I was doing a puzzle with D this evening (who is just 3). It was about a farm, and he asked me “where is the farmer?”. I pointed out the woman who was putting hay in a wheelbarrow. He said “girls aren’t farmers”.
I’m amazed by this, as we have a series of books about “Mrs Boot the Farmer” (who appears to be a single parent of two children), as well as quite a few picture books with a mix of male and female farmers. We had a discussion about it, and he appeared dubiously convinced that both men and women are farmers. C tried to help me by saying from his older brother position of superiority that girls and boys aren’t farmers, but I think that made D more determined to stick to his position.
I really thought that we were doing well in subverting the dominant gender stereotypes. Clearly more effort is needed.
It’s scary, eh? It must be out there in the air, the way they pick it up.
Yes, I don’t think it’s a function of how much effort you’re putting in as much as how powerful the cultural influences are.
But he’s only three! He does go to preschool three days a week, though.
I’ve heard so many stories like this…I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it too much. I mean, we survived our childhood influences and made up our own minds, didn’t we?
cf this afternoon’s episode of Play School, where one of the presenters introduced a little plastic farm tableau – “Here are two farmers. This is Jill and this is Steve.”
We are wondering why our 2 year old thinks a small spiky animal is a hedgehog when all but one of the books in this house feature echidnas.