We let Joshua play with whatever he likes, by and large. I draw the line at things like fire and knives and electricity, pretty much. Beyond that, we’re not particular. When I am in Target with him, I don’t steer him away from the aisles clearly being marketed as containing “girl toys” over to the aisles clearly being marketed as “boy toys”. Joshua could give two shits about Transformers, but he likes horses and shopping carts and babies and he’s a fan of Cinderella because he went to a party once and she was painting faces and it’s clear he’s aware that someone he saw in person up close is totally on a lot of toys.

This is in no way a statement on the toys, or Joshua. It is a statement that he has no life experience with giant robots. He has, however, ridden a pony, enjoys pushing shopping carts, has a baby brother and, as I mentioned, knows Cinderella.

At home we have Joshua’s little Craftsman toy work bench shoulder-to-shoulder with his toy kitchen. He’s got the same pink baby stroller his friend has because he wanted a stroller to pretend like he was pushing a baby around and pink is the only color they make (I know I’m making it sound like I have something against pink — which I don’t because to paraphrase a tweet from Nathan Fillion “Would a real man be afraid of a color?” — but it’s more to illustrate the degree of pigeonholing in kid toys). He picked a Hello Kitty Happy Meal over a Transformers one because his cousins love Hello Kitty and he knows who she is and when I ordered it I stated very plainly that he wanted, as they phrase it, the girl Happy Meal.

I have no intention to steer Joshua towards typically male toys. In many cases I’d rather do the opposite. He has a Captain Hook pirate sword which is very cool, but that also means playing with it involves sword fighting which is dodgy even when you have great hand-eye coordination. He has an Iron Man glove that pews out little projectiles (also pretty cool), but we try hard not to have him thinking that shooting things is okay to do. But in general I would prefer he choose his favorite toys based on what engages him, not some notion I may have of how he should play.

We are already having to battle this notion, though. He’s not even three and is already coming home with ideas that certain things are for boys and certain things are for girls, which is not a lesson he’s picking up at home. It follows then that he’s learning this sort of gender breakdown from other children ages 5 and under. We try to point out that really the only things that are boys-only and girls-only are public bathrooms. I imagine we’ll lose ground fairly steadily on this issue, but we point out whenever it comes up that it’s not really the case that things need to be different for boys and girls when it comes to what they are interested in and how they play.

It’s clear that this is not a standard outlook. It’s very common that if I am out somewhere and a father sees his boy pick up a “girly” toy that he has to loudly announce “Oh, you gotta pick up the pink one, huh?” and then laugh so everyone around knows that he’s not TRYING to turn his kid into a little nancy but kids just do dumb shit sometimes.

When Joshua was walking around with a friend’s little baby carriage toy I had a Dad tease me that “Uh oh. He picked the baby carriage” like that’s some signal I need to look out for.

What signal would that be, exactly? That he has a baby brother? That he has friends with baby siblings? That he has a father actively involved in raising two children? That he enjoys trying to nurture and love something? Oh noes! But it’s not those things. It’s the signal that he’s doing something effeminate. That he’s doing something gay.

This irks me on all sorts of levels. For starters, the only reason this choice is seen as suspect is the notion that caring for a child is a woman’s work and that doing that same work is somehow capable of making a man less of a man – and if you’ve read this blog for any length of time you know my thoughts on that [Hint: angry thoughts]. And, doubling down, it implies that engaging in “feminine work” is somehow also a leading indicator of homosexuality because science. It also implies that something as basic as the particular toy that a child has chosen to play with one afternoon for 15 minutes is indicative of what their life will become forever after.

The pièce de résistance is that it implies that a gay son is something you don’t want to have.

I’m a firm believer that homosexuality is not, generally speaking, a choice. Sure there are those who may end up actively choosing one over the other, but I think the vast majority of gay men and women simply are gay men and women. (If you believe otherwise, ponder this: When did you first decide to be straight? or did that just kind of happen?) So that means that if Joshua is going to be gay—even if it will be ages before he knows it himself—that’s written into his little internal code right now.

I give approximately no shits about this.

I don’t worry that he may be gay, I worry that if he is maybe I’ll be less good at giving advice about boyfriends than girlfriends, never having had a boyfriend myself. That’s about the extent of it.

I don’t have two girls, so I can’t really speak to the experience on the other side of the table, but I get the impression it’s not the same (and some quick polling of friends with two girls supports this). Oh sure, you maybe have that crushing patriarchal construction that little girls should aspire to be mommies and caregivers and have toys that focus on being pretty and shopping, but I don’t think anyone is giving Mom and Dad a sideways glance if little Elizabeth is playing with a truck.

I find it more than a little depressing that it seems to me that boys especially seem to get pushed to play with certain toys and focus on certain interests simply because parents are worried about who their child may grow up one day to love. How many boys grow up thinking that wanting to hold a baby or bake something is somehow wrong for them to do? How many little doors get closed that way?

Joshua will almost certainly fall into the pattern that just about all boys do. He’ll like to wrestle. He’ll be into superheroes. He’ll love Star Wars and trucks and Legos and blowing things up. I’m not so intense about this issue that I feel the need to force the issue upon him to the extent that things would start getting pretty ironic (“Don’t play with what society tells you to, play with what I tell you to, dammit”). So, boys gonna boy. But what I am going to make damn sure he understands is that other choices are not wrong in any way so long as they don’t hurt others. Girls have access to all the same toys boys do and vice versa. Boys hold babies. Boys cook meals. Boys clean the house. Girls build towers. Girls sword fight. Girls like to blow shit up. He’ll know that these choices are available to everyone and that making those choices will never have to define him, or anyone around him.