Reader's Respond: Why I let my son play with dolls

Hi, first of all thank you for this article. My son received a doll as a joke from one of my friends last year for his 2nd birthday.

This has turned out to be the best gift he could have gotten. His doll is called Frikkie, but he calls him baba. Frikkie has helped us with 4 hospital stays and a tonsillectomy. He has been my sons best friend and playmate and has made a lot of bad thing seem not so bad for him. He doesn't play with baba that much any more but he still travels with us everywhere, sleeps with him every night, every day he comes from school he tells baba all about his day.

We had a view funny looks at time and even my husband was a bit against it, but seeing how happy our son is with his baba has made us not care about the rest. He still plays with cars and trucks and balls, but he now has a special friend and its a doll.

- Anel Kok

I found this article very interesting.

My niece and nephew are 3 going on 4 year old twins.

Why do people normally dress twins the same because it makes life easier, because the one wants what the other one has.

Although you can’t dress a boy and girl the same my sister did resort to buying them for Christmas the exact same toys which consisted of both boy and girl toys.

My niece and nephew are each others’ first, best and only friend at home so with them it is simply impossible to say that the boy is only allowed to play with cars and the girl only with dolls.

They even have “twin babies”, my nephew the “blue boy baby” and my niece the “pink girl baby”, my nephew isn’t really curious about real babies like my niece is and that is ok too.

In the same breath my niece also loves playing with the dinosaurs and cars which normally are seen as “boy toys”

One weekend my niece decided that she was going to play dress up with my nephew and he was more than happy to wear some of her clothes. Will my sister let him go out like that NO and he probably wouldn’t want to. But we laughed at him put clips into his hair and told him he looks like a girl, he laughed at himself but it doesn’t mean he is going to be gay/transgender or anything.

I hate putting people/ kids into a box and say you are only allowed to be like this or that. By letting boys only play with “boy” toys is telling them that they have to be a certain way. They have to be greasy and dirty and suck it up when they get hurt. Same with letting girls only play with “girl” toys is telling them that all woman have to grow up to become mothers and have to cook and clean the house and have tea parties. And wear pretty dresses and not get dirty.

We don’t get female engineers by letting them only play with dolls. And we don’t get excellent male pastry chefs by letting them only play with cars.

Kids are suppose to be curious that is how they grow and learn what they like and don’t like.

In a year or two my nephew will think my niece and her friends are gross and that dolls are stupid. And we will all laugh at how he paraded in my nieces clothes carrying his “baby”

- Wendy Marais

The World does not need conquerors with guns and swords anymore, they have wreaked enough havoc and pain on their fellow human beings.

Good on the Real Men & Real Women that are dedicated to raising their offspring to be Nurturers too!

Good day,

Yes,my son is one of those. He is now six years old, has been playing with dolls since he was two and  up to this day, he still does. He will ask for  a small blanket to put the doll on his back or carry it in his arms like a small  baby sometimes. And I’m not bothered with it. He also enjoys playing with his cars, trucks etc. He play well with both boys and girls.

But my little concern is that when he started showing interest in dolls, he started  asking for his cousins dresses/skirts, and would wear them. He still cries for them even now. And I can’t say it’s because he is surrounded by females ,there are also boys at home. And he would go outside and play with his friends dressed like that. But the older ones would tease him about being gay. And he is starting to believe that he is gay as he would come back and ask me if I know that he is gay because so and so told him that he is gay. And that worries me now.

Regards
Vido

This is in response to the article "Why I let my son play with dolls" by Zayaan Schroeder Mollagee.

When my eldest son was about 3 or 4 years old, his favourite colour was pink. He absolutely loved it, and we had no problem with that. So I was devastated when he came home from school one day and told me that kids in his class had laughed at him for colouring his Easter bunny picture in pink, because the teacher had told him that pink was a girl's colour. I went to the school the next day and I explained to them the situation, but by then it was too late and his love for pink had been destroyed.

My other two boys, both nearly 3 years old, love any toy they can get their hands on, although they don't yet have any colour preferences. They will play with my eldest's action figures, with their own cars / bikes / trucks, with a friend's daughter's dolls and pram, with fluffy toys - generally, anything they can get their hands on. And I will not stop them, as I have seen the joy in their eyes when they push that pram around, and the way their eyes light up and how they shriek when they see a baby. 

I have also seen how love and a parent's lead can generate love in return, when my eldest (now 7) tells me that he loves looking at beautiful things, or tells us that he loves us, or protects his brothers or animals. And these are the kinds of things that removing gender stereotypes can bring about - by showing little boys that they can be just as soft, loving and gentle as girls can be.

I am a grandmother and think it is excellent that boys and girls have a chance to play with dolls, fluffy toys and trucks, cars and even - dare I say it toy guns! A lot of imagination and fun and so much healthier than games played on various screens. 

Thanks Sandy