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Why dads should encourage their sons to play with dolls

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I really thought that I shouldn’t need to write about this. I believed that’s not a topic of the 21st century. And, oh gosh, I was wrong.

I’m talking about the big gender nonsense in our society. It all starts by how we treat our children, putting them into categories of gender: this is what boys do and that’s what girls do, this is what boys wear, this is what girls wear…

When working with families I came across this a lot: Mum thinks it’s a good idea to buy their sons (and daughters of course) a doll to play with. Then dad joins in and says: My son playing with a dolly? No way, he will get a new football, that’s what boys play with!

A quick look into the next best toy shop will just confirm this view. Toys are being categorised – again, girls toys (then they come in pink) and boys toys (blue of course). Girls play with dolls, prams, skipping ropes and pink balls – boys will play with cars, toy guns, pirate outfits and blue balls.

‘He would go with dolly everywhere’

But what would happen if there are no such stereotypes anymore? What would our children choose if media, marketing and shops ignore colour coding and artificial preferences?

My boys are going through different phases of playing with dolls. When my eldest was about 1 1⁄2 we gave him a doll. He took the doll, looked at it and then kissed it. This was followed of a period of time where he would go with dolly everywhere.

After about six months he suddenly lost interest in playing with his doll. We didn’t do anything about it and that’s how it is until now. He’s now nearly six and pays more attention to his soft toy rabbit (well, now he wants a real baby to cuddle and look after, well, I guess he has honed his fathering skills on dolly, now we can move to the next level…). His younger brother has taken over the care for dolly. He is looking after her like a father would care for his child. And that’s exactly what playing with dolls is all about: Caring for someone; social, emotional and communication skills. It’s incredible what children explore and develop when they play with dolls: The list is long.

To check out all benefits on playing with dolls, have a read at MamaOT’s post here. (Just the headline in that post would look so much better without the reference to boys. All kids already includes boys)

What if there were no ‘gendered’ toys?

And it’s interesting to see, how kids can respond to the artificial advertising of gender roles. When we went out for a small lunch the other day, to a seaside café, there were little flags in the Panini with crossbones and a skull on it. My son asked why and well, what’s the answer to that? So, I just went with the best answer I could think of: adults think children like pirates and so like the café. His response was, “I don’t like pirates”. Yes, why would you?

Sometimes explaining the adult world to children, especially the world adults create for children to enjoy, is extremely difficult.

So what if we didn’t have any “gendered” toys? I believe our kids would just continue playing. They don’t care about gender fake (they will go for the colours THEY like) or appropriate toys. With no interfering from our side they’ll figure out themselves which toy is fun and which isn’t. Some will go through colour phases of liking one and then another.

So, next time I hear a father (or a mother) say that their son(s) shouldn’t play with dolls, I’ll just pick up one, sit on the floor and pretend to feed it. Then I will wait for the boys to join in the game. Kids play with dolls – let them enjoy it!

By Torsten Klaus

Torsten is an Author, Parenting Coach and Stay-at-home Father. He runs the internet platform Dads Talk  and you can connect with him on www.facebook.com/DadsTalk or on Twitter @EmpathicFathers

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  • http://thepowerofrelationship.com Mark Davenport

    It’s so simple (if it were only so simple).

  • Nigel

    I think toys are really interesting. It was one of the “surprises” when I came to be a father and went to Toys R Us. The very clear “Pink” section. At the time I remember being surprised by the volume and the very clear marketing to boys and Girls. I reflected that in my childhood there were: Very few toys comparatively. They tended to be sold in small shops without the space to do all this demarcation and “segmentation” apart from the dazzling displays in the big department stores. All these factors seems to have meant that though there were indeed notions of a gender appropriate toys it wasn’t as “in your face” as in more modern consumerism. I think the other impression I have was that a more sentimental approach to parenting seemed to mean boys and girls were alowed to be interested in soft toys etc. to a much greater age. There appears a paradoxical push now ,perhaps powered by marketing, to get children to “move on” from a sort of stage to stage. I suppose this also shows in the younger ages at which make up etc. is seem as acceptable too. I realise that the “Famous Five” etc. are hardly social research but I think there is a kernel of truth in the “child” being a sort of separate period prior to the more “gendered” roles of older children. At the time (of going to Toys R us) I just recall being quite startled at this shift. Of course this isn’t to say that the roles for young people and adults weren’t very rigid in the 60’s, nor that parents weren’t making gendered choices, just an observation of the paradox that the volume and marketing of toys etc. appears much more purposely gendered now.

  • CitymanMichael

    I don’t agree that boys and girls are the same in their choice of toys. And not just toys. A lot of my belief comes from the same sources as outlined in this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
    Just because we are in the 21st century does not mean that everything which was believed before is wrong.

  • http://www.sciencevsfeminism.com Non Controversy

    This is a rather ridiculous article for many reasons. However, I’ll capture the two most salient points here:

    1) “Dolls” is too vague. There are many “dolls” that are marketed towards and heavily consumed by boys. These are “action figures”; for example, the G.I. Joe. The sex difference here is in the ‘theme’ of these “dolls”, not in their overall consumption themselves: action figures generally depict heroic men with military themes, construction themes and various themes that depict coalitional or collaborative behaviour which are typical of males.

    2) There are clear distinctions in toy preferences between boys and girls. In fact, the sex-biased preference for toys is so strong that it has been used to predict and aid in treating infants who are born with malformed genitals. [1-2]

    3) Playing with “dolls” does not have any effect on any behaviour. It’s not just laughably wrong but the opposite is true: toy’s don’t do anything on children’s behaviour; instead, children select their toys as a consequence of their innate traits and predispositions. Boys select “masculine” toys because they’re boys — who would’ve thought?

    Also, do you honestly believe that toy manufacturers would come up with sex-specific marketing without extensive research?

    —————————
    [1] Auyeung B et al. (2009). Fetal testosterone predicts sexually differentiated childhood behavior in girls and in boys. Psychological Science, 20(2):144–148.
    [2] Hines M (2003). Sex steroids and human behavior: prenatal androgen exposure and sex-typical play behavior in children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1007:272–282.

  • http://redpilluk.co.uk/ William Collins

    If my boys (now way past the age) had wanted to play with dolls I’d not have been in the least bothered. But “encourage”, is it? Smacks of an agenda to me. And there already aren’t any gendered toys. But there is a gender obsessed outlook. Who is it that makes a fuss about that?

  • Sean

    My feminist mum took my guns away from me when I was a young boy. It hurt, but even as I child I understood her concern. I quickly when on to making my own guns. I made ones which fired basic projectiles. I learned some interesting skills along the way. I believe absolutely in avoiding the gender game with children. I ask them what toys they want, and that’s what they get. I would caution any parent from imposing a toy of any kind in a child. Or depriving a child from what toys they enjoy. They’ll sort it out for themselves if left to their own devices. Is that an insecurity for most parents? If so, take the dog for a walk or teach the gold fish to blow bubbles. You’ll do more good for your child.

  • karen Woodall

    when my daughter was little I was a feminist and believed in nurture over nature, she wore dungarees and climbed trees and she was never dressed in pink. When she was three she desperately wanted a my little pony but I thought she shouldn’t have it because it was buying into the feminisation of girls. What absolute tripe. Her grandmother bought her the my little pony and she was never so happy as when she was combing its hair and playing with her friends with it. She was a girl and though she did things that boys did she wanted also to be a girl and do what girls do and whether that is nurture or nature she grew up to be a loud, proud, artist with a strong balance of female/male energy, she is herself.

    Now I have a grandson. He is a boy full stop nothing else to say. Without my gendered goggles and my feminist beliefs to hamper me I can see that he just is…a boy. His world is physical, his toys are super heroes, he likes pointy things and sticks and makes guns and arrows out of them. He doesn’t like baths and he runs and kicks and rolls and falls. His dolls are power rangers, he spends a long time making them do kung fu kicks at each other. His energy is different, his physical self is different, he is quick in his mind and fast on his feet, he doesn’t want or need to sit and play with dolls. He is starting to read. His mum didn’t read until she was much older. Some things are about sex differences, some things are not. Now I am not a feminist, I know the difference. He is in the bedroom now, drilling the cupboard with his toy drill, he loves it, its is pointy and noisy ?

  • Thomas Marx

    I had a doll when I was a boy. I don’t remember were it came from it just always was there. It was made of rubber and when the head was moved the eyes went up and down and when the body was shaken, it said “Mama”. I remember always wanting to know how that mechanism of the eyes rolling works, but from whatever side I regarded, there was no visible clue. So I decided to remove the head which gave me access to the eyes and I was lucky to find out about the little weights and hinges, which unfortunately I was unable to re install. That was however no problem because I could stuck coins into the eye holes much bigger than the holes themselves (remember: it was a rubber doll). This way it replaced a piggy bank I always wanted but for unknown reasons never could get. Out of pure sexist curiosity I removed the little device which was the voice and it was funny that I could make other things and even my toy truck say “Mama” when accelerated with adequate force. During this time adults used handkerchiefs from fabric and when paper tissues were introduced we made parachutes out of the old nose-rags, my eyeless doll happily volunteering as a test pilot. Her end came at the age of 13 when we produced explosives out of sugar and herbicide mixtures. Filling the doll with the powder made her head flowing away but one day we overestimated the necessary charge for a certain experiment and it burned into powder with an extremely light flame. The advantage was that we learned not to hurt our own limbs because we saw how dangerous explosives are. In summary: O.K., let boys play with dolls but don’t be suirprized when you learn what they do.