When I was little, I wanted a remote-controlled car and I had to settle for playing with the ones given to my brother. While I was growing up I thought that we were making progress on this issue, that every day the gap between the boy and girl sections in toy stores would disappear a little more, but to my amazement it has not been the case. The princess corridor is more and more infinite, of an increasingly strident pink, and the children’s corridor grows at the same rate as superhero films are released, that is, too fast.
If you are reading this it is because you are concerned about childhood and their education. Maybe you also think that there is no correct education if there is no freedom and respect . That we will not advance if we do not choose freely. That it is not that the girls do not have dolls or the boys do not want to be Batman, but that they share Batman and Wonder Woman while they are making a little house where they both take care of the dolls, cook, clean and iron together. And that they go out to the garden to play a mixed football game or to race on bikes. And they end up sitting down deciding how they are going to paint the walls: blue, orange, pink and yellow can be a good combination. So she, at that moment, says she wants to be a doctor and he, I don’t know, a professor.
This I just described is a game, but today’s game is tomorrow’s reality. Today’s children will decide the world of the future, so if we forget the genre that they want to sell us in toys and give away intelligence, motivation, experiences and what the child really wants, we will be building a fairer future for everyone.
These are the reasons why we should forget about gender in toys:
Promote equality
We have physical differences but we share concerns and emotional needs . Let’s not continue to perpetuate roles that no longer have a reason to exist: “girls take care of babies and clean their house. Kids do research and they like speed ”sounds too old-fashioned. Let’s promote equality and respect so that the world is fairer and everyone has the right to everything, feeling capable without thinking about whether they are men or women.
Respect the child’s tastes
If your son wants to dress and undress his dolls, he may be a good father when he is older. If you cook in “his restaurant”, eat what he prepares and praise his imagination; also take him to the kitchen to make his first steps with real food. And if your daughter lives climbing trees and doesn’t pay much attention to Barbie, better buy her comfortable and resistant pants and maybe sign her up for a sport she likes. Respect their wishes whatever they are , it is what they are really made for.
Don’t limit your knowledge
Try, try, compare. Let your kids experiment with what they have on hand . The toys of the other children or their siblings. Let them change roles and be surprised enjoying another way. The child who does not stop running in the park all afternoon, suddenly one day he stops and joins the group that plays shop in a corner. In this way he discovers that running excites him but that having a store with stones that are fruits is also very fun. And that day he goes to bed a little happier.
Educate free and creative people
When a child is not limited at home by colors or types of games, he grows free and relaxed to express himself as he wants at all times. That makes his imagination flow without worries or barriers that condition him, giving himself the ideal situation to invent prodigies of which we are so lacking and even, who knows, change the world. Why not?
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