girl roles-playing princess, etc.

**Tuckervill** · 10-01-2009, 03:04 PM

I guess the present-day equivalent is home schooling.

No, it's not. Homeschooling does not equal social, cultural, religious, ethnic or any other kind of isolation. There are as many different types of homeschoolers as there are people who send their kids to brick-and-mortar school. Please do not perpetuate that stereotype.

I'm visiting out of town and don't have easy internet access, so I may or may not be able to post in this thread again. This explains my rather direct reply.

Karen

**Irulan** · 10-01-2009, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by Tuckervill

No, it's not. Homeschooling does not equal social, cultural, religious, ethnic or any other kind of isolation. There are as many different types of homeschoolers as there are people who send their kids to brick-and-mortar school. Please do not perpetuate that stereotype.

I'm visiting out of town and don't have easy internet access, so I may or may not be able to post in this thread again. This explains my rather direct reply.

Karen

uh yeah, wow

Unless you homeschool and don't let your kids play with other kids . . . then you can't control everything they are exposed to.

Yes certainly the stereo type of the overprotective, isolationist home school families exist BUT there are as many kinds of home school variations as there are colors of skin on the planet. I agree don't perpetuate the stereo type of homeschools as a bunch of isolationist fanatics...
I personally know:
-education co-op types, with huge amounts of intellectual and social input from a variety of sources (field trips, community experiences,visiting experts, shared teaching);
- religious/isolationist home schoolers;
-hippie-granola home schoolers;
-waldorf type family education groups
-gifted kids working way past their grade level with parent and community support;
-trouble maker kids who's parents "home school" them but this just means the kid watches tv and skateboards all day,

This is why I am such a proponent of telling a kid why, in their terms, something is the way it is at our house.

**sarahspins** · 10-01-2009, 04:14 PM

I haven't read all of the replies, but I think kids will be what they want to be... regardless of influence from parents. I am so not a girly girl... but my 4 year old however, yikes... she is totally girly. She tells me she wants to be a ballerina (she's never taken dance classes) and she LOVES shopping for all manner of girly things (I hate shopping). It's rediculous almost... she loves dolls and ponies and dress up all kinds of things that I just don't "get" because I was just never interested in them as a kid (I was a serious tom boy, as was my sister).

Where does this come from? I have NO idea. I think it's cute, and I do think on some sort of level I may encourage it because it is cute, but on the flip side, she's just as at home playing with toy cars and legos... or going out and getting dirty in the yard, and my boys are just as at home playing tea party with her or playing with otherwise "girly" things.. because I try not to push much gender-bias on any of them and nothing really has a "label" attached to it - if it's fun, imaginative play, it's fair game in this house

**northstar** · 10-02-2009, 11:08 AM

To kind of add a dimension to this thread...

I just finished reading Alfie Kohn's book, Unconditional Parenting, and it really is about being engaged in your children's lives and letting them be who they are. I thought it was a great read. We just really need to be in tune with what might be influencing our kids' interests and make sure that it's for their own good.

**limewave** · 10-16-2009, 07:39 PM

DH just forwarded me this site.

**shootingstar** · 10-16-2009, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by limewave

DH just forwarded me this site.

Perhaps this is what my brother-in-law would not like to happen-- daughter wanting stuff to bought on the Disney theme.

Princess stuff is ok especially when it's homemade stuff and creative, harmless (non-hurtful to other children in terms of status) role playing that the kids make up on their own. Based on fairytales they might have read or seen in a movie. At least they are creating their own imaginative world, a good thing instead of relying on Disneyifed stuff..that costs money..and more money.

Guess when it gets to the little girl beauty pageants with tiara crap...to me, from a family of 4 sisters and 1 brother, it's just parenting in the wrong direction.

Due to poverty, we only had um..2 dolls amongst all us kids. None of them Barbies. 1 of the dolls was actually.....doll with rough curly blonde hair, blue eyes and wearing....a dirndl. Given as a gift and now I realize, how coincidental that was...since I grew up in German-based Ontario city!

**e.e.cummings** · 10-17-2009, 02:10 PM

lph, it sounds like we have gone through the same thing - I tried so hard to limit my son's exposure to 'war-like' toys, tv and activities, however, you could go for a walk in the park and he would pick up a stick and he and his friends would be playing 'cops and robbers', pretending it was a gun. Are they hard-wired? Probably the same on the girls side. I grew up with my barbies, loved them, and I don't think it did any harm. To echo Tulip's sentiment, when the parents disapprove of an activity, it can often come off as disapproval of the child. It say let her be.

**BalaRoja** · 10-17-2009, 04:44 PM

Originally Posted by papaver

Let kids be what they want to be.

+10000

**Crankin** · 10-17-2009, 05:40 PM

Yes, there is research that proves that boys are hardwired to pick up that stick and pretend it's a gun.
A lot of good my no war toy policy did me. My son who is in the Marines played with those little green toy soldiers for hours, read hundreds of books on military history, and was obsessed with the history channel (still is). I didn't try to stop it and I am glad I didn't.

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