In Reply: If this clown saw his mother use her "hardware" to cook, she was doing it wrong. (and it would explain a lot about him, too.)

Revised and extended, in reply to: Do We Really Need Easy Bake Ovens For Boys? (Video) | The Lonely Conservative, and the following video and comment, in particular:



Zilla sez:

People freak out over the silliest things these days. A boy playing with a toy that is pink won’t make him less of a boy and a girl playing with a blue toy won’t make her less of a girl. My kids know better than to judge based on color.
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If grown men cook--and I'm pretty sure most do, these days--I see nothing wrong with young boys pretending to cook. (...or helping out in the kitchen with real meal preparation, for that matter.)

Zilla's right about the color thing...but it's so ingrained in this culture, I can see why one would want to avoid that fight (especially when there are people like the guy in the video, still getting so worked up (and dare I say, emotional?) about boys playing at assuming "female" roles like cooking. (If this is the way he actually lives, his wife must be thrilled to be doing all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and childcare in their home.) The bigger issue is whether or not we want children role-playing (and thereby learning about) the various roles the adults and older siblings in their lives exhibit, day to day. The color battle can wait.

The gentleman in the video can raise his children according to outdated strict gender roles if he chooses...but to whatever extent his sons can't feed themselves when mom's out of the house, or his daughters need rescuing because they can't change a flat tire "like a man," the fault will be with him.

All that said, we bought one of these new easy-bake ovens for our niece last Christmas. NO ONE needs the version they make today. The light bulb was less safe, but the narrow slit through which kids are supposed to insert the baking tin full of mix insures a complete mess. My sister-in-law let my niece try it two or three times, then cleaned it all up, packed it back up, and donated it to her church's daycare program. (And she suspects that they didn't use it either, but sold it at a garage sale fundraiser.) As the one's who gave the gift, it was kinda disappointing...but having been there for at least one of the baking sessions--and subsequent clean-up--we understood completely.
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Posted 12/18/12, 1:04 PM