Happy Hearths' Warming one and all. · 1:17am Dec 26th, 2014
Firstly, it's really nice to see how many of you like The Brightest and the Best. I'm still somewhat astonished at how this story has taken off. It wasn't a planned thing—just something I thought up for the writeoff. Welcome to all new followers. Please take a look around. If you're looking for more fun stories, probably the best I did this year is: Breaking News and Weather.
This week I had the fun challenge of finding presents for my two-year-old nephew. As children at such an age like anything soft and colourful, why not ponies? Then I don't even need to go shopping as I already have more plushies than I really need. I just need to decide which pony he would most like...
Except ponies are “girls” toys, so can you give one to a boy? My answer to this is yes—as my regular readers know, I regularly rant against the idea that there is any such thing as “girls toys” or “boys toys”.
But I know my brother has more conservative ideas about “masculinity” than I do. And he doesn't like ponies. So I could take this an opportunity to corrupt his little boy and bring him over to my way of thinking. But is this fair on the kid? Life is complicated enough being two years old, without getting dragged into gender politics. This is the very reason why we fight gendered toy labelling. But maybe the safe option when buying presents is to stick with “gender neutral” toys.
So... picture books and dinosaurs—you can't go wrong with dinosaurs—science museum gift shop here I come—yay!
Then when packing up a parcel, I found there was an awkward empty space that needed filling, so I threw in a cuddly Rainbow Dash anyway.
It turns out, of course, I was over thinking the whole thing. I skyped them this morning, and saw a blurry video of a very happy family with an excited toddler waving Dashie in front the camera. And they sent me a lovely Twilight Sparkle tin.
Happy Hearth's Warming!
NIce.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hearth's Warming!
:D
Ponies really are smashing the barriers down.
Merry Christmas!! I totally see what you mean about the gender labeling--and putting a two-year-old in the middle of an argument with your brother wouldn't be fair, so I am really glad you thought about that--and really glad your brother didn't mind anyways! I think Rainbow Dash was probably a great choice for a two-year-old; all those bright colors on one pony have gotta be fascinating! I know of a child who just loves to stare at an older sister's brightly-colored build-a-bear. I got some kids I know some presents, and the girls are getting My Little Pony brushables, and the boys are getting How To Train Your Dragon dragons, but that's not because of gender labeling--that's just because of what the kids like! The girls are big fans of FiM and the boys aren't, but they do like action figures and dragons and characters. They'll have a blast "flying" the dragons around the house!
Presumably Rainbow Dash's wings have their origins in some dinosaur species....
Funny how these things work out sometimes, isn't it? I'm glad everything turned out well.
Not overthinking it at all. Some parents are really focused over gender rules and suchs. Glad it worked out.