Toys and Tipping Points

 

    When I was little the toys I was given and the toys that I picked would always be pink, purple, or teal. The toy aisle for girls was also full of dolls and play kitchen toys that were pink and purple. There we always a few toys that would were originally just in the boys' aisle but had been added to the girl aisle once the company had made a girl version in pink or purple. But then when I was at home with my brothers it wouldn't matter the color of the toy or if it came from the girl aisle or the boy aisle. We would play together with the red, blue, and green nerf guns and the legos that came in the blue boxes. We could have water gun fights in the backyard with our red water guns, sure, I would pick the pink basketball if we were playing basketball, but I had been taught that pink is for girls and blue is for boys by what colors were in what section of the stores. Maybe if all the toys were in the same aisle I wouldn't have always picked the pink toy. Maybe if the clothes had come in a bigger variety of colors I wouldn't have always wanted the purple shirt. 

    Last year I helped out with the one, two, and three year olds in a classroom that had all the toys organized by the type of toy and not by the girl toys and the boy toys. The kids would all play with the cars or the animals no matter the color of the toy.  There was one boy who would always want to play with the pink Doc McStuffins toy because the toys in that room weren't specifically for girls or for boys. I think that we are taught that specific things are for girls or for boys so it limits the things we think we can do. But if we no longer thought that there were specific colors and toys for girls and boys, then we would be more free to do what we want without fear of being judged.