.Balance.

The coveted PBK Retro Kitchen Set

For a little balance.

I find every single thing about this upsetting. The colors, the fact that it's labeled "girls only", that it's a fricking CLEANING set! Yikes.

With my love of organizing it may not surprise you to know that I start Christmas shopping in the summer {between doing this and shopping online I have successfully avoided all retail stores between November 1st-January 1st for years now. I win!}.
Since Amelia & Cheyenne both have birthdays so close to Christmas {Chey's is the day after and Amelia's is just a month after} I also start scouting birthday gifts in the summer.
I really really like this adorable kitchen set from Pottery Barn Kids for Little Miss. It's super cute with it's retro style and cherry red color. Amelia is always desperate to come into the kitchen and "help" me, since she's not allowed in the kitchen she stands at the baby gate and shakes it like a prisoner in GTMO. This would be a great solution and perfect for encouraging imaginative play.
The thing is, Cheyenne and I firmly believe in not perpetuating stereotypes and gender roles and the idea of getting her such a traditionally "girl" toy/playset kind of makes both Cheyenne & I bristle. We were talking about it over the weekend when she was using an old broom to sweep up the porch. We're trying to strike the perfect balance. On one hand, we both agree that in a general sweep {as always, with generalizations there are exceptions} boys and girls are fundamentally different {evolutionarily speaking it has to be so} and we don't want to pretend that these differences don't exist or make our child "suffer" by not having something that she wants just because it's traditionally a "girls toy" and we are trying to break that stereotype.
On the other hand, just because she's female we don't want to inundate her with all things pink and frilly and overly girly giving her toys that only fit 1950's gender roles.
We want our daughter to grow up always being proud that she's female. Believing that she can do absolutely anything she wants without limits {wasn't that the whole goal of the womens movements}. I want to strike a balance where if she chooses to be a homemaker {like myself} it's because she has gone to college and experienced life and a career outside of the home and the choice is made because she wants that life not because her childhood steered her in that direction. If she wants to be a scientist, doctor, activist, politician, or anything else her heart desires I want her to never for a second believe that she can't because of her gender. Being a girl rocks and I want her to embrace it and go out and get dirty and build forts and fall off her bike doing tricks and get scraped knees and then come home and have a tea party in her moms high heels with her dolls.
So this brings me to the kitchen set. Cheyenne & I decided that she should have it, but to balance that out she'll also be getting a pretend doctors kit and books. Her godparents {David & Abigail} already have a bunch of art stuff picked out for her birthday {David is a painter so it makes sense that he would want to share this with her}.
Someday she will be a grown up and she'll have a wide range of interests that have been encouraged her whole life by friends and family and she'll be bold and never wonder whether or not she can do something just because she's a girl. And if we do it right she wont have any idea that it's because her parents laid in bed at night and over-analyzed each thing that they bought her and encouraged her in as a child. That the laid awake weighing the emotional consequences of such simple things as a toy oven.