I must agree with Katie and protest the idea that it's unnatural for either sex to play or not to play with an item aimed at a particular gender!
As a kidlet, I had Barbie dolls that I liked to play dress-up with, but I also liked playing with the Hot Wheels cars at my Nanny and Pa's house (they were especially special, because we didn't have a lot of cars at my house). When I colored (one of my favorite things to do!), I liked to color scenes best, not kittens and dolls, but things like Little Bear or Winne the Pooh. I really liked the home-improvement shows on TV and if it weren't for my extrasensitivity, I would have loved helping my dad with yardwork or house repairs. When I got older, my favorite television shows were the "boy" ones like Modern Marvels, and I thought it was more fun to play games with the boys in school than with the girls.
(Actually, I still tend to think that boys are more fun to play with than girls, and I'm 22! I just don't have any interest in make-up or current popular fashion or movies or music. Then again, I don't care much for sports, either...)
At any rate, long story shorter, I think the saddest part about the first post to this thread is the implication that imaginative play has decreased. I'm an incredibly imaginative person, and I spent hours as a child lying on my back in bed, picking out shapes and patterns in the speckling on my ceiling. Okay, I still do that. [img]redface.gif[/img] I had fun turning my backyard into a "forest" to explore. My sister and I loved playing with our AG PaperDolls when we got them, and we had so much fun trying to convince our dad to let us do some of the crafts from Felicity and Molly's craftbooks!
We also didn't have cable television from the time I was seven until I was fifteen. We made due with rabbit ears during that time. Our music was mainly the rock and roll my dad listened to when he was in high school, the army, and then in college, because that's what all his records were, and we loved to use the turntable. And then, because we liked that, it's what we listened to on the radio. My mom ran a daycare in our house, so we also spent a lot of time playing outside, to not disturb the babies, or inside reading. I really appreciate the sort of unplugged childhood I had, now that I'm older.
Ha, I guess I ended up typing way more than I thought, but the doll thing really got me started! I won't even get into how dismayed I am at the sexualization of middle school kids, especially since I'm biased in that regard - I'm going on 23 and I've never been on a date or even wanted to go on a date!
[img]graemlins/star.gif[/img] --- KERI --- [img]graemlins/star.gif[/img]
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