Soooooo glad my 4yo hasn’t found out about Barbies yet. She has Daniel Tiger and Trolls figures that she plays with every day, plus baby dolls with different skin colors.
I found it interesting that Mattel’s quote says “starting at age 5,” because my kid is already saying self-limiting gender stuff. Well, she’s aware of others’ self-limiting things anyway. Like, she said to me, “Nana told me that girls like to be pretty, but boys don’t. I guess somebody told her that, so she forgot that anybody can wear anything.” Haha. So I’m like, Phew, the stuff I told her is in there too, but she’s hearing all the messages from the whole world and trying to weigh out what’s true. I’m trying to be super-honest about racism and sexism with her so she can think critically about all the fucked up messages she’s going to encounter.
Anyway, good read. Here’s one I wrote about racial othering in kids’ books. ❤