Childhood Toys--How did you play?

[emmyiskindacool]

I played mostly with action figures when I was little (mostly ninja turtles and power rangers). My favorite toy being a Sub Zero action figure from Mortal Kombat. But I also loved my stuffed animals. I would play videogames and do boyish outdoor activities, but I also remember being drawn to playing "house" with other children. I even at one point played with a doll (one of those where you could style its hair). So I kind of had a mix of playing in boyish and girlish ways.

[Tessa James]

It seemed that my big family of children were frequently building houses and forts from toy blocks, cardboard boxes, snow or dirt.  My older sister, who named me Tessa, tells me that she and I played tea party.   We were poor and "made do" with close pin soldiers and playing in the vacant lot.  People had back yard skating rinks--just ad water in Minnesota where I was a kid.  I loved the freedom of skating.  The gliding speed and sense of flying over the ice is thrilling still.  Wealthy kids had Barbies, while I had real babies (young siblings) to care for.  Wealthier kids played with miniature metal cars and "Tonka Trucks.  We dug forts and made dirt balls for ammo.  We made our own "spooky houses, circuses and a bunch of tag games  Like a stereotypical sissy I couldn't care less about organized sports as a kid or now.  Grown men running into each other as fast as they can run or skate seems silly at best.   
I like to think we were more creative and independent back in the 50-60s.  Parents would admonish us to play outside all day long but don't get dirty ha ha ha and, we would play tag games under the summer night street lights.  I learned how to bake and cook--especially cookies.  My sisters and I would also make "hotpads" on a loom and sell them to neighbors.  We knew every kid in the neighborhood and were a bit territorial about "our block."  Back in those wonderfully innocent years I still secretly thought I would grow up to be a mom or at least a tom boy and liked playing with other "real" tom boys too.  School "play" was most often a game of avoiding the bullies and waiting to be called last for the sports nonsense.  I still think it's smarter to duck if someone is throwing a ball or something at me
Ahhh, nostalgia can be such fun.

Tessa

[Northern Jane]

I was only allowed "boys toys". I had no interest in them and preferred to play with the neighbourhood girls - tea parties, playing with dolls,  hopscotch, skipping, etc. I did like track and field in high school - I was tall and skinny so I did well - but never played team sports. I started figure skating at 14 and just LOVED it! I asked for a doll each birthday and Christmas from about age 3 until I gave up as a teenager. I never did get one.

[Emily Aster]

I was pretty much only allowed the typical toys for boys like trucks and erector sets, but my parents must have considered stuffed animals to be neutral territory because I had about 20 of them. When I wasn't showing my parents how much of a boy I was by riding my bike all day every day, building forts, and playing stickball, I was playing with those stuffed animals, each with their own name and personality.

[matthewzguitarz]

Oh...I know that feeling!

I hated 9and still hate) sports. One of the reasons is because americans say "Soccer," and everyone else says football. Something like that just irks me to no end.

I was also never good in sports. If it didn't involve balance and stealth, count me out.

Same here, I still hate sports, the only sports I can kind of play are airsoft, and paintball, but I am mostly in the back away from the battles, and striking from areas people can't see me.

Anyways, my friend who I rarely talk to anymore, is always playing baseball and basketball, I am still afraid of getting hit by the ball even though I can throw good. My brother actually yells at me for jumping out of the way. My other guy friend just joined football(the one with tackling and all that), and I am shocked that someone would actually want to play that.

Another thing that makes it kind of weird, is that I am actually like 5'10 or so, and am pretty big, but I can not play any sports or even think of hurting someone, so one of my nicknames, is "The Gentle Giant". I actually wish I was like 5'4 instead

[Lajs]

I had 'boy' Lego, as you call it. It was all pits full of skeletons and booby traps and Harry Potter. I also had a Playmobil castle filled with knights and horses, and some native americans with whom they were constantly at war.

But we much preferred making dens in the woods and burning stuff to playing with toys. I guess my parents didn't know much about gender stereotypes.

[Sammy]

Oh, yeah, I remember that "being called last to various sports nonsense" . I was pretty good at dogdeball btw - very agile and nimble - it was sad when later when I was in the higher classes, dodgeball was out of option. We got pretty much separated on gender basis - girls were doing aerobics, whereas boys had the option for basketball or football (the soccer-one). I had no idea how to play basketball nor any desire to learn, so I was called last . At some times, however, I became underestimated asset, because I could actually score . So I was often left unattended - nobody seemed to worry about me, so if I got a sudden pass I could simply run a couple of steps and score . I always got confused if somebody was interfering while I was dribbling .
The same with soccer - if somebody was just running into me, my instinctive response was to turn my back on him and try to get away But I was very good as goalkeeper, though I was always a bit afraid that I would miss and the ball will hit me .

[Mary81]

I have a sister who is close to me in age and parents who didn't like the idea of boy toys and girl toys. So, aside from educational toys (which my parents loved), I played with barbies and my little ponies We also had a toy kitchen set I loved - I still love playing in the kitchen, though now I have one that works 
School was horrible. I like some sports (tennis and skiing mostly), but I always hated soccer, football and other sports like that.   

[Jamie D]

I got Legos and Duplos for my kids (and let's face it, for me too).  I bought the bucket-sized packs.

We built the most imaginative worlds and structures.  We often tried building towers that would reach the vaulted ceiling, like 12 feet high.  And loved it when they came tumbling down!

Two of my kids have studied engineering in college.

[Erik Ezrin]

I really had A LOT of lego as a kid. I particularly liked Bionicles and technical lego (I liked things that could be remote-controlled in any way, or had some fancy mechanic inside 'doing stuff'), but also 'normal' lego, and sets like Star Wars lego (not too many, 'cause they were more expensive). The lack of detail never bothered me, really. I liked to gather a lot of 'lego accessories' though, like hats, mini guns, lightsabers, swords, shields, or even just household objects, and use those with the figures. I used my lego mostly indoors, except the bionicles, because the parts were so tiny I'd lose them (I have lost tons of lego in our garden, so eventually my parents told me I wasn't allowed to take it outside anymore, or they wouldn't buy me new ones)

When it came to toys, I liked 'building' toys, like meccano, k'nex, lego, building blocks, etc. but also figures. When it came to figures I had only ONE major concern, and that's that they had to have movable joints. (so also knees and elbows!) the rest didn't really matter, as long as it wasn't a pink fairy or something.
I never did such a thing as try to 'touch up' a not-so-detailed face, the face didn't really matter to me. I did, however, make my own 'clothes' for them (usually a slouchy bag of sorts, LOL!). My parents gave me a few barbies with fancy dresses, but I always -no exceptions- threw away the dress and made my own clothes for them. And with these figures (my favourite was a Spiderman figure, I recall, 'cause it was the most 'agile' and 'movable', and heck! That thing didn't even have a normal face!) I made some sort of 'adventurers fellowship', and made them battle enemies together, etc. or 'survive in the wild of our garden' :'D

I also really liked hide-and-seek, climbing trees, and 'playing knight' in the nearby forest with sticks as swords. When I was a kid I was CRAZY of knights and adventures. I was very bad at sports though, and didn't really like any of it. I've been on a THOUSAND sports, including rugby, soccer, chess, fencing, judo, arching, hockey, basketball, rock-climbing and badminton, none of them really stuck. Right now the only sport I practice is skiing (self-taught, non professional or anything. I have pretty good control, but my friend said it looked 'sloppy' :/), and I like that because it's exciting, fast, and has no 'score', you can't win, just have fun (I'm terribly bad at winning, LOL!). I want to pick up indoor mountain climbing again, and try scuba diving as well some day. Ah yeah, and I like lasergaming/paintball as well, but that's not really sport, is it?

Oh and... I always talk too much. As you can see. Lol! Sorry for the ramble! When I start I just cannot stop anymore.

[FTMDiaries]

As a kid in the 1970s, I was given a lot of girls' toys, such as Barbie & Cindy dolls, baby dolls, etc. But I almost never played with them. I tried to play with them because I knew I was supposed to like them but I'd soon lose interest because they seemed pretty pointless to me; they didn't do anything. Come to think of it, I used to cut my dolls' hair and dress them up as princes, off to rescue an imaginary princess. Or ruin their faces with extreme 'make-up'.

I was very fortunate to have an elder brother to play with. He was given Scalextric, Top Trumps, guns and Lego to play with... so whenever we would engage in indoor play, it'd generally be in his room, with me trying to beat him at racing those little electric cars around the track. If I built anything out of Lego, it would generally be a house, castle or other building, or perhaps a Formula One car. I simply wasn't interested in the little people that come with the set. We also had an Atari 2600 (the PlayStation of the 1970s, for you young whippersnappers) and we used to challenge each other on that.

However, we grew up in Africa where the weather was hot & sunny for 8 months of the year, so we spent a lot of time playing outdoors. We'd play rugby & tennis together; play imaginative games where we'd pretend to be 'Superman' or 'The Six Million Dollar Man' or 'Star Wars'. Huh, now that I come to think of it, my brother would always presume that I should want to be Lois Lane or Jaime Sommers or Princess Leia... but I wanted to be Superman or Steve Austin or Luke Skywalker! LOL

If I was playing by myself, I'd often be out in the garden digging in the dirt, making dams & rivers using our hosepipe, exploring the open veld across the road from our house, climbing trees, or painting in my room.

My all-time favourite toys, however, were my collection of stuffed Pink Panthers. 

[Jamie D]

We also had an Atari 2600 (the PlayStation of the 1970s, for you young whippersnappers)

Oh my gosh yes!  I still have, somewhere in the garage, an original Pong ... but no B&W television to hook it up to.

[Elle16]

Growing up the the 1990's, I was in the height of "Girl Power" in the UK. Buffy was on tv, Lara Croft in videogames and the Spice Girls were big in music!

I played with girls toys, like Barbie, the two girl Power Rangers, Little Memraid & other disney princesses. I wasn't alound girls toys when I was wee, except when my gran bought me Ariel after coming home from hospital - which I later cut all her hair off as I was pulling out my own due stress recovering from meningitis. I think this is also when my GID started, I knew I wasn't in the right body, but I couldn't find the words to tell anyone.

I palyed with the girls on the street, they brought their Belle & Sleeping Beauty dolls out and we played on the concrete. I used to get laughed at by the local boys, but being small at the time I didn't really care much. Or I'd go to friends houses to play with Jasmine and Aladdin. I asked for Belle & Jasmine for my Christmas one year but my dad bought me the Beast & Aladdin... I talked with my mum about this recently and she was like : "well yeah you were disappointed cause you didn't want those, but the girl ones..."

I also played hopscotch, Legos & Pokemon when I was younger. I liked all the girly looking Pokemon like Misty's Seadra or Dragonair - the ones with a girly look to them. Alittle later I got into videogames, all I played was Tomb Raider cause I could be a girl! I have fond memories of playing TR at friends houses and stuff, they never could work out why I loved it sooo much - but somewhere inside I knew, he he 

In Primary school we had 'toy day' and I brought in my game called Happy Ever After - a disney princess game where the girls had to find their true love or something like that. I hid it away in a bag, not thinking anyone would play with me... but I ended up getting it out and most of the girls in my class had a go - it was fun I also brought Kimberly the Power Ranger & John Smith into class... yeah it was so obvious I was a girl - thinking back now like!

I was rubbish at sports at school, I often asked to be on the girls team for everything! In high school the girls and boys were split up and I would ask if I could play with them. Again I was laughed at and always picked last for the teams, it still didn't really dawn on me just why I wanted to be on the girls side - I just hated boys as they were smelly and gross, lol!

I still got dolls up until I was about 11 or so - I loved them! Last few years I went through a regression, going back to my childhood and bought alot of dolls, toys and playsets I didn't have but sooo wanted as a kid! It was magical! I still have the Ariel & polly pockets I had as a kid, they are fab and I look at them all the time 

[ZoeM]

I had a lot of Legos growing up. Some outdoorsy type things - we caught many many lizards - and very few sports-related activities.
I also did a lot of make-believe - I forced my younger brother to play with me, and he got tired of playing female characters long before I did. This was long before I had any conscious sense of gender identity.

Then I started stealing my sisters' Girl's Own Pony-type novels. :/

[zombieinc]

I grew up during the 90s.

My favorite toys were as follows:
- My Power Rangers figurines. I had a whole set of the original 6 rangers (red, blue, green, black, yellow, pink) and the Megazord. I used to stage elaborate battles in front of the tv every day afterschool.

- My PR morphers. I had two of those Happy Meal morpher toys, or at least I think they were from Happy Meals. I had one for the black ranger (mastodon) and one for the red (t-rex). My childhood from ages 7-12 was pretty much all about PR.

- New Kids on the Block Barbies. We had a lot of Barbies, thanks to my younger sister being the ultimate girly girl. Our mom bought us some NKOTB dolls at a yard sale and we loved those things. I loved them because they could take a beating and could survive crazy stuff like being thrown from a moving bicycle, going "skiing" by being hitched to our german shephard's collar, and pretend sky-diving from the top of our dresser. I even rigged up a harness for Jonathan so he could "repel" down the side of the dresser after "saving" some Treasure Trolls from an evil villain (played by Donnie wearing a cotton beard and construction paper top hat).

- Bikes. Apart from my first bike, I always had boys bikes. I rode GT bikes and did BMX and stunt riding from the ages of 6-13. I was pretty ballsy despite being seen as a fat girl. (well, I did get a girls mountain bike but it was a Christmas gift...)

- 4 Wheelers. I grew up in a rural area and 4 wheelers were definitely a thing. It wasn't a strictly boy thing, but a lot of people thought that I may have loved mine a little too much. I loved off-roading, mudding, and doing stunts on my banged up gray Timberwolf and later on the hideous yellow scrapheap that our neighbors kept at our place.

Even though I was a girl...I can look back now and see that I definitely played more like a boy. That's not to say that I didn't play house, like dolls, or other girl stuff too. But my favorite stuff was the boy stuff.

[matthewzguitarz]

I really had A LOT of lego as a kid. I particularly liked Bionicles and technical lego (I liked things that could be remote-controlled in any way, or had some fancy mechanic inside 'doing stuff'), but also 'normal' lego, and sets like Star Wars lego (not too many, 'cause they were more expensive). The lack of detail never bothered me, really. I liked to gather a lot of 'lego accessories' though, like hats, mini guns, lightsabers, swords, shields, or even just household objects, and use those with the figures. I used my lego mostly indoors, except the bionicles, because the parts were so tiny I'd lose them (I have lost tons of lego in our garden, so eventually my parents told me I wasn't allowed to take it outside anymore, or they wouldn't buy me new ones)

When it came to toys, I liked 'building' toys, like meccano, k'nex, lego, building blocks, etc. but also figures. When it came to figures I had only ONE major concern, and that's that they had to have movable joints. (so also knees and elbows!) the rest didn't really matter, as long as it wasn't a pink fairy or something.
I never did such a thing as try to 'touch up' a not-so-detailed face, the face didn't really matter to me. I did, however, make my own 'clothes' for them (usually a slouchy bag of sorts, LOL!). My parents gave me a few barbies with fancy dresses, but I always -no exceptions- threw away the dress and made my own clothes for them. And with these figures (my favourite was a Spiderman figure, I recall, 'cause it was the most 'agile' and 'movable', and heck! That thing didn't even have a normal face!) I made some sort of 'adventurers fellowship', and made them battle enemies together, etc. or 'survive in the wild of our garden' :'D

I also really liked hide-and-seek, climbing trees, and 'playing knight' in the nearby forest with sticks as swords. When I was a kid I was CRAZY of knights and adventures. I was very bad at sports though, and didn't really like any of it. I've been on a THOUSAND sports, including rugby, soccer, chess, fencing, judo, arching, hockey, basketball, rock-climbing and badminton, none of them really stuck. Right now the only sport I practice is skiing (self-taught, non professional or anything. I have pretty good control, but my friend said it looked 'sloppy' :/), and I like that because it's exciting, fast, and has no 'score', you can't win, just have fun (I'm terribly bad at winning, LOL!). I want to pick up indoor mountain climbing again, and try scuba diving as well some day. Ah yeah, and I like lasergaming/paintball as well, but that's not really sport, is it?

Oh and... I always talk too much. As you can see. Lol! Sorry for the ramble! When I start I just cannot stop anymore.

This post reminded me of stuff. I did take TaeKwonDo for a while, but ended up quitting mostly because I really don't like hurting people. Though in the future I would like to try surfing.. even though I can't swim and am very afraid of water

About 6 months ago I decided to quit riding ATVs, used to go Glamis with my dad and brothers a few times every year, but I really dislike the heat, sand, bathrooms being a mile or so away, and am actually afraid of riding those. Probably since I somehow kept ending up stalling on very steep dunes(very scary when you realize that you are probably going to end up at the bottom with your ATV on top of you).

Bionicles, I played with those a lot as well, but ended up playing as the peace keeper type of character while my brother was trying to cause a war. Also about the movable part things, I hated toys that couldn't move.

Also used to play with sticks a lot, I guess like the Narnia books. But I wonder how I ended up as a slave to my younger brother and his friends... Guess that ended with me just walking away as they were throwing rocks and sticks at me.

Would continue, but don't want to end up writing a book.

[Tessa James]

It is not too late to play with the toys you might have wanted as a kid.  To paraphrase "Miss Bungle," I am doing what I can to recover some of my lost girlhood.

[DriftingCrow]

However, we grew up in Africa where the weather was hot & sunny for 8 months of the year, so we spent a lot of time playing outdoors. We'd play rugby & tennis together; play imaginative games where we'd pretend to be 'Superman' or 'The Six Million Dollar Man' or 'Star Wars'. Huh, now that I come to think of it, my brother would always presume that I should want to be Lois Lane or Jaime Sommers or Princess Leia... but I wanted to be Superman or Steve Austin or Luke Skywalker! LOL

If I was playing by myself, I'd often be out in the garden digging in the dirt, making dams & rivers using our hosepipe, exploring the open veld across the road from our house, climbing trees, or painting in my room.

My all-time favourite toys, however, were my collection of stuffed Pink Panthers. 

Omg, I love the Pink Panther 

I also remember spending more time playing with other kids than with toys (besides Barbie with my sister). I'd play a lot of Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians with the kids on the same block as me. I was always a male character in those games. I only really remember pretending to be a girl in games if it was an indoor, chore related game; like I'd pretend to be Cinderella while mopping the floor or a nanny when I was babysitting. But I guess that makes sense because that falls in line with the normative gender roles that I was used to seeing and that Disney portrayed at the time.

[MaddestScientist]

I was pretty outdoorsy...I built a tree fort with my neighborhood friends, we rode our bikes all over the place, and I was really into rollerblading (REALLY, REALLY into it). 

I also was obsessed with a science kit that I had...standard microscope, slides, Petri dishes...  I would collect random things and categorize it based on whatever weird system I made up. 

But, I also played a lot of Barbie.  I was an only child, so I had a pretty specific manner of playing with my Barbies...there was a storyline, and anyone who played with me would have to adhere to the storyline.  Some Barbies would die (get their heads torn off by the dog), and even though some were repairable...they were not to be played with ever again (funerals and everything).

I don't think it has much to do with gender (personally).  Later in life, I would obtain various degrees in science and write tons of short stories.  I gave up on the rollerblading though...and, I think I'd break myself if I had to build a fort or ride a bike.  So, it seems more to me like collecting things was an outlet for what would become a lifetime pursuit in science...my Barbie saga would later turn into a more adult passion of writing.

[Joelene9]

  I didn't get much from my sisters' Barbies.  The dangerous toy oven with a light bulb for a heater, some.  My mom had me use the real oven and I did cook meals.  I had the bikes, chemistry sets, those little green Army men, Lionel trains, Tonka trucks, etc. the other boys had and I enjoyed those.  My cousin and I did explosive sadistic chemistry experiments involving other toys available in the sandbox as well.  There was an old SNL episode of the actors playing kids in an unattended backyard I cannot seem to Google that matches the description with the fire in the sandbox scene.  Yes, I like the Pink Panther cartoon and Peter Sellers' Inspector Jacques Clouseau.  Steve Martin's version was a real joke. 

  Joelene