I too was brought up by parents that tried to break the gender norms of the times, I was born in the late 60s. However, it was my father who was the main pusher and his view was that girls could do anything boys did and should. So I was encouraged with chemistry sets and boys toys. Not that I liked dolls anyway. But he expected me to like physics and chemistry and maths all the way to university level. Choosing art and English lit infuriated him. Choosing to be a teacher and not an engineer infuriated him. Luckily I had a mother whose quiet feminism was of the choice variety and I was able to peruse at least some of my desires.
With my own, now grown children, I gave them choice all the time (the only thing I banned were guns that looked like replica guns - so nerf or water guns were allowed). Out of 2 girls and a boy, the eldest girl liked the train sets, and then Harry Potter, and also Barbies. The boy liked bay blade battles and also the ancient Greeks and then Lord of the Rings and reading, the middle child liked Japan and China dolls, and green never pink, and then anime and Studio Gibli. They are all feminists, they are all politically aware, all anti patriarchy, anti capitalist, anti misogyny, anti oppression etc. They fight for other peoples rights. They come right in the end.
Sounds like you did a wonderful job! and I agree- mine are still relatively young- 13, 10 and 6 but older two are already losing interest in the weapons stuff and finding new interests to replace it. thanks so much for commenting.
What I take from this wonderful piece is that it not so much what our parents (and we as parents do) as it is being mindful and courageous. Because mistakes are going to be made in the content. But kids learn by observing us. If they see us wrestling with ideas and norms they learn to do the same. That your mother gave you a capacity for critical thinking may be the most important gift a parent can give their child. And one that our society needs more of today.
I’ve got a 10-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, and I battle this constant balance with my son much more frequently than with my daughter.
My daughter adored dinosaurs at 3, so we ended up with tons of dinosaur things. It was a bit challenging to find dinosaurs in her favorite color, purple, but not impossible. I passed on my old dolls and she ignored them, but played with the My Little Ponies. (The Friendship is Magic show is excellent, so that helped get her interested and made me happy!) She switched to loving magical creatures “but not unicorns, why is everything unicorns?!?” and so our house has been dragon, gryphon, mythology central for 6 years. She’s hitting the age of all the girls around her starting to experiment with makeup and obsessing over Taylor Swift, and so far she’s not too interested in TS and has zero interest in makeup if it doesn’t make her look like a magical creature. Excellent, I can’t afford a makeup and TS obsession! 😆
When my son arrived, other than a huge supply of hand-me-down boy clothes from several friends with boys, we didn’t really add anything. I figured he’d play with the toys we had and we’d add based on his interests. Which, he definitely plays with the dinos and magical creatures and gender neutral toys. For quite a while he was obsessed with the play kitchen. He loved fire trucks and construction trucks pretty much since he could point at them, so the boy truck love stereotype was accurate in his case. But as he’s hit preschool, it’s become increasingly difficult to tell if his new interests are due to society or his own personality. He used to love Skye from Paw Patrol, but now he likes Marshall and Chase. He watches too much violence for a 5-year-old IMO because it’s challenging to keep him from watching fight scenes if his 10-year-old sister is watching something age appropriate for her but not for him, so we’ve given in to his super hero and power rangers fascination and focused on reminding him that it’s pretend fighting, fighting/killing in real life is not the same and really not good.
I try to find ways to make sure he’s still getting the social-emotional and friendship lessons that are ubiquitous in girls’ shows, books, etc. but are so lacking in much of the media aimed at boys. It’s really challenging! He loves Spidey and His Amazing Friends and SuperKitties on Disney+, both of which are really good at including those messages in a way that’s appealing to kids who love more action, but as he starts to age out of those shows, the media gets increasingly violent and dark. Obviously we can limit that to some extent and lean on shows/books that are more gender neutral, but it’s frustrating as a parent that the media landscape aimed at boys is so saturated with violence and has so few shows where characters use emotional intelligence and emotional regulation to solve problems. No wonder we are hearing about our tween and teen boys struggling with emotions (and acting poorly to their female peers) when we as a society are giving them the message that masculinity = violence.
Thanks so much for commenting. It's so true- i write about this a lot in my new book- BOYMOM and made a similar point about the shows/ books etc in this essay for the NYT a while back...
Terrific. I don’t have sons but as a teacher of kids, I ask them how it feels to be physically hurt and then try to get them to make the connection between that and the aggressive behavior and weapons you talk about. How tragically ironic is the telenovela reaction by kids to being accidentally run into or scraping their knees in the playground and then enacting murder in their video games. Horror upon horror. So grateful to you and inspired by your brilliant thinking and voice.
Hi, I am based in India and am mom to a 20-yr old son and a 16-yr old daughter. I had similar dilemmas as you, especially as the conversation around gender grew louder in the world around us. A defining moment in 2016 was a very public rape case that was even discussed in my son's classroom when he was just eight. Nerf battles were popular, but I think that because we never gave up trying to draw my son into discussions about various political subjects, including gender, he has grown into a thinking and caring adult. I believe that progressive parenting helps despite the broader conditioning, but it is not a protection against all the patriarchal traps that young men land into. I love your writing and will surely buy the new book!
I'm a feminist raising two boys, on a cattle ranch in rural Oregon...
I just read my oldest The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. My friend had complained about how sexist it was a couple years back when her oldest listened to it on tape. I thought about skipping it, but it brought me soo much joy as a kid and I wanted to share that with my kids. When we got to the part where Lucy didn't get a sword, I remembered to say "This book was written along time ago, and they had some weird views about women." That script is pretty well broken into my mind. But then I realized that I hadn't addressed the fact that boys probably don't want to fight and go to war. So I made sure to bring that up. But I realized that I don't have the script for that embedded in me the way that I have "Girls can do anything". And I need it.
There are so many messages about what Men are in the atmosphere around me. The whole be tough, don't cry, that didn't really hurt - is very real - and I live someplace that isn't remotely woke. My husband is pretty bought into them, I haven't really examined them yet and I'm passing them onto my boys... Arggg!!
I did discourage my son from picking pink shoes, when he was little. I didn't feel like I had enough bandwidth to deal with the comments I knew we would get... But now I feel guilty for not just buying them and trying to change the narrative. Maybe I'm not enough of a politicized parent?
I'm part of a homeschool group where everyone else is an evangelical Christian. Maybe I need stand up for things more - especially when they start knocking the high school rainbow club -but also I'm truly grateful for some kids for my kid to run around the park and play pirates and police with...
One of the things that stuck with me from Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men was his assertion that based on inherent aptitude, men are more likely to want to be engineers, and that you’d expect only 30% of engineers to be women given men and women’s inherent interests, but actually only 10% of engineers are women, so it can be the case that there’s both an inherent tendency toward one type of work, and also discrimination and societal pressures are reducing the number of women taking that work. (You’d have to ask him where those numbers come from, but the concept rings true to me.)
I don’t believe we’re all blank slates upon which society molds us into these gender stereotypes, I do think men are clearly more tolerant of risk, more violent, and tend toward things rather than people, but the degree to which kids are railroaded who don’t conform to those stereotypes really isn’t clear. Both my sons when they were younger loved female characters (Daisy Duck for my older, Abbey from Sesame Street for my younger) and we found it impossible to get clothing with those characters on without just buying girls’ clothes (which is what we did). Kids need non judgmental spaces to figure out what they like, whether that be the stereotypical likes or ones more outside the typical.
Where can I find the study that “boys who had played mostly with stereotypically “boys’ toys” as children were significantly more likely to hold a range of sexist views as adults”?
I too was brought up by parents that tried to break the gender norms of the times, I was born in the late 60s. However, it was my father who was the main pusher and his view was that girls could do anything boys did and should. So I was encouraged with chemistry sets and boys toys. Not that I liked dolls anyway. But he expected me to like physics and chemistry and maths all the way to university level. Choosing art and English lit infuriated him. Choosing to be a teacher and not an engineer infuriated him. Luckily I had a mother whose quiet feminism was of the choice variety and I was able to peruse at least some of my desires.
With my own, now grown children, I gave them choice all the time (the only thing I banned were guns that looked like replica guns - so nerf or water guns were allowed). Out of 2 girls and a boy, the eldest girl liked the train sets, and then Harry Potter, and also Barbies. The boy liked bay blade battles and also the ancient Greeks and then Lord of the Rings and reading, the middle child liked Japan and China dolls, and green never pink, and then anime and Studio Gibli. They are all feminists, they are all politically aware, all anti patriarchy, anti capitalist, anti misogyny, anti oppression etc. They fight for other peoples rights. They come right in the end.
Sounds like you did a wonderful job! and I agree- mine are still relatively young- 13, 10 and 6 but older two are already losing interest in the weapons stuff and finding new interests to replace it. thanks so much for commenting.
What I take from this wonderful piece is that it not so much what our parents (and we as parents do) as it is being mindful and courageous. Because mistakes are going to be made in the content. But kids learn by observing us. If they see us wrestling with ideas and norms they learn to do the same. That your mother gave you a capacity for critical thinking may be the most important gift a parent can give their child. And one that our society needs more of today.
thank you so much for these lovely words. And totally agree on the critical thinking piece. So important in terms of our own agency.
I’ve got a 10-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy, and I battle this constant balance with my son much more frequently than with my daughter.
My daughter adored dinosaurs at 3, so we ended up with tons of dinosaur things. It was a bit challenging to find dinosaurs in her favorite color, purple, but not impossible. I passed on my old dolls and she ignored them, but played with the My Little Ponies. (The Friendship is Magic show is excellent, so that helped get her interested and made me happy!) She switched to loving magical creatures “but not unicorns, why is everything unicorns?!?” and so our house has been dragon, gryphon, mythology central for 6 years. She’s hitting the age of all the girls around her starting to experiment with makeup and obsessing over Taylor Swift, and so far she’s not too interested in TS and has zero interest in makeup if it doesn’t make her look like a magical creature. Excellent, I can’t afford a makeup and TS obsession! 😆
When my son arrived, other than a huge supply of hand-me-down boy clothes from several friends with boys, we didn’t really add anything. I figured he’d play with the toys we had and we’d add based on his interests. Which, he definitely plays with the dinos and magical creatures and gender neutral toys. For quite a while he was obsessed with the play kitchen. He loved fire trucks and construction trucks pretty much since he could point at them, so the boy truck love stereotype was accurate in his case. But as he’s hit preschool, it’s become increasingly difficult to tell if his new interests are due to society or his own personality. He used to love Skye from Paw Patrol, but now he likes Marshall and Chase. He watches too much violence for a 5-year-old IMO because it’s challenging to keep him from watching fight scenes if his 10-year-old sister is watching something age appropriate for her but not for him, so we’ve given in to his super hero and power rangers fascination and focused on reminding him that it’s pretend fighting, fighting/killing in real life is not the same and really not good.
I try to find ways to make sure he’s still getting the social-emotional and friendship lessons that are ubiquitous in girls’ shows, books, etc. but are so lacking in much of the media aimed at boys. It’s really challenging! He loves Spidey and His Amazing Friends and SuperKitties on Disney+, both of which are really good at including those messages in a way that’s appealing to kids who love more action, but as he starts to age out of those shows, the media gets increasingly violent and dark. Obviously we can limit that to some extent and lean on shows/books that are more gender neutral, but it’s frustrating as a parent that the media landscape aimed at boys is so saturated with violence and has so few shows where characters use emotional intelligence and emotional regulation to solve problems. No wonder we are hearing about our tween and teen boys struggling with emotions (and acting poorly to their female peers) when we as a society are giving them the message that masculinity = violence.
Thanks so much for commenting. It's so true- i write about this a lot in my new book- BOYMOM and made a similar point about the shows/ books etc in this essay for the NYT a while back...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/opinion/boys-gender-books-culture.html
And I really believe it is harder for boys now to break out of gender roles than girls for so many reasons.
Brilliant piece. Articulated so much of what I feel I’m trying to figure out daily (my kids are very similar ages to yours). Thank you for writing it
Terrific. I don’t have sons but as a teacher of kids, I ask them how it feels to be physically hurt and then try to get them to make the connection between that and the aggressive behavior and weapons you talk about. How tragically ironic is the telenovela reaction by kids to being accidentally run into or scraping their knees in the playground and then enacting murder in their video games. Horror upon horror. So grateful to you and inspired by your brilliant thinking and voice.
ah this is lovely- thank you! And thank you for the great work you are doing too!
Hi, I am based in India and am mom to a 20-yr old son and a 16-yr old daughter. I had similar dilemmas as you, especially as the conversation around gender grew louder in the world around us. A defining moment in 2016 was a very public rape case that was even discussed in my son's classroom when he was just eight. Nerf battles were popular, but I think that because we never gave up trying to draw my son into discussions about various political subjects, including gender, he has grown into a thinking and caring adult. I believe that progressive parenting helps despite the broader conditioning, but it is not a protection against all the patriarchal traps that young men land into. I love your writing and will surely buy the new book!
Oh thank you so much!
I love this essay sooo much.
I'm a feminist raising two boys, on a cattle ranch in rural Oregon...
I just read my oldest The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. My friend had complained about how sexist it was a couple years back when her oldest listened to it on tape. I thought about skipping it, but it brought me soo much joy as a kid and I wanted to share that with my kids. When we got to the part where Lucy didn't get a sword, I remembered to say "This book was written along time ago, and they had some weird views about women." That script is pretty well broken into my mind. But then I realized that I hadn't addressed the fact that boys probably don't want to fight and go to war. So I made sure to bring that up. But I realized that I don't have the script for that embedded in me the way that I have "Girls can do anything". And I need it.
There are so many messages about what Men are in the atmosphere around me. The whole be tough, don't cry, that didn't really hurt - is very real - and I live someplace that isn't remotely woke. My husband is pretty bought into them, I haven't really examined them yet and I'm passing them onto my boys... Arggg!!
I did discourage my son from picking pink shoes, when he was little. I didn't feel like I had enough bandwidth to deal with the comments I knew we would get... But now I feel guilty for not just buying them and trying to change the narrative. Maybe I'm not enough of a politicized parent?
I'm part of a homeschool group where everyone else is an evangelical Christian. Maybe I need stand up for things more - especially when they start knocking the high school rainbow club -but also I'm truly grateful for some kids for my kid to run around the park and play pirates and police with...
I'm supper excited to read your book.
Ah thank you so much! I relate so deeply to all of this!
One of the things that stuck with me from Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men was his assertion that based on inherent aptitude, men are more likely to want to be engineers, and that you’d expect only 30% of engineers to be women given men and women’s inherent interests, but actually only 10% of engineers are women, so it can be the case that there’s both an inherent tendency toward one type of work, and also discrimination and societal pressures are reducing the number of women taking that work. (You’d have to ask him where those numbers come from, but the concept rings true to me.)
I don’t believe we’re all blank slates upon which society molds us into these gender stereotypes, I do think men are clearly more tolerant of risk, more violent, and tend toward things rather than people, but the degree to which kids are railroaded who don’t conform to those stereotypes really isn’t clear. Both my sons when they were younger loved female characters (Daisy Duck for my older, Abbey from Sesame Street for my younger) and we found it impossible to get clothing with those characters on without just buying girls’ clothes (which is what we did). Kids need non judgmental spaces to figure out what they like, whether that be the stereotypical likes or ones more outside the typical.
Where can I find the study that “boys who had played mostly with stereotypically “boys’ toys” as children were significantly more likely to hold a range of sexist views as adults”?