living in the future is thinking about who I'd be if I weren't cis female. I really think any possible variant of me would be interested in cooking [1], and sometimes it's been annoying dealing with people's belief that I cook to be Girly.

[1] Maybe not the alligator variant.

[full_metal_ox]

One of the great things about living in the future is thinking about who I'd be if I weren't cis female. I really think any possible variant of me would be interested in cooking [1], and sometimes it's been annoying dealing with people's belief that I cook to be Girly.

[1] Maybe not the alligator variant.

Ah, but Alligator! MinoanMiss would be a prestige ingredient forager, offering her fish and game Catch of the Day in return for the opportunity to taste the transformations wrought by human cookery. Maybe you’re a supplier for Tiana’s heirs (and how come the Disney Princess who’s canonically a chef doesn’t have a theme restaurant in the Magic Kingdom, particularly with authentic Creole and Cajun ingredients, chefs, waitstaff, and entertainers to be found right across the Gulf?)

[minoanmiss]

AHAHAHAHAHAbwee. Thank you for this

Sent from my iPhone

[katiedid717]

I've known quite a few boys who've had and LOVED toy kitchens. Just like I've known a lot of boys who had a toy vacuum, child-sized garden rake, and a box of dress-up clothes. These are toys that can help children learn actual life skills

[goljerp]

My son REALLY wanted a toy kitchen. We had (have) a small apartment, but found a small one which he LOVED. It was european, so had a washer/dryer too. The day he unboxed it, I think he spent as much time as possible with it. Even afterwards, it was a favorite toy for quite a while. He also had a small doll-sized stroller, which he would use to push his ball to the playground. (His decision).

[katiedid717]

There's a woman on TikTok who's been posting videos of her sons learning how to cook for a few years; they're 4 and 6 now. Her reasoning is that she didn't learn how to cook when she was growing up and has felt like she's very far behind because of it, so she's trying to teach her kids the life skills that they'll need while they're young. it also helps that the older kid showed a lot of interest in it

[bikergeek]

Obligatory meme:



Seriously, avoiding certain toys because they're stereotypically associated with a child's assigned-at-birth gender, is as bad as giving that child only toys associated with their assigned-at-birth gender.

There are certain discussions to be had here around things like whether Barbie dolls promote healthy body image to girls but those are discussions around other issues and specific toys.

Signed, a person who was never allowed to do anything or play with anything remotely designated as "for girls" as a boy-child, because toxic masculinity.

[minoanmiss]

Yes, exacrly.

[firecat]

This could all be resolved by redesigning the toy box so it says CELEBRITY CHEF KITCHEN SET instead of KITCHEN SET FOR GIRLS INCLUDING ‘OH HONEY YOU’RE HOME’ MARTINI GLASSES

[minoanmiss]

snerk