The Swedish Way to Parent and Play
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To ensure the full distinction between toys for boys and toys for girls, the sales copy accompanying each toy is also gender coded. For the dolls, we have: Just like a real baby! All she needs is your love and care! The copy that goes with the cars says: Drive it! Fly it! Fully controllable remote-control vehicle!
The narrative governing what children can do and are supposed to do with the toys is set in place, and yet another opportunity for the children to let their imaginations run wild disappears. Instead, children are offered one-sided and ready-made stories about how they should be and play depending on what they have between their legs.
Girls who are pole vaulters, pilots, or mechanics rarely show up among products aimed at kids, and it’s hard to find boys who take care of sick animals, grow vegetables in their gardens, or cook. The differences in toys result in children’s imaginary lives playing out in different spaces: girls’ lives take place in the home, and boys’ lives take place out in the rest of the world. One consequence is that girls play in a more sedentary and calm way, and boys run around and make a mess. Boys practice their gross motor skills and courage, while girls practice their fine motor skills and ability to focus.
These different spaces affect how children practice creativity, how they learn to handle conflicts, and how they practice making and sticking to or breaking rules. To save the world, we have to be able to take risks and outsmart the enemy, which may require circumventing the rule book. If we’re instead focused on taking care of dolls, cooking, and other more realistic activities, we need to be able to communicate and follow rules. We can’t heat up the formula for too long, or else it could burn the baby. We can’t put babies to bed with blankets over their faces, or else they can’t breathe and will die. Children practice different kinds of fantasizing and different kinds of creativity in the two worlds, the world of boys and the world of girls. If, instead, all children can play in a world that is tied to reality but is also magical and supernatural, they will be better prepared to face the complex world ahead.
Suggestions
Try to give toys new meanings and introduce new environments. Baby dolls can be superheroes who search for a diamond hidden in the jungle or save the world from crooks and erupting volcanoes.
Try attaching several different meanings to the same toy. A stove can be used to bake cookies for a snack and to mix cement for the skyscraper under construction.
Encourage all children, especially boys, to play games that let them be caring, empathetic, and take up space in the home.
Encourage all children, especially girls, to play games that let them be technical, adventurous, take risks, and take up space out in the world.
Remove the packaging before you give a toy as a present. A stove can simply be a stove, not a “girls’ toy”; a police uniform can simply be a shirt, not a shirt for a “boy police officer.”
Have small children stay at home when it’s time to go shopping for toys. Children are heavily influenced by toy placement and marketing in stores. When the children are older, you can discuss the toys and the messages being conveyed.
Bang, Bang! You’re Dead!
“I read Spider-Man to my son, and Spider-Man was constantly being told that he was a coward if he didn’t dare to fight.”
—marcus, parent of a five-year-old
“My daughter was pretend-fighting with another girl at preschool. They hadn’t even wrestled each other to the ground before an adult scolded them. But when the boys are pushing and shoving each other in the schoolyard, the adults rarely react.”
—josé, parent of a four-year-old and a five-year-old
“I don’t think pretending that he’s killing others has a negative effect on him. It’s just make believe.”
—caroline, parent of a four-year-old
“I don’t think playing war is a creative game. There’s no saving lives and there’s no hope. I don’t want my grandchildren, whether they are boys or girls, playing war and having toy guns.”
—bengt, grandparent of a three-year-old, a five-year-old, and an eight-year-old
Bang! Bang! The bullets fly by. After a while a cry of triumph can be heard—You’re dead! In Sweden, we haven’t experienced armed conflict since the 1800s, yet playing war and other violent games is still popular among children, mainly boys. Or maybe that’s why? Maybe the absence of war makes it simple and unproblematic to play war, lets us see it as one game among others?
Many of the toys aimed at boys are for playing war or some other kind of violence. Boys are taught to conquer, defend, and challenge by shooting, blowing up, and fighting. Violence becomes a method for achieving what you want. Through play, violence is presented as a solution to many dilemmas. These days, even Bamse, a Swedish comic book character and supposedly the world’s nicest bear, is resolving more and more conflicts by hitting, blowing up, or hurling those who are mean or rowdy.
30% of LEGO products include weapons. And 40% of the pages of their catalog directed towards children show some kind of violent behavior.
—“LEGO ‘Arms Race’: Study Says Company Making More Violent Toys,” Guardian, 2016
Many see boys’ violent play as natural, while they think girls who play the same way are brutal, and they intervene to stop them. The rules of the game are entirely different for boys and girls. It’s of course also very problematic if boys only learn one way of resolving conflicts, namely by resorting to violence.
Suggestions
Invite all children, and especially boys, to play games that are not violent. Weapons can be used as props in a store, and inventors can take them apart. Maybe the evil crooks are evil because they don’t have any friends. Make soup with hand grenades, stir with the swords, and have a party!
Add a positive spin on killing games. Build an ambulance together that comes and helps the wounded. Take turns being doctors who save lives. Rebuild the city in ruins, with schools, grocery stores, homes, and other things people need.
Let all children try “evil” and “good” roles.
Play-wrestle with your children. This lets them challenge and be challenged physically. Since you—the adult—are there, they can learn where the limits are so that they don’t hurt each other.
While playing, everyone, especially girls, can practice defending themselves in a positive way, both verbally and physically.
Choose toys other than weapons for your child.
Show children that conflicts can be resolved in many ways without resorting to violence. Play roundtable discussions, letting the children practice arguing and negotiating.
That’s Not What Horses Sound Like!
“One day at preschool, my daughter was playing horse. The horses roared like lions and were pretty aggressive and loud. The teacher said: ‘That’s not what horses sound like, is it?’ trying to get them to be quieter. But when boys are rowdy in the same way, no one says anything about it.”
—paula, parent of a five-year-old
“You really need to settle down. Can’t you sit calmly like other girls?”
—kerstin, grandparent of a four-year-old
The expectation that girls be calm, still, and quiet is pervasive. This leads to girls being admonished more frequently than boys when they are loud and take up space. That a cute girl with long hair can growl like a lion and become really angry is perceived as problematic in the same way that it’s considered wrong for boys to be hesitant and shy, precisely because expectations are not met. But it’s important to be able to say no, to practice taking up space and using vocal resources, especially for girls. Because if girls don’t practice these skills, we risk reinforcing the patterns according to which boys are allowed to run wild and girls are supposed to be quiet and still. With respect to horses, in particular, maybe they don’t make a lot of noise, but they can be both aggressive and threatening. The idea that taking care of horses is cute is another idea that needs reexamining. Although they may be pretty, horses are above all large, fast animals that weigh many hundre
ds of pounds.
When we let boys who are loud much of the time carry on, we’re also doing them a disservice. Many adults stop listening to children who speak loudly or shout. Ears grow tired. And there’s a risk that children shout more because no one is listening. It’s a vicious cycle.
Suggestions
Allow all children, especially girls, to be loud and wild when they’re playing. Have girls practice roaring like lions, running like big monsters, and using their bodily and vocal resources.
Have children lower their voices in regular conversations. You can ask, Where is your volume button? Maybe on your ear? Gently twist your own ear while lowering your voice. Ask if the child wants to try, too, and now you have a new game about voice volume.
When children are loud or yelling, try lowering your own voice and whispering to them. They will be curious and lower their own voices in order to hear what you are saying.
Once Upon a Time
Kivi & Monsterhund (Kivi and the Monster Dog) by Jesper Lundqvist and Bettina Johansson was the first children’s book in Sweden to use the gender-neutral pronoun hen. The publisher Olika released the book in 2012, launching a debate that led to hen being included in the dictionary of the Swedish Academy, in 2015. Learn more about hen on the podcast The World in Words, “The Three-Letter Word that Rocked a Nation” (PRI, March 26, 2018).
“Of the 10 songs we sang, eight were about boys. When I brought this up with my colleagues, they thought I was being fussy.”
—josefin, teacher
“Where are all the thoughtful and gentle boys in children’s books? Is Alfons the only one?”
—helen, parent of a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a five-year-old
“There’s a girl on the cover. I don’t want to watch that movie.”
—sebastian, age five
How do children catch a glimpse of the world beyond their closest family members? Through books! Children learn a lot from books, from the first board books and learning to recognize an airplane or a cat, to the longer stories and learning who is good and who is evil.
Books are and have always been an important way of spreading values, ideals, and ideas about the world. The stories influence and inspire our children and give them role models. Often, we may simply read children’s books, without reflecting all that much on the content. But if we do, we’ll notice that the protagonist is more often a boy than a girl and that most of the picture books reflect the patterns of traditional gender roles. There are many more boy protagonists than girl protagonists in children’s picture books. Patterns in descriptions of boys and girls recur. Girls are passive, sensitive, tentative, kind, helpful, pretty, and proper, while boys are active, strong, brave, tough, short, or tall.
Fairy tales also gender emotions. Girls who face setbacks are terrified, sad, worried, or upset, while boys are frustrated, angry, or irritated. Animals like butterflies, birds, and cats are female, and more dangerous animals, like lions, bears, and tigers, are male. Women are very rarely thieves, and men are very rarely friendly fairies.
A survey of children’s books published in the US from 1900 to 2000 noted that each year 57% of books have male main characters and 21% of books had female main characters.
—Janice McCabe, et al., “Gender in Twentieth-Century Children’s Books,” Gender & Society, 2011
The places occupied by girls and boys in stories fit well with toy manufacturers’ marketing. Boys are often out and about in the surrounding world, testing limits, while girls follow rules and exist in domestic environments. The gender trap in many stories is not only the uneven distribution of boy characters and girl characters, but also that the content so clearly shows that boys and girls are supposed to have different roles and characteristics.
Just 39% of the credited cast on the 100 top animated TV series on broadcast and cable were girls or women. Only 12% of the cast were females of color.
—Women and Hollywood, TV Statistics: 2017–2018 Season
In comic books, the world is even more starkly divided. Comic books aimed at girls have titles like Barbie and My Little Pony. The Phantom and Spider-Man Kidz are meant for boys. The extras that come along with the publications are gendered. Girls get jewelry and makeup, while boys get UFOs and water guns. In stories that at first glance may appear to be for all children—Winnie-the-Pooh, Donald Duck, and Tom & Jerry—the main characters are exclusively boys or men! Girls can be found in one supporting role or another, mainly as girlfriends of one of the main characters, or providing support with good food and beautiful smiles. This pattern is repeated in most children’s shows and movies, too.
Books and movies are important because within them, children find inspiration for their games and role models for creating their identities. They affect a child’s idea of what is feminine and masculine. By remaking and renewing patterns and narratives, we can use the power of stories and imagination to offer children more role models and thereby more ways of being in the world.
Suggestions
Talk with children about what you see in books and magazines and what happens in the movies. Tell them that the way things are can vary a lot, and that what is told or shown is just one of those many ways.
Switch he and she. Or use gender-neutral terms like they and see whether, and if so how, that affects the story.
Let Curious George become “she/her” and let space scientists be both men and women.
Replace the main character’s name with your child’s name. Other characters can have the names of other people in your family or your child’s friends.
Draw and make up your own stories with your child. These activities will often turn into exciting adventures and creative images.
Choose a variety of books, magazines, and movies for children. This will give them a broader representation of reality and make it easier for them to see exciting role models with whom to identify.
Skip books and movies that convey skewed images and gender stereotypes.
Conduct an analysis of your books. Use tables and fill in how many gender-neutral characters, girls, and women are the main characters in your children’s books. Then do the same for the supporting characters, and note how girls and boys and women and men are described. The same kind of mini-survey can be done on movies and kids’ shows.
Girl’s Room, Boy’s Room, Playroom
“My daughter always plays with the same toys. She will very rarely think to play indoor hockey but always has a great time when I get out the sticks and ball.”
—cissi, parent of a four-year-old
“The more stuff he gets, the less his room seems to appeal to him.”
—malin, parent of a three-year-old
A room is more than just a room. Different rooms invite us to do different things. A gym invites movement and action, while a classroom with desks and chairs invites us to sit down. Rooms can help children be creative in how they play and how they create identities, but rooms can also recreate stale boys’ and girls’ roles. The toys within a room and those that are kept out will influence how children play.
We often sort toys by appearance or by how they are meant to be used. Dolls are kept close to the stove, which in turn is placed near the doll bed, while all the different toys for building things are grouped together. Without intending to, we group toys the same way as in the catalogs. Parenting and interior design magazines show how beautiful rooms can be designed, as well as exciting rooms and cool rooms. We can often tell which ones are meant for girls and which are for boys. The girls’ rooms have sheer materials and bright colors, while the boys’ rooms are sporty and adventurous. But the features rarely address the skills, feelings, roles, and games the rooms inspire. Will a room encourage a child to be creative, careful, inventive, imaginative, crafty, organized, calm, or physically active?
Suggestions
Children will often start playing with items in new ways if the toys are moved around. Put dolls in the LEGO box, action figures in the dollhouse, and boo
ks in the random bin. The drill can rest next to the doll bed, and the Batman figures can live in the oven. They can make the bed and decorate.
Rearrange the furniture in your child’s room. This can encourage new ways of thinking and playing.
Are the children having a hard time getting going with games? Remove a number of toys to give them more space and see what happens. Give their imagination more room to breathe.
Consider how toys are placed. Which ones are easy to reach, and which ones are in boxes high up on a shelf or in a closet? Switch the toys around every now and then.
Playing It Safe
“My daughter always receives soft animals and dolls, and my son gets cars and LEGO sets. I’ve told all our relatives that I want my children to get other stuff, but no one listens.”
—lotta, parent of a five-year-old and an eight-year-old
“I’d like to get Astrid a doll stroller when she turns two.”
“That is very kind of you, Mom, but she already has one, and we don’t have room for another.”
“But that one isn’t a real doll stroller. It’s just a push toy for learning how to walk.”