Pigtail Pals

Watch out kids!  I'm getting on my soap box...

A blog entry written by Melissa of Pigtail Pals recently made the rounds on my friends' Facebook pages. I clicked and I read and I said, "Right on!"


This is a woman who put to words my frustrations with finding toys and clothes for Elizabeth and my horror at the hypersexualization of little girls.

For three years, I lived in a dream world of fire trucks and dinosaurs and tool sets. And, because I'm a "modern" mom, my son's room was also filled with dishes, kitchen sets, wooden food and a poor, beleaguered doll.  I dressed him in shorts that went below the knee and loose t-shirts that allowed him to run and play and roll and climb.

Then I gave birth to a girl.

The difference in merchandising is glaringly obvious. When I buy t-shirts for Joseph, they have sayings like "Future Firefighter" or "To the Moon!", with graphics showing boys or men being firefighters or astronauts. When I look for t-shirts for Elizabeth, they're covered in glitter and say, "Perfect Princess" or "Spoiled Rotten".  Half the time across the butt of the short shorts for toddlers. Because toddlers need short shorts.  *cue sarcasm*

I call Elizabeth my princess. (Then again, I also call her the Dimpled Dictator.) But I tell her stories about princesses not waiting around for a prince to save them.  They figure out how to save themselves. (Shrek 3 is awesome for this.) Does this make me a feminist? God. That'd be a hoot! Me. The woman who expects her husband to open her door, who wore body glitter out to the clubs in her 20's, who reads romance novels by the dozen, who at one time had a half her closet filled with pink.  Can you imagine?  Unless...feminist is used as a definition of a woman who was raised to believe that she could choose to do and be anything she liked, even if that choice was to stay home with her children.

Wandering the toy aisles is even more disturbing. Joseph can choose from a wide variety of doctor, vet, paleontology, zoo keeper, race car driver, tools and chemist toys. The girls section has dolls and princesses. And the dolls look like something out of Jersey Shores. I tried to find a toy for my eight-year-old goddaughter and ended up with a book. Even that took careful consideration. I had to avoid the literary equivalent of "Gossip Girls" and "The Hills" for the elementary crowd.

Granted, I can, and will, just wander over to the boys' aisle of the toy world, but why should I have to?  Why should I have to scour the internet for dolls who don't have long lashes, stripper clothes and curvy little bodies?  And if every mother I speak to is as appalled as I am, why are Bratz such big sellers?

When this topic came up for discussion on Ashley's Facebook page, one of the comments said that since boys and girls are different, then, scientifically, children choose toys to match their biology.

I disagree.  And I don't care what the "scientific" evidence says.

Elizabeth plays with Joseph's dinosaurs. She plays with his Hot Wheels. She plays with his fire truck and his tool set. And Joseph plays with her dolls, her tea set, her grocery bag of felt food. I don't see the need to make their toys gender specific.

I take my job as "Mother" very seriously.  I know that I have a long road ahead of me.  I know that my children will, at some point, claim to hate me.  But in the end, if I can raise a boy who is as gentle as he is strong and a daughter who understands femininity is not passivity and weakness, then I can say I did my job right.

Because I loved Pigtail Pals message and product line, I snagged their button and popped it over to the right.  Click on it and check out the site.

FYI - Elizabeth wears a size 12-18 months.  I'm just sayin'.