Last month, our annual Brooklyn Fresh Air Fund trip to Chez Oddmother lead to our semi-annual McDonald’s drive-thru lunch.
(Oh, come and get me Sanctimommies. My kids love the Apple Dippers.)
After I gritted my teeth and put in the request for two Happy Meals, I heard the strangest response through the scratchy loudspeaker.”
“Boy or girl.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, trying to figure out if there was suddenly some new version of apples that appealed to one sex or the other.
“Boy or girl.”
Suddenly it clicked. “Do you mean…for the toy? Boy or girl toy?”
“Yes,” she mumbled back, surely wondering who the idiot was on the other end of the speaker.
I quickly scanned the menu board to see what she might be referring to. For boys: Some kind of awesometastic space fighting Ben 10 something or other that looked BIG and FUN and had the word ALIEN in the name and arms that moved–basically something that could help the kids kill a few hours in the car without DVDs.
For girl: A keychain with a sparkly shoe on it from Sketchers. (Hours of fun!)
“The Ben 10 one” I said as quietly as I could into the speaker.
“What?” she asked.
“Boys,” I said a little louder. “Boys.”
Now my girls heard me.
“Why did you say boys, Mommy? Why don’t you tell them we’re girls?”
And that’s when I was got pissed at McDonald’s. For letting my daughters think that there’s something wrong with them if they’d have more fun with a toy that said boy on it. For training the employees at the register to ask boy or girl instead of saying Awesome Ben Ten Alien toy or dumb keychain. For making me have an uncomfortable conversation about why so many marketers don’t think a whole lot about our daughters, when my blood sugar was already low and all I wanted to do was inhale my mediocre chicken sandwich and get back on the road.
It’s not that I hate sparkly key chains or pink tulle or princess tiaras. Not by a long shot. It’s just that our girls hardly seem to have a choice these days.
So I turned around to face the back seat, and tried to explain, best I could, that the one called “boy” wasn’t actually just for boys and that the woman behind the counter was mistaken.
I struggled a bit with the worlds as I tried to describe how sometimes there are people who are lazy and don’t think, and so they take all things sparkly and pink and call them “girl toys” because they forget sometimes that girls also like to dress up like superheroes and build things and climb trees and use their brains. And sometimes these same people forget that boys like to wear nailpolish just like your friend Bryan does, and sometimes they like to read about fairies and princesses and wear pretty clothes or go to ballet class wearing pink tights like your friend Asher does.
They just…forget.
“Well that’s not fair!” Thalia exclaimed.
“And I can be Geo!” Sage said. Because she always is Geo.
So I smiled, suddenly reminded of just how awesome my kids are.
And how this next generation just might be able to change the things we weren’t able to.
103 shards of brilliance… read them below or add one
Not a fan! What aggrevates me even more is when I ask for boys and the give me girls or just one girl and 2 boys….My three boys were NOT pleased. The last straw was getting a purple little tikes rocking horse that did absolutely nothing!!
GOOD post..i agree with AMY that’s right, I thought you mom’s may be interested in the newest kids craze in my town, Patch Hats! Check out a hat you have never seen before here at www patchhats com
Maybe you just turn to the daughter’s and say, “Would you like a awesome, fantastic space alien or a awesome, sparkly key-chain?”
Then upon receiving answer, you turn back to the big speaker who just wants your order and say, “I would like this___ or I would like this___,” and eliminate the drama completely. ?
Shouldn’t the freedom to choose be what’s stressed sometimes?
I think we’re making the same point.
Really? This really upset you? That a corporation with a drive through meant to serve food as fast as possible has toys categorized by gender? Now, if they had looked into your car and refused to give you the boy toy, that would be a story.
Upset, Cath. DISTRAUGHT. As you can tell from my post I can hardly even function since this happened. I just lie in bed all day long, dabbing my mascara-stained cheeks with a greasy McDonald’s napkin (they’re so hard to part with), and whispering Gloria Steinem’s name. Help me!
Halfway way through you lost me when you started making such a(what seemed to me, a reader) huge point. Sometimes we can make bigger points to our children by transcending perceived(rightfully so at times) stereotyping and personality squelching by just gracefully exercising our right to choose? I agree with Cath, they didn’t refuse to give you the “boy” toy.
It’s your blog and I’m not commenting to show respect. I really enjoy your style.
Respectful dissent always permitted here.
And you know, maybe it is a huge point. Maybe a mega-corporation that asks millions of children a day, “boy or girl toy?” can have some influence in the world by simply making that one small change. And maybe they wouldn’t even think about doing so until we have public conversations like these and it catches the eye of someone in marketing who thinks wait, maybe we have this great opportunity here…
Or hey, maybe I’m overreacting. It wouldn’t be the first time.
*disrespect!! That’s embarrassing.
I have an almost 4 year old girl that loves princesses but really loves superheroes. I usually order boy toys at McDonald’s for her and at first she got upset because apparently there is nothing worse than someone thinking she is a boy. But then she realized that they have way cooler toys for boys at McD’s. Now she is proud to tell people she thinks boy toys are way cooler. My point of things not being boy or girl didn’t really work out, but at least she doesn’t think everything has to be sparkly and pink. Mission semi accomplished.
You rock. That is all.
Hello! I am reminded so many times a day all the ways gender stereotyping is shoved down our throats especially if we are parents. And the sad truth is most don’t even question it. When I mention how hoppin mad I get at that damn McD’s (or many other food chains-doctor’s office stickers….on and on) question “girl or boy” people often look at me like Im neurotic. Well maybe I am, but not about this. By the age of like 2 my little boy (who is nurtured in a feminist household) said- “I cant like pink Mommy bc Im a boy” and countless other such little darts have been shot me now that he is four- I get pissed. It has always been this way, true. One need only look at old movies, adverts etc to know this…but today with hypermarketing of EVERYTHING, marketers are promoting increasingly strict gender norms and the world is responding by making my son at the tender age of four question if its OK to like the more pleasant looking, less monstrous toys that are pushed on boys everywhere you go. Boys are expected to like the gruesome, the cruel and the “tough” hype. If they don’t, believe me – they get sideways glances (well at least I as his Mom does). No wonder in short time boys lose their voice. As a feminist I focused a lot of my life on the crap that is pushed on girls- and it is a worthy target for change-HUGE. But I now am looking much more seriously and with sadness as I see all this louder, bigger, tougher, more mean ( toys, movies, shows etc.) “boys stuff” and how it is dominating little minds.
thanks for your comment Kris. Like so many other commenters mentioned here, you’re right. We have to do better by our boys too.
Some things won’t change.
When I was a girl, I was often told no on toys and clothes I wanted because I was a girl. So never ever was I going to say that to my daughters…… I have three boys. Boys who, when they went to kindergarten, loved pink (and red and purple and orange and even more all these colors combined) and long hair. And I let them. I lived on welfare and I made the clothes myself, in any color they choose. Boy, I was amazed at the critical questions I got …… from the other mothers. In those days (early nineties) boys had to be shaven. I thought that made them look like little criminals but kept that to myself.
It makes me want to SCREAM when I hear that question at the drive-through. All of my girls (4 of them) would prefer Batman and Transformers over Barbie and Hello Kitty (although we’re gonna say “girl” to those fabulous My Little Ponies every time). Is it really that hard to ask, “Would you prefer Iron Man or LaLa Loopsy?”
I struggle with the boy/girl question all the time. My go-to response was usually, “Ill take (say the toy that my daughter really wanted).” I refused for so many years to classify. Now, although my daughter is 8 and about done with Happy Meals, I usually just say the gender because it is the quickest way to get me out of there. LOL!
Great post! Glad I stumbled upon it and that I am not the only one that would get ticked at that question.
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