His Toy, Her Toy

I remember when my daughter was born. Visions of her and I dressed in pinks and purples sitting in her lacy pink room playing dolls danced threw my head. A year later my son was born ;My husbands vision of sports and trucks revved around like mad men threw his manly mind.

Those dreams were simply that dreams. Little did I know there are lessons for parents to learn about children's toys and who are children will be.

My daughter plays with dolls. She plays with clay and gets her hands dirty. She plays in the dirt, climbs trees and races her trucks around .,he plays kick ball , base ball and can run as fast as any boy.

My son plays with trucks and builds with blocks, he colors and plays ps2 and he plays house with my girls rocking babies and feeding them.

There was a time my husband would bark to my son "Put down that doll!" until we came to the realization that play is really a child's preparation for real life. Our daughter was learning sportsmanship and how to be a team player from all the sports she played. My son was learning compassion and parenting skills from those dolls. It's amazing to me to watch my son now with his baby brother?I can see the compassion he has learned threw us and his play and I know some day he will be a good father I see my daughter line up her brothers and sister for a game of kick ball. And I see how she has learned to take the lead and take charge. I know some day in what ever she put her mind to see will be a success.

My message to parents is not to limit their child. Toys and sports are learning tools for life and they shouldn't carry a gender.

By the way?my daughter and I play but its not dolls?.many days you can find us all at the beach?covered in muddy sand driving our big Tonka's? .

? 2004-2005 Jennifer Gove

About The Author

Jennifer is a stay at home mother of eight.Living on the coast of Maine. To visit her parenting site That include more aticles, forums and chat go to http://www.simplymoms.com/forums

zjgim@hotmail.com

In The News:

Sharks and a saltwater crocodile went on a feeding frenzy about a mile off the coast of Australia — and the "rare" event was caught on tape.

The Buffalo Museum of Science has been sitting on a rare find.

A team of scientists have recently revealed they are able to keep the brain of a pig alive outside of its body for 36 hours after it has been decapitated.

A chilling 19th-century postcard written by someone claiming to be ‘Jack the Ripper’ has resurfaced in the U.K., puzzling experts.

A New England man, who has requested to remain anonymous, believed a small gold coin with a $5 denomination from the San Francisco Mint during the height of the California Gold Rush was a fake. It turns out, he was wrong and the coin is now estimated to be worth "millions of dollars," according to Numismatic Guaranty Corporation.

Europe's newest Earth-observation satellite has taken flight.

A cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma earlier this month helped push the state to 62 temblors this year alone of magnitude 3.0 or more — and 2,724 of that magnitude or more since 2010.

A young American sailor’s journal detailing his harrowing experiences during the Revolutionary War has been donated to the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an extremely rare marble head depicting the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

The most-viewed eclipse in history had an unexpected witness: A Google Street View car drove right to the edge of totality, offering a surprising celestial treat for visitors scoping out the event in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

His Toy, Her Toy

Parenting Parenting