I've promised I would expand on a comment I made last entry. It had to do with buying my daughter toys from "The Pink Aisle", A.K.A. the Barbie� phenomenon. My statement was,

"Huge breasted anorexic size 4 dolls are not what we should be allowing our preadolescent girls to make into heroes or set as a future goal, whether subconsciously or not."

That's an unrealistic goal that we (society) force upon little girls. That said, why did I give my daughter the pink stuff? Because I take the time to even the scales out in so far as time spent on any one given past time. True, she plays with dolls, but she spends an equal amount of time with me doing other things. We go into the forest and I teach her how to identify different trees from their leaves, bark and fruit. I play catch with her. I show her what makes the car go. We spend some nights behind the telescope instead of behind the television. She can name several constellations. She paints and draws and can name by sight most of the components of a computer. She knows the difference between a hard drive and a CD drive. I make her think, I make her answer her own questions sometimes, and she welcomes the challenges.

What I'm saying here is that I don't allow her to spend too much time on any one gender specific thing. Society casts too much influence on what we do by the play habits we have as children. I intend for my girls to be capable of being self sufficient. There isn't a thing wrong with playing with dolls, no, not at all, I just think that shouldn't be all that they do. Allowing these little girls to imprint these huge breasted dolls just makes them think that if they don't look this way they aren't normal. That is sad. I've known girls that went through life feeling that no one wanted them, and when they did get married, that the guy just settled on something less.

I don't blame the toy companies, not as much as I once did. In their defense, subtle changes are slowly finding their way to Barbie. The trouble is, it's not Mattel's responsibility to raise everybody's kids for them. Toys are like anything else, it's all about moderation and education. It's not fair, but it's still a man's world. Like racism, it will continue to be that way until we use education to change it. Is it an impossibility to consider a woman as president of the United States? No, it isn't, so what's wrong with teaching our daughters that they have choices? Tell them they can be the President, or a fighter pilot, a lawyer, a doctor, OR a mother. Teach a girl how to play ball, or how to rebuild a carburetor, not just how to clean house or cook dinner. Most importantly, love her for who she is, an individual and different from all others in her own way. Reward independence instead of thwarting it. It might be the very thing that saves her life one day.

Personally, the sight of a girl in dirty blue jeans on a farm tractor or under the hood of a car is, well, sexy! Most guys I know feel the same as well. Sure, the calendar models get a lot of attention, and they may be fun to look at, but that ain't who the real world wants to take home.

These are just my thoughts and perceptions.