Parents are always taking care of the kids; they do their best to give children everything they can give. I chose "Even Nine-Month-Olds Choose Gender-Specific Toys" to show how this article reflects my life. Up to the certain age children are obsessed with toys, but do the toys they choose reflect their gender? Does the boy choose boys' toys and the girl choose girls’ toys, or not? This article is valuable because it discusses all sides of gender matters, especially children’s choice of toys, and provides us with evidences that prove what the researchers said. Furthermore, this article reminds me and everyone who reads it of the childhood. I find it interesting to know more about the differences that are related to the genders-specific toys. At the beginning of the article, the writer mentions that some parents decide upon their children’s future profession while those are still at a very young age. For example, they may want their daughter to play soccer or their son to do the house chores. I think this is not quite right. We know that according to what researchers say, most of the boys choose cars, trucks or any toys that have lights and sound, and the girls prefer dolls or kitchen sets. According to one of the researchers: "The boys always preferred the toys that go or move, and the girls preferred toys that promote nurturing and facial features" (qtd. in Goodwin).
I remember when I was about 12 years old I always broke my toy after having enough time to play with it. The reason was my curiosity about what the toy was made of and what was inside. I was simply destroying all my toys, and that is why my parents punished me. In fact, this influenced me a lot, and now I study electronic engineering to analyze the moving parts of the mechanisms or electronic devices such as toys, TVs, etc. Thus, we can say that the toys can have a long-lasting impact on one’s life.
One day my uncle came to visit us and brought me and my sister a car, a doll and a kitchen set collection. I took the car, and started playing with it immediately and I was happy with my new toy, but then I broke it and started separating all the components to see how it works. Since then I always get into details of everything that comes across. The funny thing is that after completely destroying one toy, I ran to my mother and asked her to bring me another one. When I asked my sister to play with me, she refused and said that I am just destroying toys. The way the child treats the toys reflects his or her behavior. "In relation to objects such as clothing and toys, the following responses are typical of the many concerns raised and the many indications of actions parents had taken to accomplish gender with and for their sons" (Kane 160).
Researchers were surprised by the results of some of their findings on how gender influences the choice of toys. They gave different toys to the large group of kids. They expected boys to choose cars and girls to choose dolls. Scientists were also wondering if the color matters when the child chooses the toy, so they gave kids pink and blue teddy bears. They thought the boys were likely to pick the blue ones, but the result showed that boys do not have preferences in teddy bears’ colors at all, while the girls chose pink ones (Goodwin).
I remember a humorous story from the time when I was a kid. I had a lot of toys and my two neighbors came to my home, and we played together, but my friends did not look at the dolls that were in the house at all. They started laughing when I took one of the dolls, and said that dolls are for girls, and I am not a girl. I replied that it is just a doll, and it is blue. I thought I could play with it because it was in blue, “boy’s” color. However, kids like playing with their toys, and it does not matter what kind of toys they have. The kid, who is engaged in playing with toys, can spend more time alone. In fact, this depends on the child’s behavior. Researchers of gender behaviors said the way the children choose and play with the toy is an innate habit. At the same time, the studies found out that parents like to talk with girls more than boys. The author of the article explains that: «Parents tend to hold girl babies closer. They have also been observed spending more time talking to girls than to boys" (Goodwin). Researches of gender issues have proven that a lot of children’s behaviors reflect what children have learned from their parents and the surrounding world, and they make impressions of what it looks like for them. Although I loved studying the components of my toys, my parents taught me that breaking the toys is not good, so I learned to give my toys to anyone, who wanted to play with them, rather than breaking them and studying their insides. I also learned information about how different genders spend time with toys.
This article is about genders and toys. It focuses on the relation between genders and the toys they like to play with. An interesting toy can make a child happy for a long time. Not only kids of four months age choose gender specific toys, this is also true for children of nine months age. Boys are picking cars and girls choose dolls or cooking sets. Sometimes unusual situations occur, when boys choose to play with dolls and girls choose cars, but this situation is normal because a child of small age does not recognize, which toy belongs to a particular gender stereotype. Furthermore, the experiment described in the article shows that while playing with the toys, boys spend more time looking at their cars or any moving toys while girls spend about fifty percent of the time looking at the faces of their dolls and repeating the behavior learned from the adults (Goodwin).
Because this article is about children, it is an enjoyable topic to write on, and it also reminds me of the childhood and my old toys. I remember, when I was a kid, my father brought me a car with remote control, and I played with it for hours, sometimes even forgetting to have lunch. When I was a little older, I had a bicycle, and I spent almost all day on it with my friends. My parents were always giving me advice that I have to be careful, and they kept telling me that instead of breaking my toys, I should better give them to somebody. I have taken this advice as my personal rule and applied it not only to the toys, but also to my whole life.
Works Cited
Goodwin, Jenifer. "Even 9-Month-Olds Choose 'Gender-Specific' Toys." Consumer HealthDay. HealthDay, 16 Apr. 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. <http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/behavior-health-news-56/even-9-month-olds-choose-gender-specific-toys-638161.html>.
Kane, E. W.. ""No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That!": Parents' Responses To Children's Gender Nonconformity." Gender & Society 20.2 (2006): 149-176. Print.
