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Home › Articles › Family › Daddies Do Dishes, Too

Daddies Do Dishes, Too

Teaching Nongender Roles to Children

By Carma Haley

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A fear of "changing" a child by allowing them to partake in nontraditional play time cannot only stifle a child's creativity, but also may affect their self-esteem and self-image. "Parents fear for their child's future," says Berkeley. "They want their child to be all they can and to have a good life. But, by telling a child 'you can't play with dolls because you are a boy' or 'you can't play football because you are a girl' sets limits on the way a child thinks. They may think there is something wrong with playing with dolls or playing football and if they have the desire to do those things, they will think that there is something wrong with them. That's not the message parents should want to give to their children."

Mitchell prefers to buy her son any toys he expresses interest in without placing any gender specifics on the purchase. "When playing with his female cousin, we encourage him to play with her tea set and dolls," Mitchell says. "I think it is very important for our children to grow up feeling there is nothing that they cannot do, nor any chore that they shouldn't do."

Allowing children to express their feelings, interests, likes and dislikes, offers them the freedom to discover who they are, thus allowing them to develop into happier and healthier adults.

"Society needs to learn how to treat people as individuals and not as genders, races, etc.," Berkeley says. "This can all start at home."

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