purplerat wrote:My son and daughter are 15 months apart. People buy them "girl toys" and "boys toys" but damned if I can tell which belong to who based on who plays with them.

Onyx8 wrote:What is an 'exclusively' boy toy?

purplerat wrote:I guess I need to be more mindful of not falling victim to creepy PC culture in letting my kids play with the toys they like rather than the ones some stranger designated for them to like.

Doubtdispelled wrote:

Skinny Puppy wrote:
Now with the passage of time and looking into this issue even further and deeper, we still hold that view. Obviously though... should a child of ours exhibit the traits of the opposite sex then we’ll evaluate that and take corrective measures. (Not draconian, it would be done through a medical professional or whoever deals with those types of gender identity issues.)

1 What if, just as a thought, Skinny, you happen to have a child like me? I exhibit many of the traits of the opposite sex, yet I am undoubtedly female. And it's all to do with the way my brain works, apparently. Or so I am told. 2 Corrective measures? *shudders*

Skinny Puppy wrote:Just going by the odds it is rather remote that we’ll have to deal with that.

Er... no, no it isn't. I think enlightened people are beginning to recognise that there is a spectrum. It is no longer 'us and them' or 'male and female'. The lines are blurring.

Skinny Puppy wrote:
We both will encourage our kids (boys and girls) to pursue the sciences. They’ll both have microscopes, telescopes (although I already have a telescope, so it’ll just be a matter of introducing them to its use) chemistry sets and so on. Neither one will be privileged over the other and they’ll be taught the dangers of buying into nonsense ideologies... like religion.

Well that's a start!

Skinny Puppy wrote:

Onyx8 wrote:What is an 'exclusively' boy toy?

Boys' Toys

• Boys’ Action Figures
• Boys’ Video Games
• Bikes and Ride-Ons for Boys
• Boys’ Electronics
• Building Sets for Boys
• Boys Arts and Crafts
• Musical Instruments for Boys

http://www.toysrus.com/products/boys-toys.jsp

I'm only the messenger, I didn't create that, but knock yourself out.

Skinny Puppy wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:

Skinny Puppy wrote:
Now with the passage of time and looking into this issue even further and deeper, we still hold that view. Obviously though... should a child of ours exhibit the traits of the opposite sex then we’ll evaluate that and take corrective measures. (Not draconian, it would be done through a medical professional or whoever deals with those types of gender identity issues.)

1 What if, just as a thought, Skinny, you happen to have a child like me? I exhibit many of the traits of the opposite sex, yet I am undoubtedly female. And it's all to do with the way my brain works, apparently. Or so I am told. 2 Corrective measures? *shudders*

Skinny Puppy wrote:Just going by the odds it is rather remote that we’ll have to deal with that.

Er... no, no it isn't. I think enlightened people are beginning to recognise that there is a spectrum. It is no longer 'us and them' or 'male and female'. The lines are blurring.

Skinny Puppy wrote:
We both will encourage our kids (boys and girls) to pursue the sciences. They’ll both have microscopes, telescopes (although I already have a telescope, so it’ll just be a matter of introducing them to its use) chemistry sets and so on. Neither one will be privileged over the other and they’ll be taught the dangers of buying into nonsense ideologies... like religion.

Well that's a start!

1 To be honest I simply don’t know because I don’t have all of the answers when it comes to raising kids. I doubt that anyone in the world has all of the answers. However, if there’s any doubt that my wife and I are not doing what is best for our child then we’d seek the help of a professional.


2 I picked a rather poor term for what I meant. ‘Corrective’ doesn’t mean that a boy in a girl’s body would be conditioned to be a boy, but rather that we would seek professional help (like above) to allow the child to be what they want to be or what is best for them.

purplerat wrote:I'm not sure how we got on the topic of toys but Target has recently moved towards gender neutral toy sections.

As per usual it's the Anti-PC-Brigade who have themselves all worked up in a tizzy about what a terrible thing this must be.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... olicy.html

Skinny Puppy wrote:To be honest I simply don’t know because I don’t have all of the answers when it comes to raising kids. I doubt that anyone in the world has all of the answers. However, if there’s any doubt that my wife and I are not doing what is best for our child then we’d seek the help of a professional.

Fox & Friends found a psychotherapist who…implied that children might “question what their gender is” if they were taken into a Target store without gender-based signage.

Walsh conveniently lays bare the fundamental internal contradiction in the anti-Target outcry: If gender is a universal, biological, and God-ordained constant, then why do children need cultural reinforcement from a retail chain to figure it out? In the bizarro world of far-right logic, gender is at once the strongest force on the planet and the most fragile. The God of Genesis may have created male and female but unless Target puts these words on signs for action figures and Barbie dolls, all of His hard work will be undone. The protests seem to be motivated by the paradoxical fear that children will grow up genderless without Target’s help even though their biology should supposedly guide them into pink and blue aisles without any intervention.

Doubtdispelled wrote:

Skinny Puppy wrote:

Onyx8 wrote:What is an 'exclusively' boy toy?

Boys' Toys

• Boys’ Action Figures
• Boys’ Video Games
• Bikes and Ride-Ons for Boys
• Boys’ Electronics
• Building Sets for Boys
• Boys Arts and Crafts
• Musical Instruments for Boys

http://www.toysrus.com/products/boys-toys.jsp

I'm only the messenger, I didn't create that, but knock yourself out.

You seem to have a really weird obsession with Toysrus, Skinny.

There are other toy shops, y'know. Just sayin'.

Skinny Puppy wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:SP -- I have to admit, after all that I'm still not entirely sure what the answer to my question is, which makes it difficult for me to tell what the thinking behind it would be. All I can tell is that you're fine with the currently accepted gender expectations and object to them being changed, even though they've changed in the past as you've indicated. That part looks contradictory to me, but I'm not particularly interested in whatever justification can be concocted for the current regime anyway since it's pretty arbitrary, as you've gone to great lengths to point out. Helping people who don't feel the need to conform to these arbitrary rules would be a pretty great advantage, I think, as would helping all people see how arbitrary many of our gender distinctions are. But I digress.

The closest thing to an answer I could see to a direct answer to my question is this:

If one of our kids deviates from that then we’ll change our game plan to accommodate him/her.

Does this mean if your son asks for a doll you'll get one for him? If your daughter asks for toy trucks and GI Joes you'll get them for her? Why or why not?

I explained quite a bit in this post above:

Skinny Puppy wrote:

However, I’ll clarify a few things.

This quote below still holds true. (I’d forgotten I’d written that, but thanks DD for saving me having to re-write the same thing all over again).

Skinny Puppy wrote:
Speaking personally, my wife and I have discussed how we’ll raise our kids when we have them. We’ve both agreed (100%) that our boy will have boy toys (exclusively) and our girl will have girl toys. We have no intention of buying our son a doll, a tea set or a slew of Barbie dolls. Our daughter will not have trucks, cars and soldier sets, she’ll have toys that my wife will select for her. In fact, my wife is looking forward to having a daughter so she can buy her all of the fantastic girl toys that are now available.

Now with the passage of time and looking into this issue even further and deeper, we still hold that view. Obviously though... should a child of ours exhibit the traits of the opposite sex then we’ll evaluate that and take corrective measures. (Not draconian, it would be done through a medical professional or whoever deals with those types of gender identity issues.) Just going by the odds it is rather remote that we’ll have to deal with that.

We both will encourage our kids (boys and girls) to pursue the sciences. They’ll both have microscopes, telescopes (although I already have a telescope, so it’ll just be a matter of introducing them to its use) chemistry sets and so on. Neither one will be privileged over the other and they’ll be taught the dangers of buying into nonsense ideologies... like religion.

I have an excellent background in religion, cosmology, relativity, astronomy, physics, math, quantum mechanics etc. and they will be taught that at an appropriate age to better prepare them for university should that be their goal. Regardless though, that info will help them to avoid the charlatans and nonsense peddlers who would poison their minds. I also have astronomy and physics software that they’ll learn to use when they’re old enough.

Skinny Puppy wrote:
2 I picked a rather poor term for what I meant. ‘Corrective’ doesn’t mean that a boy in a girl’s body would be conditioned to be a boy, but rather that we would seek professional help (like above) to allow the child to be what they want to be or what is best for them.

purplerat wrote:Close

Fox & Friends found a psychotherapist who…implied that children might “question what their gender is” if they were taken into a Target store without gender-based signage.