Toy Preferences in Children

From: Caitlyn

 

Early on in life, children start to learn gender roles. Although kids spend much of their time playing with gender-neutral toys, like crayons, (Rudman and Glick, 60) girls and boys begin to show differences in activity and toy preferences as early as the toddler age (Rudman and Glick, 60). Boys tend to play with “rough and tough” toys like trucks and super hero figures, while girls tend to play with things like dolls and kitchen sets. Children rarely play with toys that are associated with the opposite sex, and this happens in less than 5% of children’s playtime (Rudman and Glick, 60).

In my picture I chose to use my nephew Joey as my model. As you can see, he is playing with his work bench, attempting to pull out the nails. A work bench is geared towards boys, because building things and construction is considered masculine. His work bench has the colors blue, green, red, and grey on it, which all show masculinity. You can also see other toys in the background, which are a magnetized word game and the bottom of his red art easel. When I asked Joey to show me his toys, he went straight to his work bench, making it known that it is one of his favorite toys. The fact that his magnetized word game has all the pieces and looks un-touched shows that Joey hasn’t played with it in a while, even though it is a gender-neutral toy. Also, the bottom pouch of Joey’s art easel has nothing in it, showing that he rarely plays with it. Arts and crafts can be closely associated with little girls, and this little boy rarely plays with his arts and crafts toys. He would rather play with things like his work bench, trucks, and super heroes. Also, I took the photo angling down at Joey because little boys risk being looked down on or made fun of if they play with anything but masculine toys. I also chose to use a picture where Joey was not smiling because it shows that he is not “dainty and pretty” like we encourage our girls to be. Children learn gender roles very early in life, and they begin to be shown very prominently in the toys that kids choose to play with. While girls tend to play with more soft and cuddly toys, boys tend to play with more rough and tough toys.