pink toys R girls + blue R boys = *sigh*

~ carin ~ 9 Comments

 
Against my better judgement I ventured into a toy store recently. Toys aren’t what I love giving the kids in my world. I prefer the idea of books and clay and donkeys and paint a whole lot more. But I wondered if maybe I was missing out on something, so off I went on a toy hunt. My first reaction was to be stunned with the enormity of choice so I asked a sales clerk if they might be able to help, to offer some ideas for children of various ages. I started with a toddler.

Is it a boy or a girl? the clerk asked.

Does it matter? I said. They can barely walk.

I was assured that, yes, it does indeed matter and once I’d identified the recipient as a girl child, was whisked to the pink side of the room where the shelves were so shockingly bright I momentarily lost focus, barely heard what the clerk said. Something about unicorns. When I asked what she would recommend for a boy the same age she directed me to the opposite wall, said trains were popular.

I was fascinated yet disheartened by this girl/boy division and considered taking solace in the world’s softest snowy white owl—for myself—but the lines were too long. Instead, I decided to to undertake an informal survey of area toy stores, popping into various ones over the next few days, asking for gift ideas for different ages. Result of survey: whether it was a small independent shop, a medium-sized chain or a huge honking warehouse, in every single case but one, the first question, regardless of age, was: is it a boy or a girl?

When I said I’d rather not be limited by gender specific toys, and that I’d prefer if they could just go by age appropriateness instead, sales clerks were flummoxed. It was clearly so ingrained that this stuff is for boys and this stuff is for girls, that it actually took them a moment to consider what to give an individual “kid”.

I kept expecting the first question to be what interests the child had, but no one asked that, at least not until they determined how said child peed.

In one case I was asked if the girl was a girly girl or a tomboy… with a distinct negative tone on the word ‘tomboy’, as if offering condolences. Message received: girly girl = good; tomboy = possibly cute, but slightly off the mark.

In another instance, when I said I was shopping for both a girl and a boy, of approximately the same age, I was shown a fabulous MegaBlocks set complete with helicopter, police station, cars, bulldozer, roads, cruisers—more than 1700 pieces in all.  I said that the girl would love this. The owner of the shop, a man, informed me it would be better for the boy and then, pointing to a small shelf behind me said, This is for girls… it’s pink. He actually said It’s pink. It was also MegaBlocks, but in a plastic storage bin. The label showed that inside were the ingredients to build a domestic scene:  a small house, a cat, a bush, a few flowers and a tiny car. I said it looked a bit dull, not much to do here but drive up to the house and back out again, maybe water your tree. It hardly compared with the helicopter and police station possibilities for saving the world. The guy shrugged, said, yeah, but… it’s for girls…

I began to realize how limiting and subliminally ‘shaping’ is this world of toys. For example, if your boy child likes gardening, I hope you [and he] have the chops to deal with the fact that  ‘gardening’ kits are pink and/or have a girl on the cover. Ditto foodie/cooking type stuff.

In one store the boy’s side had signs indicating “Science Books”, “Science & Discovery”, “Brio”, “Thomas Railway”, “LEGO & Duplo”, “K’Nex” and “Chugginton”.

The girl’s side signage listed: “Dress-Up”, “Fashion & Bling”, “Arts & Crafts” [all pink], “Doll Houses”, “Corolle Dolls” and “Calico”.

The boy’s side included toboggans, table hockey and all manner of balls and racquets and sports things as well as kites, cars, walkie-talkies, wagons, sci-fi material and science projects.

The girl’s side: tiaras, wings, pink and silver slippers, life-size doll heads for practicing hair styles [age 3+], Princess Castle, Sparkle Kittens, glitter art, Bling Bracelets, button making, finger-nail art, costumes, My Sweet Diary, dolls and a whole line of Project Runway merchandise including a makeup and hair design sketch portfolio [age 8+].

In another store, a whole section of pink was devoted to merchandise of an early motherhood training variety. Not that there’s anything wrong with dolls and dolly car seats and other domestic paraphernalia… it’s that it’s all pink.

One can go pink mad.

And I think I did.

Which is why I’ve given up on the toy shops. Am sticking to books and paint and things that allow kids to think, not to mention donkeys and bears…
450px-Pink_girls_section_of_toy_store

this isn’t about trains

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

I have a history with train tracks. Used to walk along them to school eating bunches of dark purple grapes from a nearby vineyard. This was before the invention of Canadian wine, when Ontario grapes were only useful for jelly, juice, or Baby Duck.

I think of this whenever I walk the path beside the tracks not far from my house—I remember the boys who played chicken with oncoming trains, and a ditch of tall grasses where older kids would hide and smoke at recess. The Brew Hole it was called. Maybe they drank beer too. I wouldn’t know. I was happy enough eating stolen grapes.

I also think of hoboes [different from tramps; hoboes work] and Arlo Guthrie. I imagine a kind of romance about riding the rails, leaning up against a bale of hay, watching the world swish by through an open door.

But tonight there’s no train. Just a few kids playing soccer in the field on the far side, near the school. Their voices so clear, laughter cutting through the evening chill. They’re not even playing a game, just kicking the ball around, making the most of the weather, keeping warm.

This is just before sunset. A brilliance of mango-ey light falls across the neighbourhood, over rooftops, making windows look almost liquid. I try to capture it but it never looks right; it’s like trying to photograph fairies.

The path beside the tracks eventually connects to the street where a woman about my age is strolling with her elderly mum. The mum uses a walker and goes slow and the daughter, hands in pockets, walks slightly ahead. I hear snippets of conversation: something something term deposits. It’s partly English and partly another language and only when I get close enough do I realize it’s German. The mother is asking questions about money and the daughter is short-tempered in her answers. The mother changes the subject. The daughter remains miffed. I feel for them both, but want to tell them: this time you have together… don’t waste it.

A man puts snow tires on his car while two boys ride different sized tricycles on the sidewalk around him.

And a few houses along two girls, maybe eleven or twelve, are drawing in chalk on their driveway. They wave as I pass and smile and they’re the ones who say hello first. It occurs to me how rare this is, the smiling and waving and speaking. Children have had so much of that warned out of them. But these girls—bless their brave souls—are fearless!

I loop around through the park, head homeward, and then I hear it.

The train.

If I hurry I might be able to make it back to the path and catch at least some of it but just as I get there the last car speeds by on the other side of the trees and then—silence. All those imaginary hoboes heading off to who knows where, who knows what kind of adventure, what sights await through that open door.

The sky has gone from orange and crimson to a yellow silvery blue.

The rooftops and windows look solid again.

I find a penny on the sidewalk, new and very shiny.

I toss it over my shoulder.

♦◊♦

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-coloured lenses which paint the world their own hue and each shows only what lies in its own focus.”  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

questions [some more urgent than others]

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

The Miss, Mrs., Ms. thing?  So unfair. All those choices for women… and men have only Mr. —How then are the poor souls meant to indicate on various forms where it shouldn’t matter in the slightest, or in social settings where it’s also no one’s business…whether they are indeed single, married or merely ambiguous with an attitude?

And who came up with the idea of blowing on birthday cake then offering guests a slice? [Assuming this precedes the invention of flu?]

If recycling is so green why are recycling boxes blue?

And the Canadian Tire logo—why is that a triangle??

And is it just me or is CBC radio starting to get more than a little American-centric in its content? Am I just a worrier or might that be in preparation for the much-rumoured and possibly inevitable ads?

Which reminds me: whatever happened to the RoboCalls story? And why isn’t this a very, VERY, big deal?

—Have I missed anything?

 

encounters in stillness

~ carin ~ 11 Comments

The first shock of frost on the grass this morning and in the sunrise, contrails suggesting warmer destinations. But I’m happy to be right here walking in this lightly iced air, watching my breath, proof that I am, indeed, here.

A faint scrunch underfoot, so small I have to concentrate to hear it. And then a bare patch where the earth is slick and a different kind of attention is necessary until, further along still, where the leaves are thick on the ground and the light filters through and there’s no ice, only a scent of hibernation, transformation, where leaves are leaving as leaves, changing not only colour but molecules, breaking down with a view to reappearing as loam—possibly as early as Spring—that’s where I let my guard down, on this decomposing carpet where the soles of my moderately priced runners feel secure.

There are places where the tall grass has bent over as if there’s no point in arguing, the cold mornings have won; it acquiesces, prepares to serve as a nest or bed for whoever or whatever would care to nest or bed there.

I walk down a slope toward the creek, once more careful, it’s muddy and slippery, warmer here, protected from wind, the sound of water like a conversation. I take off my red and white maple leaf mittens and do a quick standing salutation to the sun. This, before I notice a dog and walker a few metres away. I say good morning and expect a strange look but there’s only a glimmer of curiosity followed by an open, friendly smile.

I walk past the Italian man’s garden that faces the park, all tidy and empty, unlike mine, which still sports all manner of herbs and dandelions, still food. But we’re different styles, he and I. He grows vast quantities to preserve: tomatoes, beans, peppers, zucchini, eggplant. I grow the same things but mostly just enough to eat during the season, a few extra jars of this or that. I stop and talk to him sometimes. He invites me to take tomatoes. I never do. I tell him I grow my own and he smiles. He knows I’m an amateur and he’s right. Still, my garlic is not to be sniffed at.

On the way home I meet a neighbour who walks with a different purpose. Whereas I dress in babushka and an anorak, she’s got glow in the dark stripes and a proper walking toque. She stops and tells me to hang on a minute while she tries to turn off her device, grumbles that it’s finicky; I wait while she fiddles with the dial, eventually settling on turning it down because off isn’t working. Then she invites me to a xmas thing at her house. I promise to check the calendar.

Back through the creek I climb small hills, follow the narrow shoreline and wonder if the campers are down there again this year with their plywood lean-to and other comforts of home. They’re not, just bits of litter. I will never understand the mentality of letting something fall from your hand onto the ground…

The possibility of running into the campers changes my mood. I decide to go back up top where it’s open and then I catch a glimpse of something dark and big behind me.

There are coyotes in the ravine, I sometimes hear them at night. But it’s not them I worry about. I remember a conversation I had with my stepdaughter when she was very young, whether it would be scary to sleep in a cemetery all night. I said I wouldn’t be afraid as long as I could be guaranteed no people would show up.

Especially live ones.

I still feel the same way.

It’s never the outside that’s scary.

Even the dead bits.

Still…

I turn around.

A juniper bush stares back.

I let out a frosty breath and head home.