rooinooi's Profile

I have a 3-year old son, and we try to expose him to as many different toys and types of play as possible, whether they be marketed to boys or to girls.

Even when I was shopping for newborn stuff before he was born, I became frustrated with the lack of gender neutral items for kids, especially when it came to clothing.

But the solution became obvious to me pretty quickly: If you can't find what you're looking for in a store, or if you're tired of the gender stereotypes surrounding toys, why not subvert 'the system' and simply make your own stuff?

We made a kitchen for him out of cardboard boxes and colourful duct tape, dolls and other playthings out of felt and other recycled fabrics, and added our own details to plain clothing. Now that he's getting bigger, he participates in these crafting sessions, and it's super fun for us and him. It's also cheap, and it teaches your kids other important lessons about consumerism, recycling, as well as skills like independence, creativity and how to be self-sustainable. The toys and clothing we create together are also far more meaningful - due to the nature of certain construction materials, some will not last long, but others will become keepsakes to pass down to his kids.

That said, my son does not live in a bubble, and is the first in line when the flyers and catalogues are delivered to our door. He also picks up on things from other kids - eg - there were 6 boys dressed as Spider Man in his preschool this Halloween, so he started taking an interest in Spider Man. But he went ahead and made his own Spider Man mask, although his was pink and green :) His buddies thought it was cool. And when perusing the latest Christmas toy catalogue, he's now asking whether we can 'Make something like this' rather than buy it.

So my point in all this is, perhaps when we stop buying so much stuff these retailers will also get the message.