“One purse. Two purse. That purse. This purse.”
“One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine shoes.”
“No. Pink cup!”
Nora is a girl. A girly girl. At work today someone asked me why I thought she was girly, whether it was our training or her natural preference for handbags, shoes and all things pink. I’ve been reading about this question a lot on other mom blogs. In the Times Motherlode blog there was a report questioning whether we push our kids too much into a gender role and “predict” their sexual future for them. There was even an article about a Dutch family who is keeping the gender of their child a secret to everyone, including the child, to see what happens.
I never gave the whole gender role question much thought, honestly. Nora has lots of pink things. She also has lots of blue things. Her room is green, with a touch of pink. She has blocks, cars, fisher price toys that surely are gender neutral. When she first picked up a purse it was pretty accidental. Last Christmas she found one of my small red purses and she loved it. As she learned to walk it dangled from her arm constantly. I didn’t give her the purse in the first place, but I surely encouraged her to keep playing with it. It was cute.
I’m not really sure it matters if kids like what they are “supposed” to like. I doubt it really has much to do with what their future preferences are. But for now Nora is a girly girl. And I guess I like it that way.
