My son has recently turned 4. My son, who I am trying to raise as a balanced, compassionate, individual who is free to be himself. My new mantra is that I want to remain open, so that I am able to see him for the person that he is - for him to reveal himself to me - as opposed to trying to shape him into some sort of vision that I have for who he should be. I want to bask in his presence.
My son who I inwardly jump for joy when he is drawn to pink airplane toys, princesses, Barbie jeeps & Barbie herself - (who he pronounces Bahbee/like he's from Bahston). And now he's on the other side of 4, and he's not quite categorizing toys & other things into "only for boys or only for girls". But he has somehow picked up that things are either "cool" or "pretty". And he's identifying with the cool stuff, not the pretty stuff. And this is what is pissing me off about our consumerist, sexist society. This is what's pissing me off about companies spending 15 Billion dollars every year marketing to children! Directly! To sell them not only plastic shit that they don't need at all to play and enjoy their lives. But they're also selling them ideas about who they are, what they should be identifying with, and their roles as boys and girls. Selling this shit to babies! Toddlers! Preschoolers! Making a fucking killing by exploiting the natural developmental occurance of how we begin to figure out how we fit into this world and filling in all the blanks of what it means, or looks like to be a boy or a girl.
Number one, I have to spend energy fighting this mass marketing machine. Because I want my kids to make up their own minds, to think for themselves, and to develop into who they are as unique human beings in a natural world possessing both masculine and feminine qualities. So we don't watch advertisements. When they can't be avoided I tell him, "they're trying to sell you stuff that you don't need !" We don't watch a lot if TV in general. We don't spend much time browsing the toy aisles because it makes me want to vomit to see the aisles split into boy shit and girl shit. It's mostly all shit. And don't get me started on the plethora of electronic talking so called educational "toys" for babies.
Which brings me to number two. This shit (TV, toy departments, society in general) would be so much more enjoyable if there was any sort of actual thought, support for healthy development, celebration and yes, Protection of childhood behind it. There's a lot of fucking money to be made and parents like me would shell out more cash if I saw toys that depicted females in roles that we're not solely about looking god damned pretty. We're so much more than that.
And now I have a baby girl. In an era where the Disney princesses have been re-vamped to have a more pronounced arch in their back, bigger eyes, more pout to their lips, higher hair, curvier breasts and hips, and so much more sparkle to their dresses. Because they weren't pretty enough already. Sigh.
No, now they better fit a completely sexualized image. To. Sell. To. Little. Girls. Very little girls.
What the fuck, people?!
Jude was putting together puzzles this evening. Puzzles that someone gave us & we'd never done before. We're jamming out to Raffi, Scarlett is doing baby puzzles (eating wooden puzzle pieces & banging them around) and I'm just watching my son. I am observing and only offering guidance in the slightest way. I'm watching his face burst with the brightest light of the sun and all twenty of his teeth sparkle in his grin because he is proud, filled with pride, when he keeps turning and turning the pieces and finally the picture reveals itself to him and those chopped up pieces finally make sense. And he's doing it on his own. I know how to make puzzles, now it's his turn to figure it out. And I'm giving him the space to do that. So, the second puzzle he is completing depicts some sort of princess from a Disney Junior show. I don't even know who it is. First he thinks the poofy purple dress is cake. I don't correct him. He figures out its a person, a girl. He puts her face together and her arms are both outstretched. I say, "it looks like she's stretching! Maybe she's stretching!" He finds me a couple minutes later, "mommy she's not stretching! Look, she's like... Being a ballerina!" One hand is over her head, turned toward her head. "Oh!" I say, "she's dancing !" So I proceed to dance around the living room. After the puzzle is completed I see it and a little bit of joy inside me dies. She's in a room, surrounded by books, and she's balancing a fucking book on her head.
Why isn't she reading the book?? I wonder.
Why isn't she dancing?
Why isn't she stretching?
Why isn't she eating a fucking piece of cake?
Rant over.
For now.
No comments:
Post a Comment