Emma's Wish List

Emma’s Wish List
My niece Emma is almost five years old and spoiled by her parents. When I say spoiled I mean she gets what she wants because it is easier to give then listen to a kid have a tantrum. She is constantly getting new toys, candy or whatever floats her boat at the moment. However, when I have her, tantrums don’t bother me and she knows that. I will only buy her certain toys that I approve of. I tend to stay with educational toys such as books, puzzles, or games but there have been times where I will by her the princess toys she craves. Her favorite is of course, Cinderella from Disney. She is continuously put in front of a television so that she can watch cartoons either a Disney movie or a show on cable while she is at home with her parents. Unfortunately, the amount of time I spend with her is limited due to her parents being separated and shared custody as well as my schedule. However, when I do have time with her I take her outside to play, the zoo, the beach, to parties, I try and get her involved with many various activities in which she can acquire her curiosity and to be able explore the adventure within her. If I was to create a wish list of the things I would want to have I would take into consideration the time of year her age and how she can encourage a creative side to life.
However, today’s toys tend to make that more and more difficult. The productions of children’s toys are far too often built marketing schemes that do little to enhance child development and imagination. Some of these toys have the potential to demoralize children when they realize that they aren’t built to some specifications. For example, Emma is constantly playing with her with various dolls, mostly Disney princesses. But it isn’t just playing with dolls to her it’s much more. If she isn’t playing with the actual princess doll itself she will pretend to play the character of the princess which normally makes me her mother or her “Prince Charming.” She always then makes me pretend to get married. She at such a young age is already confiding into these socially constructed gender roles. “Being the object of desire for an adult make is a roundabout method of obtaining power. Because girls are in a transitional state of their gender role.” (23,Anna White) Her imagination is extremely creative but is also filled with this unrealistic fantasy that in fact will never happen. They live in a castle, pumpkins become carriages and Fairy Godmother’s can make rags into riches. While I like Emma to have these pleasant thoughts. I want her to also know that she is fabricated from and that she shouldn’t compare or compete with these characters.
If I was to create a wish list of the things I would want to have I would take into consideration the time of year her age and how she can encourage a creative side to life. Since it is July the middle of summer I thought if I was Emma’s age what would I want? I came up with four different toys if you will. The first being a kiddy swimming pool, a few books, Disney dolls, and she loves to play dress up so I would get her a costume to play in.
When shopping online I discovered a website that is specifically designed for kid swimming pools. WWW.Justkidspools.com is affordable for its consumers and seemed to be a resourceful site. While searching thru the site I took into consideration the different ways they portrayed the different genders. I have to say that this site was not really geared toward either gender. The majority of pools had colors that were both appropriate for either gender, with the exception of a pirate pool. The pools were designed to either be simple with neutral colors or were sea animals, such as whales or fish. Instead of separating their stock by gender they separated it by category. The pool that I chose to buy Emma was in the shape of a blue rectangle. It is relatively cheap and on sale at the price of $49.99.
The second gift(s) on my wish list is books. Every night just before Emma goes to sleep at my house she gets a story read to her. She actually doesn’t like to go to bed but loves her bedtime stories. Again, Emma has many Disney related stories. But she also has many other kinds such as nursery rhymes, the Berenstain Bears, Dr. Seuss, Dora, Sponge Bob, among others. I know from going to stores and seeing children’s books that they are sometimes categorized between genders. However, when I searched for children’s books on Amazon.com I surprisingly found that they too didn’t separate their sections by gender. Instead, I chose an age for the child I was shopping for. There were various types of stories too and was quite pleased to find that they were extremely reasonable with price. The selection was also alarming to learn that they didn’t have but one Disney story. They provided a good amount of “step into reading” books. So since I’m majoring in Education I’ll purchase a few “step into reading classes”.
Every little girl plays with a doll at one point or another, Emma plays with them just about every day, well at least the days that I see her. While looking on at KBTOYS.COM for dolls I found that Barbie was the second doll shown. Among the many Barbie’s that were shown there were also a lot of Disney princesses and of course the now popular Bratz. Seeing how Emma has many of each type of dolls, however luckily only a few Bratz I decided to venture outside the box and get her a kind of doll that she normally wouldn’t choose. I got her something that I used to love when I was her age and a little older, a Popple. I think that it is a safe toy for her to play with that inspires her to use her imagination.
Lastly, I decided to get Emma something that would continue her to use her imagination, dress-up. Most children love to pretend to be a favorite character that they idolize. Emma’s first choice if I gave her the option would be Cinderella. It’s almost like she forgets everything else she has learned or seen and puts Cinderella on a pedestal higher then any other character. I continued my search on KBTOYS.COM and discovered the first costume is that of whom? Cinderella! But as I continued to look I see many other princesses and other cute “girly” costumes, such as butterflies, fairies, and let’s not forget about little brides. They perceive that little girls even have to be set into a certain gender role. Girls learn at an extremely young age that to be beautiful gains you privilege, although it may not be taught directly they still learn it. “Women’s identity must be premised upon our “beauty” so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.” (122, Naomi Wolf) They don’t offer a variety to allow children to have options to choose from. While the costumes are cute and little girls find a deal of pleasure from them they are limited and stereotyped.
During my searches and thru different websites was extremely surprised to find that two out of four sites didn’t sell items that either sex couldn’t use. On the other sites, it was clear that they push the social constructed gender roles for children. I know for a fact that the majority of stores sell toys that are marketed toward a certain stereotypical standard for each gender role, even if I only found half of my sources who did. My niece is no exception that one day she will realize that to be Cinderella is only a dream and people really don’t life like that.