As a kid, did you ever refrain from getting a toy because it was intended for the other gender?

Quite the contrary, I enjoyed the hell out my My Little Pony sleeping bag. It had rainbows! And horses!

I’m a boy!

I can’t say as I avoided boy toys at all. I wanted Star Wars action figures with an unholy burning passion.

Didn’t even have any toys

When I was a kid I fit all the stereotypes. I hated anything that was pink or purple, glittery, or had girls on it. But maybe that could have been from marketing, I guess I’ll never know.

Nope

For the record @aphilotus is not trolling. He really did have such a sleeping bag and “enjoyed the hell out of it.” Whether or not that counts as a toy is a different story. Certainly a prime example of disregarding implied gender marketing.

I think it’s easier for girls in this situation. No one batted an eyelash at my enjoyment of hot wheels, dinosaurs, or chemistry sets. At the same time, I joined @J0E in my dislike of all things girly, pink/purple, or glittery.

I mean, I had plenty of “girly” toys when I was younger: I had a baby doll, I had a sew-it-yourself cat, I played house and played with my sister’s dollhouse all the time, among other things, and magenta was my favorite color. I also liked legos, K’nex, anything electronic, sports, and hot wheels. I was a pretty balanced kid. :)

But as I got a little older (like around 10 or so) I became embarrassed of all that feminine stuff and always made sure what I got wasn’t “too girly” and I would skip over the magenta thing and get a red one even though that’s the one I really wanted. It’s funny because I so don’t care about that anymore. And yes, I realize that I turned out gay. :P

And it pretty much goes without saying that it’s probably a bigger problem for boys than it is for girls.

Yes and no. I didn’t really actively seek any girl’s toys, but I used to play with my younger sisters ones sometimes possibly out of boredom, interest, and in combination with my own toys (like playing with barbies with my action men). Never really played with anything like babies/prams/dollhouses not because of refrain, but because they didn’t interest me.

Not at my house! This was mostly reflected in my choice of Halloween costumes. I would be whoever I wanted, some male, some female and my mom always made the costume for me. I remember we had a lot of power rangers action figures around the house, same with star trek figurines. I had legos and tinker toys and k-nex. My mom mostly frowned on expense. If it was really expensive and she knew I wouldn’t play with it a whole lot that’s what kept the toys from coming in.

@aphilotus That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. GA Lurve to YOU!!

Dom, you’re too young to remember a film called Free to Be You and Me but I do and am glad I was raised with it. One scene was about a boy who wants a doll.

My sisters had the Easy Bake Oven, and I never got to touch it…yes I was jealous, as none of my toys made food. :(

@breedmitch

I’ve actually seen that clip before, but only because someone linked me to it on a different site when I posted this same question! haha…I love it. :)

And I loved my baby doll Christopher. I still have him. Definitely one of my favorite toys. :)

Shute, I loved playing with Power Rangers and Hot Wheels. I still do sometimes, But, yeah, toys should be neutral.

@DominicX – This is what my EasyBake Oven looked like. Not girly at all. :-)

@Les

Aw, man. All they had available when I got one was this one: http://jessiwhitt.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/easy-bake-2005a.jpg

@Les: Very 80’s chic. :)

I didn’t shy away from toys marketed at boys, but I think my parents shied away from getting me some of them.

@DominicX – Holy moley. That is a bit pink-purple. Sorry about that. Don’t feel bad about it, though. When I was an RA in a college dorm, I had a couple guys who bought a EasyBake oven from Walmart to use in their room. They were the hit of my floor, and it was perfectly “legal” because it cooks with a lightbulb. They made me a cake for my birthday. :-)

@Les – That’s the one I remember. Not girlie at all, but I still didn’t get to play with it.

I was into stuff that I guess is fairly gender-neutral: farm sets, dinosaurs, horses etc. I had a Thingmaker (remember those?) with the Mini-dragons molds. This was back when manufacturers still thought we small kiddies could use something that actually plugged into a wall outlet, instead of ‘cooking’ things with a lightbulb!! Oh, I also had Fun Flowers which I guess is a bit girly. I didn’t get interested in Barbie stuff till I was pre-teen.

@KatawaGrey – Yeah, for sure. I think it was actually called a “MicroBake”. Becuase microwaves were all the rage.

hello kitty

“I just think that a lot of toys are better being gender-neutral.”

I couldn’t agree more. This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

My daughter hears this crap from some classmates and I’m constantly correcting it.

I had a Wonder Woman doll and loved playing with my friend’s Barbie Dream house in addition to my Star Wars toys.

Yes, when I was 9, I wasn’t allowed to play with action figures of any kind. “Because they were for boys”. I wasn’t allowed to buy them myself either. I don’t think I’m even allowed now.

Hmm, well I had an older brother and played with a lot of his toys, and he’d play barbies with me (I know he enjoyed it, playing dolls is fun!) So, if I wanted to play with racecars or dinosaurs or video games, we shared. I don’t remember ever feeling “this is a boys only toy” or whatever. I was very much a tomboy, but still feminine when it came to toys.
@les I feel like I had an easy bake that looked like that. I can’t figured out when they changed styles…I think my easy back would be circa early 90s.
We have a son currently, who is obsessed with trains. I happen to find them very gender neutral. Anyone can be fascinated with them, and most children are. If our next were to be a girl, she would have been playing with lots of trains lol.
I like that the kitchens and home setting playsets are very neutral. I don’t have to actively search for a non-pink and purple kitchen, they just have them. All kids like to role play, so why make such things only in pink?

I loved playing with cars, trucks with race tracks and train sets. But I hated dolls…Sometimes i’d like to play with barbie and ken but not seperate lol

I remember I never really played with Barbies, I just liked to change their outfits because there was so many to choose from. Then I put them away

I didn’t play with a lot of store bought toys when I was a kid. I liked to read and color and get dirty outside. However, I loved Strawberry Shortcake and my Hot Wheels racetrack. I always hated the girl aisles at Toys r Us. They are so pink and garrish.

I wanted boys’ toys in the worst way: little cars, a scooter, a little red wagon. A train set! Girls’ toys were just dumb. Dolls, dollhouses, pretending to be a mommy. But it was the 1950’s, and girls simply couldn’t have those things. I remember standing with my father in the toy department at Jordan Marsh in Boston shortly before Christmas, staring at the model railroad, watching that precious little engine going round and round and emitting little gusts of steam, and I don’t know which of us craved it more. But he had daughters (the sons didn’t come until later), and we walked away.

Instead the neighborhood kids (mostly boys) played cowboys, and I was a pistol-packin’ cowboy. We played knights of the Round Table, and I was King Arthur, with a sword. We played circus, and I was the whip-wielding ringmaster. We played Robin Hood, and I wasn’t Maid Marian. And I wasn’t even a tomboy! I just always wanted to do the interesting stuff and not the boring and predictable. Back then, only boys’ toys said adventure and imagination. Girls’ toys said domesticity.

I’ve hated pink all my life.

[ Edit ] And like @tinyfaery I loved to read, color, paint, draw, and do stuff with dirt, one of the best playthings ever invented. And climb trees.

I never wanted boys’ toys… give me a Barbie and I’d be happy. I had like, 5 American Girl dolls too. Freakin loved dolls, I played with them til I was in 6th or 7th grade.

I was pretty much a tomboy as a kid. You could find me running around with all the boys in our neighborhood, pretending to kill each other with toy guns. We played basketball in one neighbor’s backyard because they had a real court. We played baseball in the street, and football all over the place. I took karate lessons and rode a boy’s dirt bike. A girl with more “boyish” interests is certainly more acceptable than the other way around.

My mom really wanted me to be more girly. She bought me every stupid Barbie toy available, from the Dream House to the Barbie MdDonald’s. I rarely played with any of them, but this boy she babysat for sure loved them. Other than buy the toys for me, my mom didn’t do much to inhibit my interests. She never banned me from playing Army or tackle football. About the time I hit middle school I started being interested in more things that other girls liked, but it wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that I figured out how to dress and act like a girl.

@Jeruba ‘s comment above about dirt reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in years. My parents had this big plastic garbage can outside our back door one summer. It was about half full of rain water, and for a long time my little buddies and I played Evil Witches. We chucked every disgusting thing we could find into that trash can, added more water from the hose, dumped in lots of dirt and worms. Even some dog poo went into that concoction. Then we’d stir it with big sticks and pretend like it was some poison to wipe out the planet. It smelled foul and looked disgusting, and we loved it so much.

Something I always thought was too bad was how my mom’s barbies were so much cooler than mine. Back then, Barbie was an astronaut and a doctor and all sorts of cool stuff. My generation got Malibu Barbie and dancing Barbie.

Also, action figures are just dolls with a different name, may I just say.

You heard me, boys. ;)

As long as it wasn’t pink or girly I wanted it. I hated girly stuff. I was the girl ripping off barbie heads. So no. I never passed up gender specific toys. I often stole my brothers.

I hate pink. I stayed away as often as I could from pink toys. I never got an Easy-Bake oven. I was put to work on the real one in the kitchen before I was 8.

Hell no! I loved dinosaurs, remote control cars, legos, and doing anything else considered “boy like”. I also loved EasyBake ovens… Well. Hmm. I think that’s the only “girly” toy I liked. I hated barbies and dolls for the most part. Ooh! Besides those baby dolls that didn’t show the gender until you rubbed their cheek. I think that’s how you found out anyway, but I loved those. :D

Anyway, I hate marketing toys for specific genders. Let kids enjoy whatever the hell they feel like enjoying.

My parents bought us each the same toys, just in different colors. So if I got a baby doll, my brother did, too, and if he got a red and blue dump truck, I got a yellow and green one. At least until he started school he swapped with me so I had both trucks and he had two baby dolls.

As we got older most of our toys were either for building stuff or for being active outside, including basketballs, a tetherball, the metal skates you clamped on to your shoes with a skate key, bicycles, and a small row boat.

I was a tom boy. I loved dolls, too…but to this day I love playing in the mud!

My son is the opposite. He can’t wait to see what new outfits his American Girls will get from Santa this year. He loves pink & rainbows. He takes ballet/tap/ballroom (his choice for fitness), likes to play dress up, and loves going shopping (which to this day I abhore;). As parents we try to allow him to utilize his imagination as much as possible, so we won’t limit based on gender…never.

No not really, I wasn’t the kid who would give about what is for girls and what is for boys… neither were my parents… and I am glad that was able to enjoy both sex’s toys =)
Trains and stuff like that could be cool !

not w/toys, but would you believe I was prevented by my father from playing certain instruments for band?

I was not allowed to play the drums, sax, or anything else my father had seen as too masculine.

Not that I really wanted to play any of those instruments anyway. But I certainly didn’t want to play the flute either.

the flute was seen as the ultimate in fem for my father and he did really want me to play it:(

I hated anything girly. I spent most of my childhood in the back of my dad’s store. I took all the old dead lawn mower engines and made one that worked and put that on my wagon. My dog and I terrorized the neighborhood with that wagon, went like hell and was almost impossible to control! The only girly thing I like was paper dolls, I liked to cut out the clothes and make up their outfits. Other than that it was anything outdoors.

I still hate cleaning and domestic chores. I would much rather mow the lawn than vacuum the house.

And despite the fact my parents were very typical of their time, they gave up on me and let me play with what I wanted.

@SpatzieLover: Kind of off-topic, but what American girl does your son have?

I remember thinking, as a kid, that “boys toys” were way better than girls toys except My Little Pony, I loved those!

@KatawaGrey He now has 6. I got Molly & Samantha to go along with the books/movies he already loved. Then he asked Santa for Felicity & Elizabeth. I acquired those from one seller on ebay, too…along with Kirsten & Emily. Let’s just say he’s a good kid. He loves tea parties, so Santa set up a tea party with the dolls under the tree

Not this again :P

@SpatzieLover

Your kid reminds me of me…haha

Except I never took dance as a kid; I’m jealous. :)

I can’t remember ever wanting girls toys and I’m very feminine. I wore make up a few times for a joke.

@DominicX He wears cute shirts to dance class. One says “In ten years I’ll be taking your girlfriend to prom. Makes the dads dropping off their girls chuckle ;)

@SpatzieLover: My first American Girl doll was Kirsten! Then when Josefina came out, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw and I saved up for her too. Your son and I should have tea parties together!

@KatawaGrey Only if you promise to dress up and agree to chocolate milk in place of tea ;)

@SpatzieLover, “girlfriend”? or “daughter”?

@Jeruba Imaginative child that prefers fairy tales to war scenarios. His choices not mine I never had a tea party as a kid

Nope as a kid I wanted what I wanted. I preferred dolls etc.. only because I liked them. But when it came to McDonalds toys I would always ask for the “boy toy” because I preferred those. I don’t think it really makes a difference to children.

My daughter likes the Happy Meal “boy toys” better too. They are almost always cooler than the “girl toys.”

@MissAusten Yay for her! I thought I was the only one… :)

I remember the easy bake oven was in the pink isle for girls and had a girl on the box. As if only girls eat cake. In truth, my grandmother let me help her bake all the time, so I was already use to the real deal. I never liked the easy bake oven or understood why it was a toy, mainly because the cakes were tiny and didn’t taste very good.
Anyway…
My younger brother had nothing but toys meant for boys, and I would play with him all the time. I never refrained from getting toys that were meant for boys, my sister as well, although she did prefer dolls and princess toys more than I did.
I also had a male childhood friend who I played with often. He and I would sometimes play with my sister and brother and share almost every toy we ever had. We use to play with machine-gun wielding barbies and make home movies of it! I had fun with all of my toys and I played with every single one of them, barbies, action figures, stuffed animals, random objects. =P

@DominicX Personally, I think most of the toys that engaged children most creatively were always the ones made for girls. And many boys, gay and straight, desire creativity. That’s why Easy Bake Oven was so appealing to you. For me, I loved “neutral toys”. I hated toy soldiers, action figures, toy cars, etc. I found those toys really boring. I liked things like marbles, tropical fish and other animals, gemstones, plants, and coins. I remember I was fascinated by this doll called “Blythe”, with color-changing eyes——you pull a string on the back of the doll and its eyes turned different colors——blue, green, amber, purple, brown, etc. I was fascinated by the color changes of the doll’s eyes more than anything. I remember walking into a toy store with my Mom and asking the saleslady if I could have a look at the doll and try it, and the saleslady looked at me deridingly and shamefully. I felt terrible, but at least I got to try Blythe out! Lol. This is a great question DominicX.

My three and a half year old likes her barbies, but loves her matchbox cars and die-cast metal airplanes. She always wants another airplane or car to play with. She really loves her airplanes, (daddy is a pilot, as a hobby). Nothing wrong with it. I bought her a pilot’s uniform for her Barbies.

Nope.

However, I was so strongly discouraged from taking shop class in high school that they all but forbade it. I wish I’d fought harder.