Boys With Toys

1250 Words5 Pages
Society has set its own criteria for how we should raise children. Genders and gender-roles play a large part in molding a child to fit into society. Parents tend to rear their children by what society sees as most appropriate. Children are influenced by their parents, society, and even the toys they play with each and every day. When parents look at their children it's often a mirrored image of themselves they see. Parents want their children to be just like them, so the parents provide the tools necessary to help mold the child. Toys are just smaller versions of what adults use everyday, like a medicine kit or an Easy Bake Oven. The toys are " all reduced copies of human objects, as if in the eyes of the public the child was a homunculus to whom must be supplied objects of his own size". The toys "always mean something" and are used to develop the child into the roles, or jobs, they are expected to fill as adults . Parents want to instill in their children the values that society feels is the norm, and parents believe it is essentially the way children are supposed to be raised. Parents see nothing wrong with using toys to mold and develop their children into the roles they are expected to fill as an adult. To parents "A girl with a doll and a boy with a truck "explain," why men are from Mars and women are from Venus, why wives do housework and husbands just don't understand" (Pollitt). It is also a popular belief that the source of children's preferences lie in "prenatal, hormonal influences, brain chemistry, genes" and these factors help form their predestined roles (Pollitt). Each gender has a certain role, or image, they are expected to maintain. These roles have been in place for decades and have developed the status quo. It is the desire of individuals to fit the status quo that allows them to adapt and conform to their surroundings. As a result of
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