There are a lot of parties for kids going on and people are being asked to donate gifts, marked "boy" or "girl". It brought back memories.
I remember going to one of those and standing in the "boy" line and being pulled out of the line, I don't remember who by or why. I refused to stand in the "girl" line because I said I'd rather not have a present than have a girl present. A nice lady picked out a special present for me. Said it was not for either boy or girl (it might have been my mother who had me pulled out of the boy line, which makes that make sense). It was a reasonable compromise for me, and I really appreciated that lady's thoughtfulness. I treasured the Gumby and Pokey figures for a long time, just because she was so nice to me.
And yet, every Christmas, I would ask my parents for things like Hot Wheels, racing tracks, toy guns, and I don't remember ever getting an inappropriate present. Given my mum's constant discomfort with me doing guy things, I suspect my dad did a lot of lobbying for me. Although it might not have always been for me. I do recall always having to wait an hour or so to play with my presents till Dad was done. Then Dad and I would make the Hot Wheels tracks run through the whole house and work out the physics of jumps and loops so that the cars ran perfectly through the tracks.
One Christmas, I got an electricity kit, with plug in resistors and capacitors and a volt/ohmmeter, so you could make up your own circuit and measure the current that went in versus the current that went out. That was seriously cool.
Poor Mum. Well-meaning relatives would occasionally send dolls and crap like that and I'd dismantle them playing surgery or mash them up making them into commandos (Commando Barbie had ziplines through the woods and could kill a man with her pointy feet.) Or their body parts would get salvaged for props in my latest murder mystery play. It's just too darn bad she didn't have another kid so she could've had a girl.
Makes me very cautious when I buy presents for kids at this time of year. I used to buy my niece the coolest (in her mind) presents by picking out the thing I would've hated the most when I was a kid and buying it for her, cause she loves girly stuff. My little buddy (friend's son) loves the stuff I love, although I do have to be very careful to make it age appropriate and not violent, cause his mum doesn't approve of guns and stuff. If I didn't know a kid was into gender stereotyped stuff, I'd make the effort to find something neutral like paints.
Dennis
