Monkey baby...

I took Puds shopping shortly after his birthday to spend some of the money he had received as a gift.

While I was there my Mum and Grandmother came to meet us. My Grandmother was very insistent that Puds should be looking at the cars and trains. "Boys toys" as she put it. But Puds refused them all, he was interested in only three things in the whole shop. The first was a massive Nerf gun that was the same size as him that he couldn't even lift (he was devastated when I made him leave it there, and he wasn't satisfied with the smaller one I offered him). The second and third items were a small bright pink pushchair...and Monkey Baby. Monkey Baby, as we have named it, is a small Cabbage Patch Kid toy in a monkey outfit. Puds would not entertain anything else, he plonked Monkey Baby in the pushchair and marched with it as fast as his little legs could carry him to the till.

After seeing his delight at playing with Monkey Baby my Grandmother relented in her insistance of what he should be choosing, but this is not the first time I have encountered opinions on my children liking things that do or do not fit their gender stereotype.

You see, we already have loads of toy boxes filled with cars, dinosaurs, Take and Play Thomas train sets, and Puds loves to play with them all, but they were never originally his toys. They all used to belong to Pickles.

Pickles is one of the "girliest" little girls I know. She loves her clothes, and will always choose dresses and skirts over anything else. The sparklier and twirlier it is, the more she loves it. When Pickles was in pre-school she went through a short phase of hating attending, after months of previously loving it. It was not far into the winter term when I brought her home one day, changed her out of her trousers and school shirt, and helped her put on a dress she had chosen. She let out a big sigh and said "Thank you Mama, now I'm a girl again". I was shocked. She is surrounded by women who wear trousers and jeans rather than skirts and dresses on a daily basis, myself included, yet after discussing what she meant with her, it was obvious that her little two year old mind was firmly fixed on the idea that she needed a dress to identify as a girl.

She loves having her hair styled, nails painted, and is a great lover of rainbows, butterflies and unicorns. All very typical "girlie" things. As for toys, despite the encouragment of many a relative, she has never shown the slightest bit of interest in dolls or pushchairs. She's always preferred mechanical or building toys, science kits, and crafting supplies, and has always taken the dolls out of the pushchairs and prams and replaced them with her dinosaur figures or things she has collected from the garden.

Don't get me wrong, Puds likes all those things too, but his favourite toys have always been the small world kind, like HappyLand or dolls houses. He also is quite fond of the colour pink, and will often choose a pink plate or cup to use at meal times.

I suppose my point is that kids shouldn't be put into labeled boxes. It seems fine for a girl to be either totally into dresses and dolls or totally into cars and trousers as a "tomboy", but very little room for something inbetween without comments being made. Even more infuriating, is that a little boy can't like playing as a princess, or with dolls houses and baby doll toys.

Since we brought Monkey Baby home it has come almost everywhere with us. Some comments we have received have been along the lines of "what the hell is that thing?!", and I agree, Monkey Baby is a little freaky to look at (the stuff of nightmares some might say). Some responses have been silent strange looks from people or comments about how Puds' sister will be cross when she finds him playing with "her" toy. Then we usually get even stranger looks when I explain it doesn't belong to his sister. Some comments have been an odd sort of positive. People I don't know being friendly, and telling me that I'm a good mother for allowing my son to play with a pushchair and baby doll.

The very fact that it is a thing to comment on, and a defining reason to make me a "good mother", means that society has not progressed as much as I had hoped in it's views. The old school opinions of older generations are still very much around and influencing the younger ones.

I hope as my children grow up I can teach them that we are all individuals. Some of us will fit the stereotypes and that's perfectly ok, but more often than not, we are more like the little boy walking with his Monkey Baby in the pink pushchair. And that's ok too.