Further Proof For As Much As I Am Doing Wrong, I’m Doing Something Right*
It’s time to pick a winner, for the FIRST contest where one of you won my friend Chris Mancini’s book: Pacify Me. The winner, per Random Number Generator/Comment-Thingy, was: Chris in PHX! The contest for Stef’s book runs until next week, so get a MOVE ON, yo. (you don’t have to be my friend on Savvy Source, just join my group and comment over HERE on the contest post.)
Now I’m going to have to start buying stuff to give you guys because that was fun. Dave is groaning somewhere.
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When I was in college, there was this big thing about gender roles and gender stratification in children and how we shouldn’t limit tiny minds by dressing boys in all blue and girls in all pink. Or buying little girls get in the damn kitchen and make us some motherfucking pie while we buy our sons mini-work benches and cars.
It makes sense.
And both Ben and Alex have dolls and a small dollhouse, and Alex had pink binkies (while he liked binkies) and if he’d had a preference for pink clothes, well, I’d have let him wear them. The only reason I dressed him in blue was because I got a little tired of telling people–even in head to toe blue–that he was a boy, not a girl. For some reason, they assumed he was a girl. Poor kid.
Anyway.
For Christmas this year, I’d bought my daughter this (for anyone who doesn’t want to click, it’s a toddler to preschooler kitchen set) not because she’s a girl or anything, but because I know that they’ll ALL go wild for it. Trust me when I tell you it’s not any sort of “women belong in the kitchen” because I can barely be bothered to order takeout. I live on cereal and coffee mostly.
Well, I’d ventured to the seventh circle of hell to try and buy it (see above link) but the only one that they had in stock was so janky that I ordered it online AND PAID SHIPPING, which normally makes my cheap heart hurt so much that I will go to any lengths to avoid it. It came in the mail yesterday in the box that cheerfully shows precisely what’s inside and, it being Ass Cold here now, I brought it inside with the help of my eldest yesterday.
(by “help of my eldest” I mean that I directed him to carry it inside. Heh)
I left it in the hallway to warm up before bringing it up to my bedroom for a couple of minutes.
In that time, my two boys swarmed the box like sharks, BEGGING me to open it and making me swear up and down that they would have the opportunity to play with it. I explained that they’d certainly be able to play once Christmas came, and they accepted that before they scampered off, wrestling hand-over-foot like a couple of puppies.
I cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
So, while I’m certainly fucking them up when I laugh during sex talks and while I bare I my soul on The Internet, it’s nice to know that sometimes I do right by my kids.
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I need more hilarious photoblogging ideas, yo.
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*What that “something” is is to be determined.
**Also, Ben can live with here forever and be my cook.
You rock, and so will your kids. Your sons’ wives (or husbands) will thank you! 😉
I remember when I got my oldest son (who is only 5 now, so this was like 3 yrs ago) a kitchen set for christmas one year and told people at work about it, I got a hard time from like 5 women I never would have expected it from. Now mind you, he was only 2 at the time, but one of those bitches told me getting him a kitchen was gonna turn him gay. WTF?
by this logic….all the Chefs at all the four star restaurants are women??
As long as they remember that when deciding on which nursing home to put you in, you’re all good.
It’s funny though, most boys will still gravitate towards cars and tools, and girls towards dolls no matter what you expose them to. I always believe stereotypes exist for a reason.
However, kitchen play food is awesome for EVERY kid. I just hope you don’t Ben and Alex don’t end up standing over Mimi directing her to cook them some “motherfucking pies”. 🙂
I’m a firm believer in stereotypes, how can anything funny and true not be good?
My boys would totally love a play kitchen! They play with their baby sister’s Little People farm all the time.
Mea has this same exact kitchen! It is full of the awesome, since it grows, and makes noise! She was about 18 months when we got it, and is still a favorite toy, even now at 3 1/2.
My girl is in daycare with a pack of boys – I went to pick her up one day and it was her with 11 boys. Naturally, this means she is more interested in Lightning McQueen than Princesses. I don’t think, though, that it’s all about her daily companions. She watched movies pretty intently, but when I put The Little Mermaid on, she started talking when it started and she didn’t stop talking until it ended. I just don’t think she’s very girly. So she’s getting the Lightning McQueen tent instead of the princess tent.
But, everyone loves the kitchen! Check any party – that’s where everyone gathers…
My Youngest has both the play kitchen AND 3 dolls. Boy dolls mind you. But dolls none the less. And a stroller, diaper bag and all the fixins’ for them. He even made them little shoe-box cribs. Why? Why not I say. What could be the harm. And frankly, if I squint just right – he could be a daughter. Is that so wrong?
omg that’s hysterical. My sister in law had a princess birthday bash for my niece, and she told my nephew to play with her for a while, while she got everything ready. She walked upstairs to find my nephew in FULL PRINCESS REGALIA, long blond wig and all, and he said “what?! I told you I’d play with her, and this is gonna make her happy!!” I died laughing, and there is picture evidence, and I WILL be showing it at his wedding/first date.
I love our kitchen playset… but the 100 piece plastic food set is the work of the devil.
My six year old nephew told us the other day that we will have to get a new kitchen for Meg, because she can’t play with his…
May your daughter grow up to be a great broad like her mom and… oh what the hell, that goes for your boys, too.
My boys loved the toy kitchen, but in their world Mom makes the dinner they *must* eat and Daddy makes the chocolate chip cookies they aren’t allowed to stuff themselves with. So obviously men are much in the kitchen than women. No one ever says ‘get your ass in the kitchen and make me some meatloaf.’
I have a black vintage purse that my son loves to fill with bouncy balls. Also, a floppy pink sunhat he wears while playing his hand-held video game? Why? I do not know. In all seriousness, he’s only recently started to point out, “that’s a GIRL toy,” and what not. But I think he’d still play with pretty much anything.
I am of the order takeout or eat a sandwich variety – hubby cooks. Yet also bought (pink) camo outfits for the girls.
They have a baby kitchen set (plastic teaspoons and a soft rattling pot) which so far besides something to shove in their mouths or to make noise means nothing to them.
Drives me nuts when people ask if they’re boys because “they’re not in pink.” Apparently every other color is reserved for boys? (Orange outfit with purple flowers and we will still get asked)
My son loves cooking in his play kitchen and since I do virtually all of the cooking for our family he will probably grow up thinking that cooking is a ‘mans’ job ! :p
Youve done a great job! My boy has all kinds of stupid ideas “only girls cook (not mommy!)” “boys don’t fold laundry (mommy doesn’t either)” Luckily, he will never have a girlfriend.
For a photoblog, I would like to see an adventure in laundry. Partly because my man does all of that, and mostly cause I don’t have to, and most importantly, I could point and laugh. It’s fun to be mean sometimes. I can’t help it.
What kind of ideas for photoblogging? You know I love the photoblogging. I can help with this. I CAN BE HELPFUL, I SWEAR.
I think it is all great! One year my daughter got a kitchen set and tools from Home Depot. She played with each for years! I am not friends with people who would judge boys playing kitchen! It is FUN to play restaurant.
OK, you NEED to get a bell. Go to Office Max and grab a bell and some waitress pads – $10 bucks max for both. The fun they will have playing restaurant and banging on that bell and yelling “order’s up” will be worth it, trust me!! Even if after 2 weeks you want to throw that bell out, it is still fun.
We have a bell. Can you tell?
I have a suspicion that your random number generator is the baby pointing at a sheet full of numbers to pick the winner……
WE have that kitchen! Got it for Claire and she loved it, and it was perfect because you can make it small for small babies and then make it tall for toddlers. We love it, but your commenter who said the plastic food was the work of the devil is right. You have to get it but it will fucking kill you to keep it picked up.
Hilarious photoblogging ideas? How about photoblogging your next adventure to Target? Since I don’t have one where I live.
A photoblog of Dr. House watching you wrap Christmas presents.
My three sons (and no daughters) ALL love their play kitchen. They ADORE it. There is no such thing as a girl toy at our house.
When my mother asked what they would like for Christmas this year, I suggested aprons with their names on them, and maybe a toy vacuum for the 2yo. She went berserk, and said “What would people think???” Um, they would think you bought the kids stuff they actually wanted…
That’s such a tough one. We try doing equal opportunities gifts, but the kids don’t like it. Son wants Spiderman and daughter wants dolly. Hard to ignore.
First off, what are you doing out of the kitchen? Get in there & make me a sandwich woman!
Second, I swore up & down I wouldn’t give in to any gender roles, but since everyone thought my daughter was a boy, head to toe pink notwithstanding, I did do bows & suchly.
DH’s Grandmother flipped when I said she wanted a tool set for Xmasa few years ago. What is she going to think if my son wants to wear a tutut? ’cause I would totally let him.
My daughter (alomst 5) claims that my son’s (6 months) favorite color is pink, but that he can’t play with dolls because he’s a boy. Hmm…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LNwUjd0gLo
Boys NEED dolls!
Love this. You’re definitely doing something right (and I think probably more than one something).
My son gets all kinda pissed off when he sees the Easy Bake oven commercials. Though he wants to bake cupcakes (because what kid doesn’t) he refuses to let himself have fun because it is a “girl toy”
Ultimately, I wind up making cupcakes with him with the “Adult” oven but I know it’s not nearly as fun as if it were a toy !
I love that you have this mentality. Insisting boys should only play with tools and hot wheels is the reason we have meat heads driving around in those monster trucks with the balls hanging from the trailer hitch!
Just sayin’
I got my boy My Little Ponies because that’s what he wanted and I was teased about it by my family. I always tried to let my boy know we’re all equal.
Hey, this just means the chance that at least one of your children will be able to hang around and cook for you in your old age is risen!!
Both my kids were so deep into their gender roles when they popped out of me they never stood a chance. I tried to get my boy dolls, kitchen sets (he did like to bang the lids of pots and pans together) and other gender neutral toys (not that those were) but he wanted trucks and trains. Nothing but trucks and trains. In fact I blew his college tuition money on Thomas the Tank Engine trains and track, I regret it now since he leaves for college next year, but at the time it kept him occupied and amused and I was grateful.
My daughter won’t have anything to do with boy toys (I’ll be thankful for this in about ten years), boy colors (blue, green, tan, brown), boy books, boy movies (and there are a lot of them) and boy food (don’t even ask, I don’t get it myself). She is a girl and don’t anyone forget it.
Luckily for me they both have taken an interest in cooking so when the time comes they will both not only be able to cook for me but feed me as well (it wasn’t always my plan to have them look after me when it’s time for me to go to a home, in fact I used to make them promise to ship me off whenever they felt it was time, but now I think they deserve me when I am old, feeble and drooling).
My mom finally caved and let my grandma buy me an easy bake oven after I baked the cat’s food in the real oven…at 500 degrees…in plastic bowls. Yeah….
http://www.theladyslounge.com
We had several play kitchens throughout the young childhoods of my kids.
I think Joshua needs one now.
Thanks for the Christmas idea! You are so totally full of The Awesome just for that!
Yes, I admit it, I haven’t bought one thing for Christmas yet, but I have a really good excuse (Joshua in the hospital), so it’s okay, right?
My girls do tend toward dolls & princessy things while my boys gravitate to legos, cars & making guns out of anything they can, but their love for kitchen cooking stuff was universal.
My son had a little shopping cart when he was younger and a doll house (that was the bribe to use the potty). Now, his little sister plays with them and she is also getting a kitchen for Christmas this year!
My boys LOVE their toy kitchen. The train table? Whatever. (I know that will not be the case with you.) But the kitchen…best toy ever.
I am raising three boys and every damn one of them will cook and do it well and their wives will love me. (They will hate me, but not because their husbands can’t cook. Because I am a bitch.) But. Yours will love you. So. To our future daughter-in-laws. You’re welcome.
I was just part of a discussion on kid gender stereotypes on another blog recently. I think it sucks when people label their kids and refuse to let them do/like/be certain things because of the genitalia they are sporting. Monkey plays with the toy kitchen waaaay more than Boo does and while he likes boy things (cars and trains and crap) he is just as happy to be playing house with Boo, vacuuming and taking care of their baby dolls. I’m cool with that. 🙂
I love cereal. That is all I have to say about that. I am absolutely not admitting to a cereal fetish, nor am I confessing the 15 boxes of cereal in my kitchen.
I think it is great that your boys are cool with pink. Unless Sebastian gravitates toward it though, he’ll always be in blue just because it is Chris and I’s favorite color. If he’d been a girl he still would have been in blue. Plus Chris is funny about girl things for boys. He still hasn’t recovered from his mom putting him in a pink bunny suit for Halloween and now having to tell the story of how cute he was to anyone who will sit still on Halloween with her.
Ok, it’s a little labor-intensive, but a Photoblogging idea (from your twitter post): the maiden voyage of your tiny panty sailboat. A small, toy boat. Christen it as you see fit…maybe a tiny liquor bottle broken over it’s bow, hrrmmm? 😉 Then slip that sucker into Lake Michigan (or the Chi river, or the gutter after a good rain, whatever works best) with a prestamped, self addressed postcard and instructions on mailing it back with info on where it wound up.
Did they ever make you do that in elementary school, the attach-a-postcard-to-a-balloon thing, or was that just my bizarre teacher?
I’m dying to see if anyone would admit to being the Panty Pirate and send the postcard back.
Plus, it beats photoblogs of cattle getting fattened up for slaughter, that’s creepy. Sorry, Pioneer Woman and fans, you guys are great and all, the cattle just give me the heebs.
Epicurious, yo.
Boo wants one of those for Christmas. Even though he already has 3.
Oh and a real working Taxi.
I’m glad my son isn’t the only one who wanted a dollhouse and a kitchen….Jackass (his father) said we should call it an “action figure apartment” instead of a dollhouse though….
Oh, thanks for the great christmas present idea. That’s what Aunt Becky is there for, right? I was thinking of getting the little house that is a wall thingy. Oh here this – http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2341&e=detail&pid=30446&pcat=bulnl. But now I’m thinking maybe the kitchen. My daughter is about the same age as Mimi, and I have a son who is almost 4, so while it would technically be HER gift, I know who would get more use out of it right now. He is getting a bike, so I want to be fair and get her something kinda big. But I’m torn because I don’t want any more toys to clean up. Ugh. Whaddya think?
Hell yes! I loved my kitchen set, and the grocery cart with extra cardboard foodstuffs that went with it, and so did my brother! I can’t wait to buy my little boy a kitchen playset; besides the slide or horsey, it’s always the most popular toy in the nursery, whether at church or daycare.
Also, Mommies may not want to let their boys grow up to be cowboys, but a chef is an entirely different matter.
Unfortunately for me, my boy has no interest in the kitchen or any other area of the house. I would have given anything for him to enjoy all of that, but alas he would rather wrestle someone to the ground or shoot at something with his laser gun! Oh well, I also seem to have the girliest girls ever born, not a one of them are interested in sports (other than track), or cars. 🙁
Wow, what a really great quality post. In theory I would love to write as well as this also – it takes me time and lots of effort to formulate a good post… but what can I say… I put it off for ages and then never seem to get anything written.
I love that kitchen and had I seen it earlier, I could have added it to our son’s list. Listen, I taught my son this morning what a sous chef is…and hope he learns to love the kitchen.
Your kids have a rockin’ Mom. I did too and I turned out beautifully…LOL!
I love how children can skip across gender lines and back again. My son is likely to spend the morning zipping rubber bands across the house from any number of DIY shooters, then slip on some princess high heels, three dresses and a pink hat, and clomp around the house with his sister.
My daughter is likely to do a few dump runs with her Hess truck, try and shoot a rubber band, accidentally shoot herself and then push a few hundred “friends” around in her doll stroller.
I looove when boys like “typically girl” things, but I love EVEN MORE when girls love boy things… like sports and not princesses. It makes my heart warm. 🙂
All kids love kitchens…they don’t know you can sweat alot in them yet and get burned. Great gift…
All three of our boys LOVED playing with the kitchen. (raspberry sound here) to the people that think a kitchen is a “girl’s toy”! Guess they wouldn’t approve of my FIL giving his granddaughters tool boxes for their 16th birthday either!!
We had one of those for our son, because he’s always been obsessed with cooking. I never even thought of it as being a girl toy. It surely wasn’t pink. Since he was a wee one, he loved to help stir and peel things, and he rolls out the best damn meatballs.
He had one of the grocery store things, too, because the little freak loves to go grocery shopping. Of course, he goes with his father, because I won’t be caught dead in one of those hell holes…
You seem like a wonderful Mom to me. Absolutely wonderful!
My boys had a play kitchen, too. And a fake McDonald’s drive thru with a grill, deep-fryer and McFlurry maker. Cuz we’re high class like that. They played with that stuff for years.
Zack has a kitchen and a shopping cart. I’m all about letting him play with what he likes.