For children, what is Christmas without Santa and toys? Like any other child, my four-year-old loves toys and enjoys visiting the toy store. While we buy her playthings all year round, we always try to make her Christmas present extra special.
Having visited a variety of toy shops, both brick-and-mortar and online, I notice the obvious gender stereotyping involved. Blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Boys get vehicles and action figures, while girls get dolls and kitchen sets.
I question why there should be a distinction between so-called boys’ toys and girls’ toys. My pet peeve is being asked why my daughter is playing with toy cars when “she should be playing with dolls instead”. Hey, I grew up with a suitcase full of Barbie dolls, right next to my Matchbox car collection. As for my daughter, she is as comfortable cooking me a make-believe meal in her little kitchen as she is racing her pedal cars and die-cast cars around the house.
This Christmas, she is getting a battery-powered car. When I was surfing the Internet, I had to look under the category “For Boys”, but my mild annoyance quickly turned into amusement when I came across an “Aventador” labelled as a “Murcielago”.
I was also intrigued by the battery-powered cars for kids that are extremely realistic, almost like replicas of the real thing. And their manufacturers have excellent websites that look no different from those of distributors dealing in actual automobiles. The kids’ rides boast an impressive list of specifications, too. I was surprised to read about LED and daytime running lights, electric power steering, selectable driving modes (Comfort-Normal-Dynamic), LCD displays, a built-in MP3 player, leather seats and soft-touch cabin materials.
Some of these websites show little girls in frilly frocks posing next to a battery-powered toy car, but that’s another story. The more pressing matter at hand is helping my daughter decide between the “Lamborghini” and the “Mercedes”.
