Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls

Paula Joye is editor of www.lifestyled.com.au (http://www.lifestyled.com.au).

There is something really important to say here about dolls. In Steiner Education, where kids are rarely rushed and a lot of thought goes into stages and ages, they have dolls with no faces. These toys are just blank and plain, with perhaps some simple clothes. The amazing thing is – kids love them. What happens is that the child at play puts all her own imagination into the feelings the doll might have, what it might look like, and what it does.

The doll doesn’t programme the child. These dolls are the ones taken to bed at night with them, tucked in, and used to play out all their dreams, imaginings and fears. It’s the very opposite of a Bratz doll. For little children, boys and girls, the less corporate their toys, and the more natural and brand-less, the better.

Finally, no toy advice would be complete without a word about Lego. There is no doubt about it, Mr Lego, if there was one, was a genius. He deserves a Nobel Prize. There is no construction toy that comes close in its almost planetary popularity, usefulness and general magic. It can stimulate minds in different versions from babies to tech-headed teens – and it benefits and is loved by girls just as much as boys, given the chance.

But recently Lego got kidnapped by the marketers, who decided a girls’ version was needed. Listen to what they came up with: five curvy little friends who bake, home-make, decorate, hairstyle and shop! Anything gender limiting in that little selection?

Boys’ Lego, on the other hand, is about firefighting, space exploration, knights in armour, buildings, cars, houses and furniture and ANYTHING YOU WANT TO MAKE IT. Boys play in Lego World, whereas girls play in their own little ghetto called Heartlake City! (No firefighters or policemen there, they have to get the boys over if the beauty salon catches fire!) Naturally when this new product line came out, women rose up in outrage. One angry writer summed up this in one neat sentence. There IS a girls’ version – it’s called … Lego.

There’s no doubt Lego did their research, spending millions and taking years. Their head researcher told a Danish newspaper that they found that girls had a single overwhelming preoccupation – with BEAUTY. That’s what the new girls’ Lego was built around. Girls wanted to project themselves into dolls who were being, or getting made, beautiful. Now I am not arguing with their finding, but that’s a measure of how DAMAGED girls are now. ‘How do I look?’ is their strongest interest. If you want this to be your daughter’s preoccupation, then girls’ Lego is for you.

So by all means get your daughter Lego, but not the girls’ version. Not the pink and purple beauty salon or the café. Sure, she might build those of her own choice, but she might prefer rockets, castles, cannons, horses, trees, trucks and farms. And that would be a real shame not to have the scope for.