I'm in a very extremely nostalgic mood tonight. Kinda want some distracting company, but, since I don't have that... Well. Misery loves company...

Soo... For those of you who were lucky enough to have toys of the "other gender" when you were young. What toy(s) was it?

For me it was this:



Generally my requests for girls toys were met with the response of "thats for girls"... But, I think since it was yellow my mom decided it was gender neutral enough to be acceptable.

Wish I still had it. Although, I am a grown ass person, and eBay exists.. So... Hmm... Looks like I have plans for tonight afterall!

I loved dinosaur toys. I think dinosaur toys are pretty neutral . They at least should be if you want a balanced scientific community.

I always wanted one of these as a kid... I was devastated when I found out that it was supposed to be a girls' toy and thus I couldn't have it:



However, my parents had no qualms about indulging my rather odd musical tastes. This was one of my first ever Christmas presents, around age 7 or so: (I blame my best friend Jennifer for this one... )

Quote from: Carrie Liz on March 21, 2014, 09:55:09 PM
I always wanted one of these as a kid... I was devastated when I found out that it was supposed to be a girls' toy and thus I couldn't have it:

When I was young my dad made me my own ribbon dancer using a lathe and leftover ribbon from the holidays...
I must have played with it until the ribbon literally shredded from so much use. Luckily, as a boy I never had gender conformity pushed on me at home... That didn't happen till middle school.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on March 21, 2014, 09:55:09 PM
However, my parents had no qualms about indulging my rather odd musical tastes. This was one of my first ever Christmas presents, around age 7 or so: (I blame my best friend Jennifer for this one... )

LOL. My mom also had no problems indulging my strange musical tastes... I at some point had a madonna cassette. And I had a Blondie album on vinyl (still have it, in fact).

I almost bought a Chatty Cathy doll off ebay last Christmas.  JoAnn said I was acting stupid. 

I wanted that doll soooo much in 1959.  It killed me when my mom and dad told me it's for girls.  I finally ended up getting a heavy swat across the back of my head one morning at breakfast, and was told never to ask again.  Also got a belt to the rear when my mom found some girls clothes in my dresser later that year (I really did find them along the road behind our house, but she didn't believe me). 

Quote from: kathyk on March 21, 2014, 10:53:06 PM
I almost bought a Chatty Cathy doll off ebay last Christmas.  JoAnn said I was acting stupid. 

I wanted that doll soooo much in 1959. 

I can relate to this. I had wanted a Portia Porcupine doll since 1984, (and also one of Dotty Dog, but Portia's special ) I bought several items centered around both characters and even bought new clothes for all of them. They were in dire need of new clothes since a lot of it was really worn out.

Quote from: stephaniec on March 21, 2014, 09:49:43 PM
I loved dinosaur toys. I think dinosaur toys are pretty neutral . They at least should be if you want a balanced scientific community.

Honestly all toys are neutral, we just try to make them not. Since Kids honestly don't care about boy or girl stuff. My niece and nephew play with each others toys all the time. Its not till they get older that we start saying stuff like. Oh no that is for girls or that is for boys, buuuut this is just my opinion of course.

Lets see my favorite toy was a stuffed Lion I carried everywhere. Still have him too ironically I called him lion. He was my protector  not really "another" gender toy, but eh I did have a collection of wishing trolls, and had the pink and yellow rangers hehe...

I loved the little ponies as well ! I remember my parents eventually bought me one (I think she was called "Ribbon") and my big brother was kinda of ashamed of me if I were to bring it with me in front of his friends... Oh well, at least I was honest with what I liked back then lol !

Fun topic !

Chloe

I still have a couple of stuffed toys (from before the day they were known as plushies) - a bear that's almost as old as me, probably 42 years or so, and a womble who is probably almost 40 years old now, both in really great condition because I always took extra special care with them and (most) of my other toys. There were a a whole cast of wombles - mine is "Orinico"...



Orinoco says "Hi!"

One of the reasons I took really good care of them was because I projected a lot and saw them as "living", they could feel sad or hurt if bad things happened to them. I'm such a softie!

Anybody remember this little guy? Petster. He was kind of a precursor to Furby. He responded to different variations of claps and whistles. He meowed, purred, spun around, moved forward, went to sleep, etc. I loved this little guy so much. I've always been a cat person, and for a long time this was the closest I came to having one. A few years ago, I grabbed one off of ebay; just couldn't resist. Scares the hell out of my actual cats. 

-Tegan

I had one of those at my grandmother's house... Buy I never knew about the responding to claps and whistles... I assumed it just moved around randomly. We would usually just turn it on and watch the cats play with it lol.

Quote from: Ms Grace on March 22, 2014, 02:27:29 AM
I still have a couple of stuffed toys (from before the day they were known as plushies) - a bear that's almost as old as me, probably 42 years or so, and a womble who is probably almost 40 years old now, both in really great condition because I always took extra special care with them and (most) of my other toys. There were a a whole cast of wombles - mine is "Orinico"...



Orinoco says "Hi!"

One of the reasons I took really good care of them was because I projected a lot and saw them as "living", they could feel sad or hurt if bad things happened to them. I'm such a softie!

That's awesome... I still have my first stuffed animal too... He's 33 years old now. Apparently it was the first toy I ever had, I was like 4 days old when it was given to me.



His age definitely shows. One of his ears is falling off, and he's got a couple spots of mange. But, he's survived my childhood, moving 19 times, and a house fire. So, I feel like I can keep him alive for another 33 years.

I adored beanie babies and stuffed bears. I did want to play with barbies when i was young. And i.did but i could.never ask for one.. 

I did however play with them at friends houses.who had sisters. And honestly i remember wanting to play with the sister more then the friend at times lol

I had several toys...

I just loved playing with Lego! I could spend entire days just building a city!

I loved to draw, but mainly to paint. A drawing without color was so lifeless! I was always making letters saying how much I loved my mom and drawing Disney characters like Uncle Scrooge!

But my favorite childhood activity was playing with my teddy bear and several other stuffed anuimals. I sleep with them until this day 



Oh, I also had a mini-market like this one:


But I don't remember having any more female/neutral toys.

The only masculine toys I had were small airplanes, like F-18 ar an Enterprise model (trekker until the end!)

The one toy I have left from early childhood - and it is pushing 60 years old and looks it - is a dog.   This one has a zipper along its back and when you unzip it has two puppies inside.  I am not sure if that was supposed to be a girl toy or not.  I would have thought it might have been a bit controversial at that time, but there it is in my old dresser.

Shortly after I bought my first house I got a Raggedy Ann.  She is still in good shape and has her own chair in the spare bedroom.  I think my late wife just tried to ignore her and not read anything into it.

I think I have to cry now.

Uh for one, All. The. Ty. Beanie. Babies.

Actually i still have a few of my bears. The Princess Dianna one and the tiedye one. And I have the flying squirrel. I used to have the America bear and the valentine one too... and i can't remember the others :/

Man it used to be so magical to get a new one, esp. a bear...

My parents would never buy me toys though :/ so my bf got me an easy bake oven for my 22nd birthday to make up for like 15 years of simmering jealousy at this one friend... turns out easy bake ovens are actually awful and i have not used it since I failed making cookies in an easy bake oven ;-; it's not the sameeeee

We also talked about lincoln logs the other day. I didn't have them but my friend did. Seriously what was so cool about lincoln logs.

Also lite brite. That was magical, yeah.

Oh oh and the sit n spin. And bop it and silly putty and furbies and tamagotchi...

ok I am gonna stop cuz my friends had all these, not me ;O; (well i had silly putty at least)

Most of my favs were masculine (shogun warriors,GIjoe,star wars). Although I was only kid with the female joe figs. I wish I still had my Scarlet and Baroness. Oh I also loved the sorceress lady from He-man.

Quote from: sad panda on March 22, 2014, 05:23:51 PM
My parents would never buy me toys though :/ so my bf got me an easy bake oven for my 22nd birthday to make up for like 15 years of simmering jealousy at this one friend... turns out easy bake ovens are actually awful and i have not used it since I failed making cookies in an easy bake oven ;-; it's not the sameeeee

Hang on to it though... Soon enough it'll be a collectors item. They're powered by incandescent light bulbs, which can no longer be manufactured for use in the US by congressional mandate (I personally feel like congress should have better things to do with their time than legislate light bulbs, but that's a different topic for a different thread)... So, as soon as bulbs start going out in easy bake ovens across america, well, they wont be good for anything anymore.