I’ve written a post like this every year, bringing together all the advice from the years before (my own and what appeared in the comment section) and then opening it up to additional ideas (which will be brought next year into the new post as well). Because this time of year can be both impossibly difficult or impossibly wonderful depending on which side of the happiness line you fall, and I say that even as a non-Christian who doesn’t need to do anything more than participate in a volunteer project and eat a bunch of candy canes on Christmas.

Holidays are a lot of pressure — to get them right, to coordinate schedules/needs/wants, to navigate relationships, to travel. For some people those pressures are additionally pressed down by the knowledge of people missing from the table — either those who were once here or those who haven’t been brought into your family yet. And compounding it all is this ongoing message that holidays must be fun! They must be a happy time! Families must draw together and eat a spiral ham in front of a roaring fire with a sparkling tree in the background!

Even if they’re out of work. Even if they don’t have the family they want. Even if they’re in mourning.

For people who are happily moving through the holiday season, especially those finally celebrating after many dry years, I lift my virtual glass of champagne to you and send you off to enjoy it. Don’t apologize for being happy — just soak in this time.

For anyone else still sticking around to read this, remember that everyone experiences something in life that makes a particular year or set of years difficult for them. That for every holiday season that you enjoy and look forward to participating in, there is also a time in life where you dread all the reminders that come with a holiday season and wish you could avoid the whole thing. And this year may be that time for you, but it won’t always be that time for you. Things change; both for good and bad. This too shall pass.

You can sit out of the festivities if that’s what you need to do, but a survival guide is sort of like holding your breath to eat (you know, so you don’t taste anything) when your mother asks you to try lima beans. Like slimey green lima beans, going to events is usually good for you, and it’s important to be around people who care about you when the going is tough. You just may need a trick for getting through family time just as mouth-breathing (and not tasting) works for choking down undesired foods.

I’ll offer up the same advice I gave the last year five years with additional notes from comments that came on those old posts:

• Create your own incentives and treat getting through the holiday season as your job. Pay yourself in whatever will make you happy. For instance, after a trip to the local mall to have your picture taken with your niece and Santa, pay yourself with a manicure. Attending the holiday party from hell may win you an entire bar of chocolate. It’s worth setting up small incentives and budgeting for your own happiness because it can be something to focus on during the task at hand.

• You know the idea that you can take a large school and make it small but you can’t go the other way around? Flip that concept when it comes to the holidays: take a small part of the holiday and make it big. Focus on something that you can do and make it your contribution to the holiday season. If you know celebrating Christmas will be too much, make sure you throw yourself wholeheartedly into helping prepare Thanksgiving (and then develop an unfortunate case of the stomach flu on December 24th). If you can organize the family gift but can’t fathom how you’ll do Christmas dinner, make sure you send out an email to your siblings early asking for photos of your nieces and nephews so you can design a great picture calendar for your parents. And then skip the ham.

• Do all your shopping online instead of subjecting yourself to walking past the displays of toys and Christmas baby clothes at the store. Keep it simple this year – you have a lifetime to plot out the most fantastic gifts of all time. This may be the year that you need to buy a DVD or book for each person your list and be done.

• Leave a note in your pocket: write a note to yourself, ask a friend to jot something down, trade letters with your partner, or simply leave a list of names (therapist, fellow bloggers, the friend you’ll drink with the moment you get home) in your pocket to touch as a reminder that someone has your back when you begin to feel overwhelmed at the holiday table. I can’t be with you at your Christmas dinner (the whole Jew and vegetarian thing aside, I just don’t think your family is going to be cool if you drag along a random blogger), but I can give you a note right now to keep in your pocket. Simply print this out and whenever you get overwhelmed, touch it and remember that there are people out there who get you. And change the line about mini hot dogs if you’re a vegetarian:

Hey Sweetie:

I know it was really hard to come to this party/dinner/get together but now that you’re here, you’re even closer to it being over. Try to enjoy yourself, but if you can’t, nip into the bathroom for a cry or bury yourself at the buffet table and do nothing but eat mini hot dogs for the rest of the night. There is no shame in enduring rather than enjoying and you need to do whatever you need to do to get through this without ruining any relationships. Make sure you take time for yourself today/tonight after you get home. I’m here on the other end of the computer if you need me.

Love,
Mel

• Pick and Choose: there is no rule that says you must attend every event during the holiday season – even if you’ve gone to everything in the past. If it’s going to cause more grief than it’s worth, just attend the event. But if you can get your partner to “surprise” you with a holiday trip, all the better.

• Book: I actually include a lot of ideas like these in Navigating the Land of If to get through life in general; not just holiday. I’m just saying.

• I will tell you the only trick I have up my sleeve: the holiday card. Most holiday cards we receive are either generic package-of-12 types or pictures of kids/families. We send out cards every year that routinely get responses that it was the best card they’ve gotten all year, or sometimes the best card ever. Sometimes one fabulous photo of us in some fabulous locale; sometimes a whole series around the world (which it will have to be again this year). We used to just have a normal photo card, but now we include a newsy update of career progress and travels. The people with kids (or limited funds, or limited outlook) say, “Wow, your life is amazing. I’m stuck here at home.” I’m not trying to make them feel envious of us, but envy is way better than pity. –Baby Smiling in Back Seat

• All of our friends have been sending photo X-mas cards in the past years. In previous years, we’d send an awesome vacation photo. Like- heh!- we still had fun this year! –Mrs. Spock

• One tip I figured out early on: If you can’t shop online & have to go to the mall, find out what hours Santa will be there — & then go when he’s not around. There won’t be as many kids & babies around to deal with then. –The Road Less Travelled

• I manage to work in a reference to Katie in every edition of our Christmas letter … usually in relation to our volunteer work. But I like being able to remind people that she was real & is still a part of our lives. My Christmas card itself usually has either an angel or Classic Pooh theme (which was also the theme of her nursery). I know other people who use angel stamps on their cards as a subtle reminder of their lost baby(s). –The Road Less Travelled

• This year I solved my problem in the cowardly fashion … I offered to work. I work at a domestic violence shelter, which is open 24/7 … So I figure I might as well. I can get paid double time as well, so it’s all sorts of awesome. –An Unwanted Path

• I started listening to holiday music in August this year. I’m using it as my own private technique for connecting with the joy of the season early enough that I won’t suddenly get trampled in the crush of child-centric images, events, and conversations coming my way during the actual season. I want this year to be different! –Lisa

• Instead of focusing on what I can’t handle, I’m heading into the season excited about the possibilities of the new traditions TH and I will make this year. I’m just going to roll with the punches. If I’m really excited about putting up the tree, we’re going to do it and not wait. If I can’t handle being around our nephew, TH can go and I can stay home. I’m not going to force myself into any situation, and I’m just going to accept where I am and be there. –Kim

• I just bought three bottles of my favorite wine yesterday to take to my mom’s… and I don’t plan to share any of it. –Guera!

• I think I’m going to plan something for just me and my husband so we’ve got an event during the holiday season to look forward to. It’s either going to be going out to a really nice restaurant or going on a trip (or possibly both!). —Sushigirl

• I’m a big fan of lights. Lights inside and out of the house. But putting up the tree where cute handmade kid ornaments should be was always too hard. So I just put up lights – it goes back to finding out what you can do to enjoy the season and doing it. —BigPandMe

• Two years ago at Christmas right after my 3rd miscarriage I was in a really bad place and dreading the holidays. My mom suggested that instead of our normal Christmas Eve meal we make homemade Chinese food – egg rolls, stir fry, etc. It turned out great and for whatever reason not having to face the traditional meal made it so much better. Don’t get me wrong – it was still really hard – but I got through it and was happy that I spent time with my family instead of avoiding the whole holiday. –Becky

• And “work” can also mean volunteer work. Nobody is going to get mad at you for selflessly devoting your time and skills at a soup kitchen instead of sitting around the family table (or for rushing from the family table to do said work). Or they might, but they’ll end up looking like the bad guy, not you. —Bea

• Remember it’s just a day. It has no power. You don’t have to enjoy it. Lots of people don’t. —Mali

• Sometimes things suck, and sometimes, you have to feel what you’re going to feel while things suck. It’s okay to mourn and it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to not pull yourself up by the bootstraps based on someone else’s timetable rather than your own. And that sometimes, when you push yourself to do something, you find that you actually derived a great deal of peace from the experience. Such as sitting down at the Thanksgiving table when you’re sort of dreading being around people. –Me (from two years ago)

• By refusing to stay over, so that I know we can go home when we’ve had enough. Oh sorry, we’ve got the cat to feed, we can’t possibly stay longer… —Rebecca

• As someone who had (is having) a happy IF ending that resulted in children, I find myself very aware of the depression of holidays past. So this year, I’m doing two Christmas cards: one for family and other friends who experienced a happy IF ending, and one for those who are still waiting with empty arms. The first will, of course, include a picture of our family and children and all the enjoyment of the past year. The second will be less “kids in your face” and more “Happy Holidays, we love you.” I remember how much it stung to get Christmas cards in the mail of new babies and young families that I wanted so badly for myself. I just can’t do it to my friends how I KNOW are enduring the same heartache. —Amy

• Lots of wine and a sober husband to get me home. When everyone is so busy doting on kids or passing around gifts, its easy to just be in the room, but just off to the corner, on the outskirts, enjoying drink after drink. And I also let hubby tackle the “so when are you guys gonna have kids” questions. —Kimberly

• We’ll have a big breakfast, then go out for a real long walk (10 miles), then we’ll come back and cook a sumptious dinner for the two of us, then in the evening, we’ll head out to the in laws when the children will be in bed and we can just stay an hour or so before being tired and heading home for our beds. –Flowergirl

• My husband and I started a tradition a few years ago that we cherish. We each spend the holiday season in search of the perfect tree ornament for the other. We decorate with the old looking blown glass ornaments and we try to find something that really represents the other person. My hubby’s have been a motorcycle, an old school looking robot, a space taser gun, Santa serving up beers, among a few others. This gave us something to focus on other than what was missing. —Lacie

• My best advice is always to make the holidays as nice as you can for yourself. I love getting the Christmas tree and decorating, so I have been buying ornaments and looking at holiday decorating ideas. It has always been a happy part about Christmas, with or without children, whether or not I’ve been in a relationship, so it is the thing I can hang on to. —Chickenpig

• Spending the holidays where the celebration is so different from what you are used to also really helped- yes there were lots of Christmas decorations around, and small children, but there were no Santa photo stands. —Persnickity

• I would say to just take care of yourself. You know what you need to help yourself so do what makes you feel good and not what others expect you to do. —Cautious Optimist

How do you get through the holiday season when you’re feeling less than your best?

All this talk about GoldieBlox is why I would never want to have to grow up again.  It is so damn hard to be a kid today.  A case in point: when I went to elementary school, we were expected to get from Point A to Point B (for instance, our classroom to the lunch room), with minimal noise and with all body parts still intact.  As long as no arms were lost along the way and no one made arm farts, we were okay.  Actually, there were probably some kids who made arm farts.  But they did so discreetly.  Spend any time in an elementary school today and students are expected to line up quietly and walk silently, a completely unnatural state of being.  Can you imagine adults walking in a single file line, silent as ghosts?  Picture your office mates traveling from their desks to the conference room with one finger against the wall, mouths shut.  We ask kids to suppress every human instinct at a time in life when they have so little control over their body, mind, and mouth.  These are people who were peeing in diapers and babbling nonsense words only a few years ago.

Wait, but we were talking about toys.

Image: Deiby via Flickr

I couldn’t grow up today because there is too much pressure down to choosing the right toy.  My parents (as far as I know) looked at appropriateness and price, and that was pretty much where their toy direction ended.   They wouldn’t let us play, let’s say, with a bag of glass. But beyond Prostitute Barbie or a real crossbow, they let us choose our toys without thinking of them as anything more than toys.  We had a lot of Playmobil, Barbies, Bristle Blocks, Legos, Smurfs, and Strawberry Shortcake.  We had a play kitchen that my father built for us.  We had board games and a ViewMaster.  Most of the time, we used our toys as a storytelling device.

How many of us (and be honest) have purchased (or would purchase) a toy thinking about how it will help shape a child?  I certainly have.  The only place I’ve drawn the line is that I’ve never purchased toys before my child has shown a clear interest in said toy.  But that’s only because I’m cheap, and I would be worried about purchasing something and having it go unused.  But I took a step back when we were discussing GoldieBlox because really, this idea reinforces how much we are meddling in childrens’ lives.  Sometimes in a good way, but sometimes getting in the way of allowing them to be themselves.  You don’t have to be a parent to be guilty of this: I was guilty of it as an aunt, a teacher, and now as a mother.

I think I really need to stop doing this.

I think the fact that we’re not even letting little girls choose their own toys without comment ties into the fact that we’ve also stopped giving kids unscheduled, unstructured play.  Don’t you remember that?  Having plans after school was the exception; not the norm.  Our afternoons were spent playing tag with neighbours. Or drawing at the kitchen table. Or building a fort with the sofa cushions and curling up underneath with a blanket and pretending it was a cave that also contained an invisible unicorn.  That play was really important.

My toys — by which I mean my playtime — didn’t create my future interests; my toys reflected my current interests.

Throughout this discussion of GoldieBlox, I’ve been trying to think about how different I would be if my parents had tried to guide me toward a career field that they had chosen for me, which was clear from their toy choice.  Would I feel ashamed if I chose a different profession knowing it was clearly not what my parents wanted for me?  If they had pushed me to be an engineer by giving me all these engineering toys, and I decided to be a writer instead?  Would I have found a job that was a natural fit; or would work always have been trying to shove my round self into a square hole?  If a child isn’t naturally drawn towards science, is it a good idea to push them towards science?  Or will they forever be walking an uphill path, fighting their natural desires?  We aren’t the first generation who has guided their children towards a certain field — family businesses beget familial workers — but we are the first generation who has done so via toys.  Who has pushed our kids towards fields that we don’t work in ourselves.

I don’t think you can create a science-lover.  You can only show a child YOUR love of science and hope they love it too.  And if you don’t have a love of science, no amount of GoldieBlox is going to generate that love in a child without our input.  Think back to teachers who made you excited to learn, and think back to teachers who clearly weren’t emotionally invested in the subject matter for the lesson.  I think the same goes for parenting; our kids can tell when we’re guiding them towards things we aren’t interested in ourselves, and they latch onto things where we bring our own expertise or excitement.

Look at the kids you know: your children, your students, your nieces or nephews, your neighbours.  What are their interests?  And what are your interests?  Can you nurture theirs?  Can you show them yours?

It has always seemed so simple with my boy.  The Wolvog loves computers.  He passionately loves them to the point where I fear that he will one day marry a robot and give me android grandkids.  What he doesn’t groove on is art, despite having a sister interested in art and a mother with an MFA.  I would love it if he’d take an art class, but the closest he’ll come to art is drawing on the iPad.  And let’s be honest: he’s only doing that so he can be touching something electronic.

I wouldn’t dream of ignoring his interests and foisting art supplies on him every time there is an opportunity to buy him a gift.  I wouldn’t even make it one of his gifts if I was buying him multiple gifts.  I may buy myself art supplies and introduce him to my favourite form of play.  But really, when it comes down to it, gifts should reflect the personality and wants of the receiver.  I shouldn’t get him what I want him to play with; I should get him something I suspect would fill his little electronic heart with joy.

And the same goes for the ChickieNob.  Just because she has a vagina doesn’t mean she should be treated differently from her brother.  So, yes, from this point on, I am not purchasing toys unless she shows an interest in it on her own or if I am going to bring my passion to introducing her to a toy.

I guess this is my toy manifesto.  Free the toys.  Allow the kids to follow their interests.  Don’t withhold toys if they do show an interest: give the boys dolls; give the girls Legos — if that’s what they want.  At the same time, don’t do the opposite: don’t give toys where they haven’t shown an interest.  As the great Bruce Springsteen once said, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.” (I believe the dancing in the dark was just a song about enjoying those glow-in-the-dark planetary stickers.)  We need to be present, to notice that spark, and then fan those flames until we have our kids burning with their passions.

P.S. I’m not saying you’re doing this, purchasing a toy that your child hasn’t indicated that she’ll love.  I think everyone who commented either has a STEMy little girl OR they themselves are passionate about science and want to hopefully transfer that love to their kid.  But I have seen a number of commenters in the mainstream media coverage of GoldieBlox talking about how they want to buy the toy because they want to make sure their kid becomes an engineer.  And the toy’s manufacturer stated herself that the point of the toy is to build those engineering skills early in young girls.  So… yeah… my toy manifesto is for those people.  And I am probably preaching to the choir.

A few weeks ago, It Is What It Is wrote about a very different way of eating an apple from the bottom up rather than eating around the side.  The result is a lot less waste.  I decided to try it yesterday.  I cut out the tiny flower at the bottom of the apple but kept on the stem.  When I cut out the flower (a chunk about the size of my pinky nail that I removed with a paring knife), it opened a hole in the core where I could see the seeds above.  I don’t know why I thought the core was somewhat solid.

So I started chomping at it from the bottom.

Do you see that hole?  This apple is halfway gone, and I’m getting close to the seeds.  Everyone in the waiting room looked at me either because (1) I was eating an apple in an unusual and cool way, (2) I was taking excessively large bites, almost choking on each one, or (3) I was screaming between every bite to the Wolvog that he needed to photograph this because it was so damn cool.

So he did.

You can sort of tell how small it is by looking at my thumb.  I probably could have eaten more, but I had to stop to have a long conversation with the Wolvog about why he couldn’t have my apple seeds.  (Him: “Why?”  Me: “Because, they’re garbage.”  Him: “They’re only garbage to you.”  Me: “I’m not going to give you my seeds because all that will happen is that they’ll end up in the wash.”  Him: “No, they won’t.  I really like them.  I’ll take care of them.  I’ll plant them.”  Me: “No.”  Him: “Why?”…)

It Is What It Is has changed my life.

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Josh sent me an article about comfort pets on planes, an option that I didn’t know existed until that moment.  I immediately said that I wanted to bring Truman to calm me on our next trip since I am a horrible flyer.  Josh told me that isn’t going to happen.

But for curiosity sake, how would you feel if you sat down on a plane, and the woman next to you (let’s say, someone who is diminutive in size with long brown hair and writes a blog — NOT ME) was holding a guinea pig on her lap?

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The 2013 Creme de la Creme is trucking along.  There are currently 68 on the list and under a month to go until the hard deadline (December 15!).  So, are you on the list yet?  Extra love to people who submit early!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Courageous” (Genuine Greavu)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I loved Lavender Luz’s post comparing the state of adoption to the concept of glasnost from the former Soviet Union.  She writes: “So today, during National Adoption Awareness Month, I make a bold prediction: the walls that still exist in adoption will fall not gradually and softly but in a rush. A shocking, thunderous rush, just like we saw nearly 25 years ago in Europe.”  To continue reading, the rest of the post is on Huffington Post.

Plan Y has a post about friends who came to dinner and the baby they brought with them.  She admits, “Sometimes I’m able to hold back and not engage with babies and toddlers, and other times I just can’t help myself.”  It’s a bittersweet post about a fun evening that ends with a bib left behind on the table.  She made me feel as if I was there.

Lastly, Taboo Baby Talk has a very honest post about why she’s not crying after her miscarriage.  She writes: “I still haven’t cried since the miscarriage was confirmed on Tuesday.  I google everything and was avoiding my recent google search of ‘what if you don’t cry after a miscarriage’.  A little nervous of what the search results would reveal.  But I did it.  I literally googled that.”  I think it’s important to read a wide range of reactions to loss, and I’m really glad she wrote this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: A different way to eat an apple.  How would you feel if you had to sit next to a guinea pig?  The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 15th and November 22nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I was fairly nervous to post what I wrote about GoldieBlox.  I had no problem with people disagreeing with me — believe me, if we didn’t already own toys that were similar and much more versatile than GoldieBlox, I could have seen myself considering it.  I knew I would be annoyed if people didn’t give it a close read and skipped down to the comment section to start stating their own thoughts before they finished the post.  But mostly, I wondered if not supporting another woman made me a traitor.

It’s an idea that came up a lot with the 2008 election: were you a traitor to women if you chose Barack Obama as the nominee over Hillary Clinton?  It’s something that Josh and I discuss every so often: are you a traitor towards other Jews if you speak critically about other Jews?  There are enough outsiders speaking ill of both groups — women and Jews.  (The list is much bigger in terms of groups that are shat upon.  I’m just listing these two because they’re my example.)  Isn’t it worse if it comes from the inside, from someone who is part of the group?

I know there are some women who will say yes, to not support the work of another woman is to be a traitor towards women.  But by that definition, I should support the work of Michelle Bachmann.  Anyone who has spent any time on this blog is probably snorting over the idea of me lending my support to Michelle Bachmann.  But that is what it means to blindly give your support to another in the group.  It means to ignore the message itself and to only consider the messenger.

And while I can do that when it comes to close friends and family — to stand by them in support regardless of how I feel about what they are saying or doing — I can’t say that it’s healthy to extend the same to strangers.  It would mean extending support to 50% of the world’s population.  I understand the sentiment that there are enough men holding back women that we don’t need women holding back women too.  But I’m uncomfortable with the idea of giving someone support simply due to their sexual organs.

And yet, at the end of the day there is the other side of the truth: all things being equal, I tend to support those within my group over those outside my group.  If there were two toys, both equally good, and one was made by a woman and one was made by a man, I’d probably lean towards buying the toy by the woman.  Just because.  If all things were equal and there were two candidates, one a Christian man and one a Jewish man, I’d probably choose the Jewish man.  Just because.  Why are we so keen to support complete strangers who happen to share one defining quality?  It’s a natural instinct to want something good for a member of your group, especially if we believe that good begets good.  If I have your back, you’ll have mine.

Hopefully it was understood that I was critical not of Debbie Sterling nor GoldieBlox itself but of the idea of blindly saying, “this rocks!” without actually knowing anything about the toy.  Because I still haven’t actually found anyone in the mainstream media discussing the toy, only how awesome the kids were in the video or the fun song or the amazing Rube Goldberg machine or the message behind the product.  I keep waiting to find someone writing about the toy itself.  But none of the mainstream coverage contained a review of the GoldieBlox.  Whether it’s a well-made toy.  Whether it has value.  For instance, why should I spend $29 on GoldieBlox when I can spend $49 on Lego and get 50 set activities and limitless creative ones?  There could be a very good reason for why I should buy GoldieBlox over Legos, but I’ve yet to hear it.

I’ve only been told that I should support it because we need to be supportive of smart women who step forward with good ideas.

And that’s my problem with the coverage; and I understand that this is partially because things move so quickly on the Internet that we need to react quickly because the next viral video or bit of news is coming down the conveyor belt like chocolates in an I Love Lucy episode.  We need to watch, post to Facebook, and move on. And maybe this product is worth supporting, or maybe it’s not.  But I don’t want to support a project just because it was created by a woman.  I want to support a project because it’s a sound product that fills a niche missing in the toy industry that also happens to be made by a woman.

And maybe that makes me a traitor.

This may be one of the most unpopular posts I write, but I’m going to say it anyway because… well… this is how I feel on the topic.

A lot of people sent me this Beastie Boys-inspired, GoldieBlox YouTube video yesterday, and it’s super cute.  Three girls, bored by the pink-drenched toys they’ve been sold by the toy industry, set up an epic Rube Goldberg machine through their house that shoots them outside and toward a toy they really want: GoldieBlox.

I have every reason to be interested in GoldieBlox.  It’s a toy created by a smart woman whose sole aim (beyond selling toys) is to introduce girls to STEM early in life based on realizing her own limitations in adulthood due to the toys she was given as a child.  Rather than using those formative years playing out narratives while they wait for their prince to come, she wants girls understanding concepts in engineering because it will build life skills that will carry them well into adulthood.  Sounds good.

I’m not getting my daughter GoldieBlox.

I’m not saying that if someone else gets my daughter GoldieBlox that we’ll return them or throw a fit, but I’m not going to spend my money on more toys that are gender-labeled.  If the ChickieNob wants an engineering toy, she can play with the Quadrilla marble run we already own.  She can engineer a marble monstrosity that will shoot marbles around the room that we won’t find for years to come.  Or play with our Lego Mechanics set.  It’s a non-motorized, non-programmable version of Lego WeDo.  One box, dozens of projects with gears and pulleys and levers.

What I can’t do — and perhaps this is more a reality when you have boy-girl twins with similar interests, a small toy budget, and limited space  — is buy gender-specific toys simply because a marketing team told my kids that something is for their sex.  I feel that way about all toy companies, not GoldieBlox specifically.  But I don’t want the ChickieNob (or myself) to get sucked into clever marketing.  I don’t want her to have a knee-jerk, girl power reaction.  I don’t want her to buy something just because the company is telling her that girls can do anything!  They can, by the way.  But the point is that it’s too easy to get sucked into the message and miss whether or not it’s actually a good toy.  I have no clue if it’s a good toy, and I suspect that a lot of people who were drawn into the video also have no clue if it’s a good toy insofar as quality and value.  But until I know that, I really don’t want to buy my kid something just because they have made a catchy, viral YouTube video.

Of course I want to punch the air and say, “hells yeah!” to those cool kids in the video, but I don’t believe for a second they actually set up that course on their own. I think it illustrates the point: that this is still a bunch of adults telling kids what they should like.  Sure, it’s educational and reinforces ideas I’d like my daughter to hear (that it’s not only a good idea for her to strongly consider the STEM fields, but that STEM can be fun).  But it’s still a product.  They’re still being sold something.  They’re still telling my kid what to think.  What she should like.  What she shouldn’t like.  How she should spend her time.

They spend two straight minutes crapping on girls who like princesses and pink in order to make their point.  There are girls out there who like princesses and pink.  And that’s okay.  It’s also okay if a girl completely rejects that toy narrative and writes her own story.  And it’s also okay if she wants to be a princess scientist.  If she wants to mix all of her interests into one non-gender-specific salad.

I want the ChickieNob to choose her own interests, and I want the rest of the world to respect her interests, whatever they may be.  She will always be swayed by marketing — we all are.  But just as my first instinct was “ooooh, me want” (I can’t even use correct grammar when I covet) when I saw the GoldieBlox video, I’m glad I have a second instinct that kicks in and says, “hey, we have toys that not only accomplish the same thing, but both my kids are welcome to play them.”

Because sometimes my daughter plays with other girls.  And sometimes my daughter plays with boys.  And I just want her to feel as if all the toys can be dumped in front of all people with the message “let’s play!”

I’m glad Debbie Sterling made her toy and got it out there on the market.  I wish her a lot of luck in getting this toy into the right hands.  Based on the reaction on Facebook, it seems very popular.  I would encourage those excited parents to really look at the quality of the toy: how many hours of play will your child get from this set?  Is there another toy on the market that accomplishes the same thing that costs less or contains more value per dollar?  As I said, I know nothing about this product except what I saw in the YouTube video and her original TED talk. (Remember, I’m on a tight toy budget.  Our motto is repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.  Or, “everything old is new again!” Or, “you’re not getting another toy.  Play with what you own.”)

Sterling’s heart is in the right place.  I’m just a cranky woman who is tired of people marketing to my daughter.  The ChickieNob is asked by toy manufacturers to navigate a gender minefield, to make enormous statements with her toy choice, and to align herself with either the Princess-embracers or the Princess-rejectors.  And she’s a little too complicated for that.  She contains interest multitudes.

Plus that is too much pressure to put on a damn kid.

Please don’t miss my point: I want girls to use engineering toys.  If GoldieBlox is what makes that happen, then I’ll be stepping up and cheering on GoldieBlox.  But until I know more about this product, I can only comment on the presentation.  And that YouTube video was a piece of really slick marketing.  I almost forgot I was being sold something as I watched the obstacle course unfold.