Dads- if you're son wants a baby doll....?

PUT HIM WITH A BUNCH OF NORMAL KIDS A LITTLE OLDER THAN HE AND THEY WILL STRAIGTHEN HIM OUT REAL QUICK.

This is baffling... Are you saying the OP's son is not normal?

I feel a thread lock coming or even deletion .

Do you only let your daughters play with traditional girl toys?
Are they allowed to build with blocks or play with trucks? Toy guns? Tool sets?

We let them play with whatever. They have had tonka trucks, barbies, tinker toys, wood blocks, they have even helped me on the car.

so of course I know what is coming next.. ...the double standard. I would expect more from any son i had. I would be firmer with him as well.. that is just how it is.

But, what if your daughter grows up to be lesbian?! Oh noes!! (sarcasm)

I know a father who have two daughers and one son. That son played with the dolls and what the hell..even gave the son a hand me down bike from one of he girls.. it was pink.

He is the most feminin boy i have ever met.

Why confuse the kid. boys should be brought up as men. Girls can get away with being raised a girl or even tomboyish - girls can still pull it off some how. Boys not.

Knowing a badass mother****er who was raised by two women with an open household and no restrictions on who or how he chose to play, dress or behave, I have this to say in response. That feminine little boy would have been a feminine little boy whether punished for it or not. We are who we are and our nature will come out no matter how someone wishes to 'direct' us due to their own judgments and issues.

Buy him that baby doll!!!

ALSO, if my future son comes to me and says he's gay (which won't be because he played with dolls, btw), I will not give a *kitten*.

:flowerforyou:

Pretty sure I've read a few studies linking little boys and dolls to homosexuality. Can't remember if it either was an indicator of them already having gay tendencies or if it actually played a part in their sexual development.

Either way, hell no. (Not a dad yet...but my son won't be playing with any dolls that I bought)

Wrong. There is no such study and if there is, it is not a peer reviewed scientific study.

"We conclude that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys."

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-005-7729-0?LI=true

BAM

Wow, did you even read the study that you posted as your 'proof'???? I seriously doubt it. All this 'study' did was ask a bunch of undergraduate psychology students to rate a bunch of toys as to whether they thought the toys were masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral. There is absolutely NOTHING in this study linking types of toys with childhood development or sexuality. There weren't even children involved in the study. The fact that the authors make a hand-waving statement about what is really a hypothesis that wasn't even tested by their study doesn't support your point at all.

As a scientist, I'm absolutely appalled by the inability of many people to read and interpret scientific information...

That and the quote posted has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. "We conclude that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys." That is saying that moderately gender-typed toys and neutral toys are better for optimal development and that strongly gender-typed ones are sub-optimal. It says nothing about specific gender geared toys being good or bad for the opposite gender.
Of course I didn't read the study because the pdf file isn't loading right on my computer which is why I didn't comment on it earlier.

Yes, and if he had read to the end of the article, he would have found another quote where the authors stated that for children of both sexes, some play with toys that were moderately gender-typed was probably best (ie, both boys and girls should be exposed to both domestic toys as well as construction-type toys)...

Oh hey arguments!

Well, I'm going to pass on those, but just leave this 'cause I thought of it when I saw the title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lshobg1Wt2M (William Wants a Doll- Free to be You and Me)

All children like to nurture and systematize, which is whyPokemon was so successful.
He is very young , so I don't think this is weird.
Get him a stuffed puppy and tell him it's a baby dog that needs his love.

i fought tooth and nail when my daughter was tiny to raise her as unbiased as possible. I chose medium colors, rather than pink, cool toys, hard core stuff, skulls and crossbones, pirates, ninjas, Jackie Chan movies/cartoons. All of it. I wanted a tomboy, or at least not a princess...

Guess what.

I got a Princess. NOTHING I could have done would have stopped her from choosing pink, from wanting dolls, from princess dresses and makeup and nail polish. She's seven now and loves guns and Jackie Chan and karate class and Girl Scouts, and she's the coolest, most sarcastic and funny little girl ever, but she still LOVES her pink. She is going to be a gorgeous, high class, dressed to the nines kind of woman. And who am I to judge, deflect, or redirect that when it is WHO SHE IS!

This relates to parents who try to "Force" a son to be 'manly.' Real men take care of their children, hold and cuddle and love just as openly and lovingly as women, at least the good fathers I've known. That makes them better men, not less. As a baby boy, being told it is 'unmasculine,' 'unmanly,' or feminine to have a baby, or worse, that feminine is somehow a bad thing, is unebelievably blind.

I feel a thread lock coming or even deletion .

Do you only let your daughters play with traditional girl toys?
Are they allowed to build with blocks or play with trucks? Toy guns? Tool sets?

We let them play with whatever. They have had tonka trucks, barbies, tinker toys, wood blocks, they have even helped me on the car.

so of course I know what is coming next.. ...the double standard. I would expect more from any son i had. I would be firmer with him as well.. that is just how it is.

So you are saying you find the influence of dolls more powerful that that of a toy truck? Or do you think the will of males is weaker?

No on both questions.

I just think boys should not be raised the say way as a girl.

That's too bad. Playing with dolls led my brother to become an incredibly gifted surgeon. He was always performing exams on the dolls. Good thing for his patients my parents were more open.

i fought tooth and nail when my daughter was tiny to raise her as unbiased as possible. I chose medium colors, rather than pink, cool toys, hard core stuff, skulls and crossbones, pirates, ninjas, Jackie Chan movies/cartoons. All of it. I wanted a tomboy, or at least not a princess...

Guess what.

I got a Princess. NOTHING I could have done would have stopped her from choosing pink, from wanting dolls, from princess dresses and makeup and nail polish. She's seven now and loves guns and Jackie Chan and karate class and Girl Scouts, and she's the coolest, most sarcastic and funny little girl ever, but she still LOVES her pink. She is going to be a gorgeous, high class, dressed to the nines kind of woman. And who am I to judge, deflect, or redirect that when it is WHO SHE IS!

This relates to parents who try to "Force" a son to be 'manly.' Real men take care of their children, hold and cuddle and love just as openly and lovingly as women, at least the good fathers I've known. That makes them better men, not less. As a baby boy, being told it is 'unmasculine,' 'unmanly,' or feminine to have a baby, or worse, that feminine is somehow a bad thing, is unebelievably blind.

I don't know you, but I love you.

I haven't read through all these comments so if I'm repeating someone I'm sorry, but what's the difference between a boy carrying around a baby doll and say something like a stuffed animal, like a little doggy or something. Or even a baby blanket. It's kind of the same thing, they are carrying around and caring for something in a nurturing way...I mean, maybe the baby blanket is a stretch but still...Am I making sense or am I way off? I don't have any children of my own (just a step daughter) so maybe I'm way off, but I feel like I would be ok with my son playing with whatever he wanted.

This relates to parents who try to "Force" a son to be 'manly.' Real men take care of their children, hold and cuddle and love just as openly and lovingly as women, at least the good fathers I've known. That makes them better men, not less. As a baby boy, being told it is 'unmasculine,' 'unmanly,' or feminine to have a baby, or worse, that feminine is somehow a bad thing, is unebelievably blind.

Yes!!! I completely agree!!

My husband had no problem with our sons playing with dolls. No big deal really. My oldest had one in preparation of his younger brother being born and my youngest had one to match when he was 2. Two year old boys have no sense of 'baby dolls are for girls' and if they did it would be because some adult pushed that on them.

We're not raising macho little a-holes. We're aiming to raise smart, good, thoughtful, strong men that don't have hangups and weren't forced to be anything other than the best of who and what they are. So far so good- and they don't appear to show any signs of being gay (they are 11 and 9 and total boys). If they did end up gay it would not be the end fo the world.

I feel a thread lock coming or even deletion .

Do you only let your daughters play with traditional girl toys?
Are they allowed to build with blocks or play with trucks? Toy guns? Tool sets?

We let them play with whatever. They have had tonka trucks, barbies, tinker toys, wood blocks, they have even helped me on the car.

so of course I know what is coming next.. ...the double standard. I would expect more from any son i had. I would be firmer with him as well.. that is just how it is.

But, what if your daughter grows up to be lesbian?! Oh noes!! (sarcasm)

That depends.... Is she hot?

i fought tooth and nail when my daughter was tiny to raise her as unbiased as possible. I chose medium colors, rather than pink, cool toys, hard core stuff, skulls and crossbones, pirates, ninjas, Jackie Chan movies/cartoons. All of it. I wanted a tomboy, or at least not a princess...

Guess what.

I got a Princess. NOTHING I could have done would have stopped her from choosing pink, from wanting dolls, from princess dresses and makeup and nail polish. She's seven now and loves guns and Jackie Chan and karate class and Girl Scouts, and she's the coolest, most sarcastic and funny little girl ever, but she still LOVES her pink. She is going to be a gorgeous, high class, dressed to the nines kind of woman. And who am I to judge, deflect, or redirect that when it is WHO SHE IS!

This relates to parents who try to "Force" a son to be 'manly.' Real men take care of their children, hold and cuddle and love just as openly and lovingly as women, at least the good fathers I've known. That makes them better men, not less. As a baby boy, being told it is 'unmasculine,' 'unmanly,' or feminine to have a baby, or worse, that feminine is somehow a bad thing, is unebelievably blind.

I don't know you, but I love you.

Me too!

It's not a big deal. My son had a cabbage patch doll when he was little and his step-sister liked to play with trucks instead of dolls. My son is gay and his sister is a lesbian. The doll didn't cause him to be that way. Life is hard enough for kids today without stereotypes of what is acceptable because of their sex.