My son likes princess. He likes watching princess movies, he and his sister take turns being "Cinderella" when they play and he likes reading princess books. 

He also likes cars, balls, the Minnesota Twins, the Gophers (specifically Goldy), his toolbox, pirates, Mickey, Winnie-the-Pooh and Special Agent Oso (he's currently obsessed with that bear). And he loves his sister and wants to do what she does. And she loves princesses. 

Sometimes this fact about my son makes people's eyes widen a bit. I see that uncertainty, that next question, that look. Most of the time it ends with that. And I wonder if I should keep my son's love of princesses to myself (he'll probably wish I had when he's older...but, too late now). I wonder if it's something we should just acknowledge behind closed doors. 

And then I realize how ridiculous that is. 

Who cares. Who cares that he likes princesses. That's just one of his many interests. 

And why is it that my daughter's love of building (a more traditional "boy" activity) is celebrated but my son liking princesses is not? And, more importantly, why are these gender roles assigned to toys?

Have you walked down a toy aisle recently? Everything (and I mean every. single. thing.) is marketed for either boys or girls. Including things that don't even make sense to assign a gender to, like Magna Doodles. Sure my daughter likes pink, but you know what? So does my son. Do I really need Legos that are specifically marketed just for my daughter? 

I have a boy and a girl. And they are 11 months a part. So they play with a lot of the same toys, watch the same cartoons, read the same books. They like a lot of the same things. The older they get the more like twins they seem, not just "irish twins." And my husband and I joke that we just need to always buy two of the same things--because whatever one has, the other wants. It really doesn't matter what it is. 

I'm used to outside opinions on this matter, but in our house we are accepting of all likes. We encourage and embrace, we don't shame and deny.  At least that's what I thought. The outside has slowly crept in, as I discovered when I overheard this exchange between my children recently.

They were in my daughter's room and she was looking at a pile of princess books. B approached and wanted to look, too. And E said: 

"No, B! Princess books are for girls! Go play with your cars."

I wondered where she had heard this. I wondered if she really understood what she was saying. I wondered if she knew how badly she had hurt her brothers feelings. I also wondered if she thought of cars as something she shouldn't play with. At this point none of that was important, what mattered was that the crying little boy knew that he could, indeed, look at the princess books. 

We eventually reached an agreement over the princess books. I decided to make it more of a "sharing" issue than a "gender stereotype" issue. I figured I'd have better luck approaching it from that angle. But I did make sure to talk about how ALL our toys are for boys AND girls. 

It was one of those parenting moments that made me think. I have a feeling I'll have lots of those over the next few years...especially with having a boy and a girl. And yes, I'm sure I'll write all about them (sorry to future E and future B).

xo Sara

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