quote:And he was all, "Hey there, fellow. How's it going?" When we told him she was a girl, he shifted gears almost unconsciously, and started saying, "Oh, aren't you the cutest thing." Now notice, when he thought she was a boy, he asked her questions, trying to elicit answers. When he thought she was a girl, he just said stuff about her appearance.
I really don't see this as all that bad. He's a scoutmaster, he spends a lot of time dealing with boys, thus he relates to them more, not to mention he's never been a little girl.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I thought it was very funny and exactly on the mark- a great commentary on the modern toy market. I hate the way so many toys are marketed to boys and girls with a huge gap down the middle like boys can't play with anything unless it's to do with battles or spaceships and girls can't play unless it's pink and has to do with unicorns or clothes.
It's not sexist at all, it's making fun of sexists.
quote:...chess was portrayed as something that boys do naturally, while girls need a modified version.
This is because that is how people think of chess often- and it's the same for things like Lego ("Lego is for boys!" I've heard it said by girls). You could do the reverse easily with a game that in popular culture is often seen as a girls' game- like House for example. "House for boys" would include offensive stereotypes of male home behavior such as the couch potato, the man who is never home etc. It might have like a remedial "how to" book for the socially-challenged male who is too hunter-gatherer masculine to relate to his family. The joke only works if it's something that's realistic. It could quite easily be a real commercial.
Sure, in reality it's not a laughing matter at all, but that's what comedy is- if people could only make people laugh at lighthearted issues, the best of comedy would be rather thin. Tom Lehrer sings about the death of everyone in the world.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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"Sure, in reality it's not a laughing matter at all, but that's what comedy is- if people could only make people laugh at lighthearted issues, the best of comedy would be rather thin. Tom Lehrer sings about the death of everyone in the world."
That reminds me of when Michael defines laughter in Stranger in a Strange Land.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I agree with eros entirely on the subject thus far. The commercial wasn't a diss on girls, it was a diss on the toy industry for making all that crap and making girls believe they should want it in the first place. They went after the source, and since it sounds like a lot of this ire is also towards the source, why diss something that agrees with you?
Personally, I found the little exchange between MEC and rivka to be sexist against men, and though in jest, at least as equally offensive as the women in this thread who find it so, find this faux commercial.
quote:And he was all, "Hey there, fellow. How's it going?" When we told him she was a girl, he shifted gears almost unconsciously, and started saying, "Oh, aren't you the cutest thing." Now notice, when he thought she was a boy, he asked her questions, trying to elicit answers. When he thought she was a girl, he just said stuff about her appearance.
Wild guess, but isn't it possible that he felt like a jerk for more or less insulting her and thought maybe the best rapid response would be to make sure he didn't hurt her feelings? Maybe it was being a little sexist, but it was also being thoughtful as well, or at least considerate.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Since us dudes have been sharing why we thought it was funny, would you women folk mind sharing why you found it offensive?
If it were threatening that young girls were being marketed to this way, it wouldn't be funny.
I suppose it is preaching to the choir, in that those who find it funny would have to already "get it;" you'd have to agree that this marketing is skewed and silly in order to see the humor. But you have to not only "get it" to find it funny, you have not to find it threatening.
I know some people find it offensive or problematic that not everything can be made fun of, can be jested at. I know at least one person I love as a friend insists on this as a worldview. But I think it isn't necessary to be aghast and flummoxed by something to be unmoved by what others see as humorous.
For me, I watch this and just feel that long, deep "Ah, right -- this is supposed to be funny, right?" sigh inside.
Babies in a blender jokes can be very funny if you don't have kids. They can be funny if you do have kids, so long as your kids are relatively safe and healthy. It's much much less likely to be funny if your child at your side has a stump for an arm because know what? She stuck her hand in a blender when she was a toddler. And sure, someday even if your kid is permanently affected by this, maybe she'll [or you will] find her own dark humor in telling baby-in-a-blender jokes. But that will be when she is safe, is not threatened, is past it. [the immediate occurrence, that is -- not the disability itself]
We're not past this. We aren't past it at all, and I find it currently threatening to the women and girls I know.
I could make jokes right now about some things like, oh, starvation, or being a nigger, or what have you, and I could talk about in which contexts it might be funny and which it would probably not. But I won't. There are people (I know some, and I love some) who seem -- to me -- to be determined to make it clear that yes, it's all funny to me. And know what? I'm not going to argue with y'all. I'm sure it is funny to you. Be that as it may, this is why it isn't funny to me, and I'm plenty sure about that, just like you.
So it goes. I really don't think I have anything left to say on it, but the question seemed an honest one, so there's an honest answer.
---
Edited to add: To be absolutely clear, I don't find this tragic, or appalling, or ghastly [or "offensive," as the dichotomy was presented in the question quoted at the top of this post]. I just don't find it funny. What I find is merely that long, deep "Ah, right -- this is supposed to be funny, right?" sigh inside.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I have to say, I don't find that particularly funny in terms of how it's played out, but I have... my own sense of humor. However, I do think the premise of the skit is funny. It's making fun of the toy industry that I've always that I've always thought is pretty ridiculous (I hated when I was little and they had "boy" and "girl" happy meals at McDonald's because I always wanted the Tonka trucks version - glad they've gotten more PC over the years).
quote:People who aren't the subjects of prejudice often think that people who are are just taking things too seriously when they get annoyed.
I don't know. I've been through a lot of crap because I'm a female in a macho, male-dominated occupation. But overreacting to a joke seems to validate it to an extent - what do you have to be so sensitive about?
When the guys I work with make a joke I don't like, I roll my eyes and go on doing my job. Eventually, things will balance out because women proved their equality with men - not because they whined about being treated inequally (not that I don't whine, to my girlfriends, about how men are all stupid ).
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As 'womenfolk' myself, and hugely vocal about this kind of subjection of women and girls- I've written/ranted about it here, actually- to the "pink/blue" culture of the western world, I am surprised that other people like me don't find it funny.
I understand why you don't find it funny. Like I said before, I recognise how serious a problem it is. But I still laughed, because I think it's drawing attention to something that's a real problem in our world today, and in a relatively clever way.
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I recently ordered the happy meal and said I wanted the one with a stuffed animal and was told, oh, you mean you want the girl one?
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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[rivka and MattP:] Ah, well, I'm glad it may have been useful. *smile
And I'll reiterate that I know and love many people who find things funny that I do not. I don't think it's necessarily a measure of a person, but more a likely reflection of individual context. And context is something which is only partly a matter of our own choices, and partly a matter of what is brought to us, and parly a matter of what we brought to the situation (both conscious and unconscious).
I wouldn't be spending much time on critiquing what any of you found humorous, or what any of you find sexually appealling (though your sexual actions may come under my baleful gaze -- yes, you, you tree-humpers), or what have you. I do have other fish to fry.
Anyone know any good cantankerous mother-in-law jokes? Mine is having a heart attack right now as we speak, 1500 miles away. We just got off the phone with her only minutes ago -- I was typing the above as my husband pleaded with her to call an ambulance. She's 80, diabetic, and her nitroglycerin isn't working over the last half hour, but she doesn't want to go into get treatment until "Wednesday, when there is a doctor I already know there."
Scratch that request. Give me a few days after the funeral, so I can get some distance.
(Crap. This is exactly what my mother did to me, and I had to get ready to do CPR on her the night she died. After she was unconscious, because she wasn't having any of it while she had breath to insist she was fine.
My husband is flying out on the first flight tomorrow. I don't trust myself to go. )
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quote:I didn't say that it "contributed" to sexism. I said "Grr..."
I found it obnoxious, because I don't think this is really something to laugh about. Sorry, I know that comes across as humorless, like the old Wellesley joke*, but it really is a sore spot.
I apologize; others who responded labeled the joke sexist, and I lumped you in with them.
I didn't find it obnoxious, although I didn't find it funny either. It may be a dividing line I'm not able to cross; having never been female, or the father/sibling of a female, I have no first- or even good secondhand experience with it.
Your Wellesley joke (which I hadn't heard) reminds me of a similarly humorless joke that I agree with:
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Rape.
Rape who?
Rape's not funny!
quote:I see girls being told not to let boys see that they're smart, because it's threatening. And sure, it's not all girls, and it's not all parents, but you're kidding yourself if you think it's not a major part of American culture.
Am I? I suspect an age and/or geographic barrier here, because I don't see this at all. I'm 23, and my female classmates used to boggle at the idea of such blatant sexist thoughts because they were completely foreign. It's the sort of thing we'd attribute to "rednecks" and laugh off, because it didn't seem real.
There are other prevalent sexist trends thoroughly incorporated into America that are impossible not to see, but your cited example just isn't one of them, and it's unfair to accuse me of kidding myself just because I grew up in an environment where that simply wasn't prevalent.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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rivka, why do they tell us? WHy do they tell me? Is it so that we will beg and plead, and show how much we care?
For my mother, at least, it wasn't because she wanted me to make her do it. When I tried, when I insisted on cleaning the house because she was so ill, sick from chemotherapy and living in mold and filth, then is when she "had a heart attack" and "had to go to the emergency room." She wasn't, of course, she was just mad. But I was still supposed to come visit her if I loved her, and I was supposed to stay with her, and I was supposed to watch her cough up until she bled every morning.
And then when she was septic, when I watched the petechiae break out on her body as she was dying, all I could do was walk out the door so my brother could see for himself that she could not take care of herself, not at all anymore. Her brain was motheaten from tumors, and she was falling asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand, and her oxygen tank right next to the bed. And 30 other old people living tight around her, with no protection from a possible explosion except thin walls.
And so I walked out, and lo and behold, we drove 3 miles to the nearest hotel, and we checked in, and I had just ordered a (well-anticipated) margarita from the bar, when my brother called me back. She had passed out and he could see she was turning blue. And so the timeworn circus began, but to no good effect this time.
So. Anyway. To make it relevant again, I would love some good mother-in-law jokes, but not right now, okay?
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Well. Dave called her back, and she is calling an ambulance now. She can't breathe well enough to argue much.
(I had more to say than I thought, but about other things than the topic! My apologies to the original poster for the derail, and please to rerail now. I'm okay, and I'm going to bed, and what will be will be. (((rivka))), darling, thank you.)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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So, I am a bit ashamed to admit this now, but I was slightly turned off warhammer 40k because it felt like a very "boy" game. The soldiers seemed to be mostly men or very slutty. And of course, everyone playing where I am is male. I did play 40k a bit and then discovered Warhammer fantasy and so I spend my money on that instead.
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: rivka, why do they tell us? WHy do they tell me? Is it so that we will beg and plead, and show how much we care?
Hell if I know. My parents, God bless them, do not pull this stuff. (I didn't even hear about my dad's it-wasn't-a-heart-attack-but-he-had-worrying-symptoms until he was already in the hospital. Actually, he probably didn't call my mother until he was under medical care either.) But my dad's mother really did. Until her dementia was so far advanced that she couldn't any more. I never figured out why she liked making her sons crazy either.
*hug* I do have a bunch of MIL jokes. My rabbi tells the best ones -- which he gets from his MIL. Tell me when, and we'll see how many I can recall.
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(Thanks. She is being taken care of at Emergency, and my husband will be with her soon tomorrow. rivka, I will take you up on that when the time is right!)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I think it's kind of interesting that most of the people here (if not all) who thought it was hilarious happen to be guys. Maybe the guys in question ought to consider why that might be. And please don't use the fact that one or two women thought it was funny to dismiss it.
I thought it was funny because women are dumb Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:And he was all, "Hey there, fellow. How's it going?" When we told him she was a girl, he shifted gears almost unconsciously, and started saying, "Oh, aren't you the cutest thing." Now notice, when he thought she was a boy, he asked her questions, trying to elicit answers. When he thought she was a girl, he just said stuff about her appearance.
Wild guess, but isn't it possible that he felt like a jerk for more or less insulting her and thought maybe the best rapid response would be to make sure he didn't hurt her feelings? Maybe it was being a little sexist, but it was also being thoughtful as well, or at least considerate.
Actually, it looked like he didn't even notice that he acted differently towards her before and after we told him. Like it was completely unconscious.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Sure, in reality it's not a laughing matter at all, but that's what comedy is- if people could only make people laugh at lighthearted issues, the best of comedy would be rather thin. Tom Lehrer sings about the death of everyone in the world.
I think perhaps SOME parody might have evoked laughter at this subject, but this one just didn't work for me. It felt a little too close to reality. It's very subtle, hitting just the right note when you're doing a parody. I think this one just failed to hit the right note to evoke laughter in me, other than the sort of uncomfortable hehehewhilebackingup sort of laughter. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Oh CT! I'm so sorry about your MIL <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<hugs>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
and also about your mom.
Humans are stubborn and cantankerous, and they insist on defying death and disability and living life on their own terms. Even when it hurts them terribly and those who love them and have to watch. It's part of being human and wounded. You have such a healing touch, dear. You could have done so much for her if she'd let you. There's nothing more painful than to watch those we love make choices with which we don't agree, choices that hurt them irrevocably. But you did exactly the right thing, you let her have her free agency, which is more important than life.
I hope your Mother in Law will be fine. She's been taught all her life not to be a burden, not to make waves. She's just living that way, the way she believes she should. That's all any of us can do.
I only managed to skim the comments, so I hope I'm not doing the broken record thing, but here's the thing...
Satire is actually one of my favorite forms of humor. The trouble is, *all* satire walks a fine line between rib-cracking laughter and groans/growls. Satire deals in truth, and certain truths just aren't funny no matter how you present them or exaggerate them.
Someone brought up the Daily Show and I love it, in general, but it doesn't always make me laugh. (And I don't just mean the occasional potty humor.) Sometimes something is a little too scary in reality, or too sad. As I said before, it can be very subjective.
It's not always subjective. There are some news stories -- loss of life/human tragedies come to mind -- that just don't make the Daily Show (at least not directly...they may talk about the President's handling of the aftermath of 9/11, but there was nothing funny about that day to anyone).
This commercial was supposed to be funny because:
1.) Girls don't often play chess and often, it is because chess is perceived to be a boy's game. 2.) Girls are inundated with ridiculous princess/nurturing images from toy commercials where the actors do inane and completely unimaginative things with the toys they are trying to sell.
It was not funny to me because there is not nearly enough of the sentiment, "But girls really can play chess!" in real life and because I find that fact too upsetting to be funny. As for the second element, I was insulted by that when I was a child and I just couldn't help remembering that people would insist upon getting me Barbie dolls when I wanted Legos. Nobody would buy me Legos. I had to sneak into my brother's room to play with them.
P.S. I won't keep my son from playing with dolls and if I ever have a daughter, she can have Legos and cars and whatever else she wants.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I never thought there'd be a thread to share this little tidbit about my childhood...but what the heck, it's perfectly relevant.
When I was a kid, I played with flutter ponies, which were My Little Ponies with wings. They made excellent battle steeds for my GI Joes. But ever since then and to this day I get berated by my older brother for playing with 'girl toys' and 'acting gay.' There's plenty of work to be done on both sides of the gender aisle.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I never thought there'd be a thread to share this little tidbit about my childhood...but what the heck, it's perfectly relevant.
When I was a kid, I played with flutter ponies, which were My Little Ponies with wings. They made excellent battle steeds for my GI Joes. But ever since then and to this day I get berated by my older brother for playing with 'girl toys' and 'acting gay.' There's plenty of work to be done on both sides of the gender aisle.
Absolutely! I don't remember how it came up, but I remember my sister in law telling me that her husband refuses to buy dolls for boys. Now, my son has enough stuffed animals, but I still have my eye out for a baby doll...the hard plastic kind that he could even put in the tub. (Was looking for it in earnest before I miscarried...not so urgent now.) The only thing is, I thought it would be neat to find him a boy baby, not because I'm afraid of turning him gay or any of that nonsense, but because there is a certain amount of gender identity whether you program it or not. But I can't find a boy baby doll anywhere. (I've tried 5 stores so far.) Sigh...
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I used to play with a doll ( who I named "michelle") when I was four. I'd change her diaper, feed her, hold her, etc. She was just a regular baby-sized baby doll, like they market to little girls.
Maybe that explains why I was so good with my daughter when she was a very young infant. When my ex was too tired and depressed to do very much in the weeks after she had Skyler, I stepped in and handled the diaper-changing and feeding like I had been doing it for years.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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Maybe consider getting something like playmobil or duplo where you have little plastic people/animals: boys and girls and adults and babies and cats and dogs etc. Generally such toys are considered more girly because they contain people in a civilian capacity, but they are pretty much gender neutral.
I was never much of a storyteller when I played so dolls were never my thing. However, with things like Playmobil there are numerous ways to play with them: I was always a furnisher- I'd set up the house entirely, narrating names and backstory as I did so, and when it was done, that was the end of the game. My brother was more of a player but he wanted to film the narrative he invented. My second youngest sister was a player, she makes them walk and talk, and my youngest sister is a bit of my brother and my second youngest sister combined.
Although I had a boy baby doll- Bicky Kingsnorth, King of the dolls- I played with him less. EDIT: However, I'm glad I had him, so I guess just go for it and see what happens.
~~~~~
On a related note about children's toys:
Another thing about the current climate in the western world is the sheer proliferation of toys that children are given. We we interested to discover that my second cousins, when visiting us, didn't know how to play where they had no or few prefabricated toys, like at our cottage.
Never mind that we have a treehouse and the lake and sticks and flowers and grass and bugs and all kinds of things that can be adopted into a game- any kind of game- to carry it along. They didn't know how to play with the natural environment.
Like toys marketed at girls and boys, this feeling that children need a large amount of toys is, if not damaging, unnecessary. Sure, it's very nice if kids have enough toys to carry them through the day, but it's also nice to teach children to interact with the outdoors environment in an imaginative or exploratory way. Not everyone has access to a garden, but mostly everyone has a park or goes on a camping trip, or can get to somewhere- like a beach- which has a "natural" feel.
However, I think it's those who have enough money for loads of toys who most neglect the more simple forms of play.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: There's plenty of work to be done on both sides of the gender aisle.
I'd heartily agree.
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Tatiana, thank you. It helps to read a more charitable perspective than I was holding -- and as this is not about me, but about my mother-in-law and about my sweetie, getting that perspective on it helps enormously.
[I had figured out before the end that what my mother wanted from me (though I don't know about my MIL yet) was to witness her suffering, not to try to make it better for her. So hard, though.
She had a lot of suffering, but you are right (I think) in that being able to exert her own agency was the only thing which seemed to mitigate that suffering. Nonetheless, when she was unable not to put others at grave risk -- the lit cigarettes and the nodding off under morphine and the oxygen tank -- that was when I felt we had to supercede her expressed wishes. The other people in the complex would have been injured, too, with a good chances of some of them being killed. I had to go back to residency the next Monday , and she wouldn't have allowed anyone else to be there full-time. As it was, it seemed that every time I closed my eyes, she would be up and tripping over oxygen cords (and -- bless her stubborn heart! -- insisting on sleeping right next to this hulking huge glass coffee table) and lighting a cigarette. I was terrified to sleep. It was a long, long month.
And wouldn't you know -- the night my brother and I came to agreement that we had to go against her wishes was the night she died. Actually, my brother realized this as she began the final process of dying, although we never acted or spoke on it. A bit of a blessing, there. The infection had had just enough time to overwhelm her, just the night before we would have had to have that very hard talk and started to take away her agency.]
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Edited to add:
quote:Like toys marketed at girls and boys, this feeling that children need a large amount of toys is, if not damaging, unnecessary.
Another hearty agreement.
I think the needs for and barriers to outdoor play are underrecognized in public policy, too. One of the main reasons parents gave for discouraging outdoor play at a particular Native American reservation was the roaming packs of semi-feral dogs. They didn't need more playground equipment to get the kids away from computer and TV screens -- what they really needed most was an animal control officer.
But until the parents were systematically assessed, nobody at the policy level really understood what the best use of more funds would be.
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CT, I'm watching my own mother's slow decline with the same idea in mind. Until she's a danger to others, she get full self-determination. I try to persuade but I don't do anything she doesn't agree to and believe in. I'm not looking forward to how heartbreaking it will be to take away her agency, should that ever happen. I think your mom (as determined a lady as she was) must have felt that blessing very much, that she died with hers still intact.
It's also complicated by my understanding that I forced Drive By to accept medicine (for her asthma and bowel inflammation) which was actually making her worse (her Cushings, which we didn't realize she had yet), and she knew it, and tried to tell me, but I wouldn't listen. I hope she will forgive me for that. I feel very much that I wronged her terribly. I had the power to force her to take the treatment that I thought was best for her, but I didn't have the understanding to know what I was really doing. I think our humility and awe in the face of the unbreachable wall of ignorance that separates us from other beings must always keep us treading very carefully in matters of agency and self-determination.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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In terms of social perception, there is a lot of work to be done certainly. In terms of college admissions, however, don't women far outdo men?
and...
quote: Young women in New York and several other large American cities working full time are now making more money than men
from the New York times. Not the most cogent thing I've ever said, but I do think that it is worth noting.
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quote:Another thing about the current climate in the western world is the sheer proliferation of toys that children are given. We we interested to discover that my second cousins, when visiting us, didn't know how to play where they had no or few prefabricated toys, like at our cottage.
Yeah... I'm stunned by the complexity of toys today, all the crap you have to buy to continue "playing". When I have kids, they're getting the basics - Legos, playdoh, stuffed animals, art stuff. They can feel all underprivileged when they visit their friend's houses, but at least they'll have imaginations. Boredom is good for kids. Posts: 57 | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I never thought there'd be a thread to share this little tidbit about my childhood...but what the heck, it's perfectly relevant.
When I was a kid, I played with flutter ponies, which were My Little Ponies with wings. They made excellent battle steeds for my GI Joes. But ever since then and to this day I get berated by my older brother for playing with 'girl toys' and 'acting gay.' There's plenty of work to be done on both sides of the gender aisle.
My younger brothers did a similar things with Ninja Turtles and My Little Ponies. Except they also added the storyline that the Barbies were the Ninja Turtles' girlfriends.
I did tease them a bit, but they were my younger brothers. I teased them about everything, and they did the same to me.
My play with Barbies was a little bit...unorthodox. I'd take them out in their car to a hill that I liked to play on, and they'd be lost in the wilderness. I could have played that with any sort of toy figures, but Barbies were what I had. I had no interest in changing their clothes or brushing their hair.
quote:My play with Barbies was a little bit...unorthodox
I took the head off one of my sister's barbies, strung it on monofilament, and ran it over a nail in the door jamb to our family room. Then I made the head dance while I sang (from behind the door) "I... ain't got no body!"
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I always buy kids the toys that give the most play value for the buck, and those are usually building toys (because you can build a million different things with the same toy) like blocks, legos, knex, no-ends, or else creativity toys like paint sets, markers, crayons, art supplies, construction paper, play-dough, and so on. The old Fisher-Price little people sets were fantastic. The new ones suck, though. I regret the loss of the old ones. I still have a complete set of old ones (farm, castle, garage, marina, airport, zoo, convenience store with car wash, home, school, playground) and kids LOVE it.
Tonka trucks are also great fun, and can be played with a million different ways. You can ride them or dig in the dirt with them or even (as my niece did) take your Barbies on a hay ride.
I also loved things like train sets and rockets. There's a lot of fun to be had doing those things.
Of course, we played outside all the time too. Wading in the creek was a favorite, which involved catching little animals and letting them go as well. Damming the creek and seeing how big a pool we could make before it inevitably washed away was another thing we loved. Mud holds best if it has a structure of pinestraw and sticks to reinforce it. Building forts in the woods and playing in them, building treehouses, planting flowers or vegetables and waiting for them to grow, feeding the birds and wild animals and watching them eat, playing impromptu rpgs (before they were called that), building a boat and launching it on the creek only to have it capsize instantly and eventually retire it for use as a wading pool, all those games we amused ourselves with forever. I do sort of feel sorry for kids today, that they aren't allowed to do a lot of those things.
Being outdoors is so amazing. I would go crazy when it stormed, as a kid, and I wasn't allowed to go outside. I would get cabin fever and go nuts. It's really sad that we spend so little time out of doors as we do now, I think.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:My play with Barbies was a little bit...unorthodox
I took the head off one of my sister's barbies, strung it on monofilament, and ran it over a nail in the door jamb to our family room. Then I made the head dance while I sang (from behind the door) "I... ain't got no body!"
LOL
I just cut their hair off and had them get kidnapped by aliens. My Cabbage Patch dolls were kidnapped by aliens, too. Come to think of it, very few of my toys didn't get abducted at one point or another.
quote:Originally posted by guinevererobin:
quote:Another thing about the current climate in the western world is the sheer proliferation of toys that children are given. We we interested to discover that my second cousins, when visiting us, didn't know how to play where they had no or few prefabricated toys, like at our cottage.
Yeah... I'm stunned by the complexity of toys today, all the crap you have to buy to continue "playing". When I have kids, they're getting the basics - Legos, playdoh, stuffed animals, art stuff. They can feel all underprivileged when they visit their friend's houses, but at least they'll have imaginations. Boredom is good for kids.
Don't be so sure what you're going to do when you have kids until you actually do. The truth is, these toys aren't for kids, they're for parents. We justify it by saying to ourselves that they're for our kids, but they're not. Personally, I think I've struck a reasonable balance on toys (actually, when I go to other kids' homes I sometimes wonder if my son is deprived) but I get bored with the same old things all the time and I do enjoy having new things to play with.
The trick with toys is to get the stuff that can be played with in many ways and/or will last through many stages of development. I like the Little People sets because they can play with them for years and they give you an outlet for imaginative play, which can be a new adventure every day.
And then sometimes I buy an electronic talking puzzle or talking refrigerator magnets. Oh well...
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quote:And he was all, "Hey there, fellow. How's it going?" When we told him she was a girl, he shifted gears almost unconsciously, and started saying, "Oh, aren't you the cutest thing." Now notice, when he thought she was a boy, he asked her questions, trying to elicit answers. When he thought she was a girl, he just said stuff about her appearance.
Wild guess, but isn't it possible that he felt like a jerk for more or less insulting her and thought maybe the best rapid response would be to make sure he didn't hurt her feelings? Maybe it was being a little sexist, but it was also being thoughtful as well, or at least considerate.
Actually, it looked like he didn't even notice that he acted differently towards her before and after we told him. Like it was completely unconscious.
Perhaps he didn't notice that he acted differently because he wasn't acting differently. Maybe he knew she was a girl all along (she was wearing a dress after all) and any perceived change in his attitude was due to you assuming prejudice in a situation that was ambiguous. It's much easier to identify prejudice when a person is constantly looking for it.
I'm not even sure that was an example of prejudice. It seems to me to be more a case of stereotyping, and stereotyping is still a rather effective way of categorizing people that you've never met before.
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Christine, Little People are so great! Every kid I've ever known from newborn to age 18 and above loves those things.
We have this Fisher Price school bus that's a toddler's ride toy. It's indestructible and my nieces rode it until they were teenagers and no longer able to hold their knees from dragging the ground. So ride toys, big wheels, trikes, bikes, skates, those make great toys too with a lot of play hours for the price.
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It strikes me, looking at that list of my favorite toys, that building things was obviously always my favorite thing to do. No wonder I'm an engineer.
Another thing was on Halloween we made our own costumes, and weren't limited to what was on offer in the stores. The most we might do is buy a 15 cent mask. That was so much more fun than just buying a costume! I feel totally sorry sometimes for the overprivileged next generation. They miss out on so much that's fun!
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posted
I learned about the existence of sex from, no kidding, the neighbor girl and her demonstrations with Barbie and Ken. I didn't have a lot of toys - just a couple of dolls, and then lots of books.
I was completely flumoxxed as to why she kept making Ken's head go up Barbie's shirt. It made no sense to me at all. I'd never even heard of that. I was nine or ten.
So all those explosions of pink girly commercials? THAT's what I think of.
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quote:I'm not even sure that was an example of prejudice. It seems to me to be more a case of stereotyping, and stereotyping is still a rather effective way of categorizing people that you've never met before.
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Dagonee- my siblings doing stuff like that is why I still have a fear of Barbie dolls and absolutely no desire to play with them. The idea of having them in my home (for my daughter) kinda freaks me out. Bin is 8 months old now and she LOVES Little People. My husband could not understand why an 8 month old would want little people and within a day of giving them to her, he admitted he was wrong. And it isn't just a new toy thing, she has been loving that set for a few weeks now.
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I had one Barbie. And Captain America. And some Star Trek action figures. Including Geordi...who ended up without a visor and with only one arm. I don't remember why; I think he was on an Away Mission and fell off a cliff...and I wanted to see what he looked like under the visor.
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I had a Cindy- a cheap knockoff of Barbie. She didn't get much play time though. I guess she wasn't my favourite.
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: CT, I'm watching my own mother's slow decline with the same idea in mind. Until she's a danger to others, she get full self-determination. I try to persuade but I don't do anything she doesn't agree to and believe in. I'm not looking forward to how heartbreaking it will be to take away her agency, should that ever happen. I think your mom (as determined a lady as she was) must have felt that blessing very much, that she died with hers still intact.
I will keep you in my thoughts, Tatiana. One of my greatest comforts at this stage in my life is knowing that I will never have to go through losing either of my parents again. Odd, but true. For all of my adulthood, I anticipated dealing with her decline and death as probably the greatest challenge of my life.
Another complicating factor for me was that I knew her brain was riddled with metasteses and that the morphine levels were so high she was not really herself any more. I watched her numbingly lift her fingers from her other cupped hand to her mouth, mimicking the taking of more morphine pills -- but her hand and fingers were empty. She went through the motions of gulping and swallowing without knowing that her mouth was empty. In that state, I couldn't tell what were really her considered choices and what were just impulses or fever dreams -- and none of this putting others at risk, none of it, was consistent with how she had lived her entire life up to those last few months.
It was so hard to do, to be there as witness and try to support her, while still figuring out whether she was acting as an agent still, or more as in a coma or sleepwalking. I dreaded (dreaded!) harming her by taking away her autonomy, but I feared letting her down by not doing it, you know? There were moments of clarity, including once when she looked straight at me (my Mother again, looking out of those eyes, present) and said, "Oh Sara, I know how hard it is to be the one there, and how much easier it is for those who stay further away. Thank you." (She'd cared for her father and mother as each of them died, and as a nurse, she shielded them from the parts they (and he) wanted them shielded from.)
Any mention of hospice was taken by her as an indication that whomever said it wanted her to die. This included her oncologist. My job -- my explicit job, as I held legal power of attorney and power of healthcare determination -- was to act as her voice when she could not speak and insist that everything remotely possible be done in order to keep her alive for every possible minute. These were her expressed, exact wishes.
So though I didn't have to do CPR since the paramedics arrived as her heart stopped, I did have to insist that they resuscitate her. And I went in the ambulance, and heard and saw her ribs crack with compressions, and I had to insist that they intubate her, too. And by God, I did it. I did it. I don't know how, and it was like chewing glass, but I did it for her, and she died anyway. But I didn't let her down.
If you ever, ever want to talk, you should feel free to call. I'll make sure you have my current address and my phone number today.
Olivet listened to me and comforted me through my mother's last time, and I swear that was as close as I could ever come to see the face of the Holy in another human being. [My husband was there, and all I could want from him and more, but I think Livvy became my own Mother for a while. It was inexplicable but pure grace to me.]
quote:It's also complicated by my understanding that I forced Drive By to accept medicine (for her asthma and bowel inflammation) which was actually making her worse (her Cushings, which we didn't realize she had yet), and she knew it, and tried to tell me, but I wouldn't listen. I hope she will forgive me for that. I feel very much that I wronged her terribly. I had the power to force her to take the treatment that I thought was best for her, but I didn't have the understanding to know what I was really doing. I think our humility and awe in the face of the unbreachable wall of ignorance that separates us from other beings must always keep us treading very carefully in matters of agency and self-determination.
I am so sorry you carry that with you. I can't think any creature who could love someone would not forgive this without a thought, truly I can't. I imagine as far as she can conceive the harm to her, she surely conceives the harm to you and would want to take that from you.
Humility and awe indeed. I think at the deepest heart of my decision not to have children was understanding that I might not have it in me to be a physician and take this stance with my own kids, as well as for my mother. I don't know how parents do it, but I'm sure they don't know how they can do it until they have to. But it does come sometimes, and when it does, it is very very fearsome and hard.
I had other reasons not to have kids -- my health, my first husband's unwillingness to, my second husband's age and health, and the fact that I already had a grandchild through his kids by then. Honestly, though, I think it would tear me apart.
Parents! Bless you and bless you again.
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Well, since I feel the need to present my credentials first, I'll say that I'm a woman, and a mother of three girls (one of whom plays chess and enjoys it) and I found it very funny, and took it as a mocking portrayal of the ridiculous marketing strategies of certain companies who market fluffy pink toys to girls.
Edit: Yikes,I didn't realize how much the thread had wandered afield. After CT's serious post, I feel mine is now innapropriate. Sorry.
[ September 11, 2007, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: Belle ]
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However, I do think the premise of the skit is funny. It's making fun of the toy industry that I've always that I've always thought is pretty ridiculous (I hated when I was little and they had "boy" and "girl" happy meals at McDonald's because I always wanted the Tonka trucks version - glad they've gotten more PC over the years).![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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