Digital Mom. Analog Daughter.
I recently started shopping for my daughter’s fall wardrobe (yep, she wears other brands. She’d be naked most of the time if she depended on Technigirl for most of her clothing since we make limited quantities!). Shopping for toddler clothes is soooo frustrating! A 2T in one brand is often nowhere near a 2T in another brand. And, even worse, a 2T size of similar items within the same brand can be bizarrely different. Case in point: I often buy outerwear at the Gap for my daughter. Usually, their coats are HUGE. Last year, I bought her a 12-18M (she hit 12M last November) and it was huge on her when the season started, but fit perfectly by the end of the season. I figured I would do the same this year and it would work out great. Yeah, not so much. I bought her a 2T in this super cute jacket, only to find out that it barely covered her belly, and left no room for sweaters, etc. underneath! And my daughter is a little on the small side (she’s almost never been above the 25% for weight). So I bought a 3T for my 21 month old daughter to wear this winter. Crazy.
The worst offenders are those oh-so-cute and matchy “sets”. That’s right, I’m talking to you, Carter’s. It’s such a great idea on the surface – for one reasonable price, you get a cute top with a matching pant or legging. I don’t know about you, but my toddler is not exactly proportioned like an adult. She has short-ish legs and a long torso. Yet many of the pants in these sets seem to be sized as though these kids had Amazonian legs. So what ends up happening is, I pay good money for the set, but she only gets to wear the top. The pants stretch 6 inches past her feet and basically just sit unused in her drawer. By the time they fit, she’s outgrown the top! Now I mentioned Carter’s because they seem to be one of the worst for this. I’ve had better luck with certain other brands, particularly the more expensive ones like Tea Collection. But ya know, I don’t have the money to dress my daughter entirely in Tea Collection, so she gets a mix of stuff from Carter’s, Target, Gap, and a few others, including Technigirl of course!
So I’m boycotting sets. From here on out, this kid gets separates only!
Today was a typical Saturday for Technifamily. In the morning, little girl and I busted out the stroller and went for a jog. She has a lot of fun on these runs, because there’s usually a lot of people outside doing stuff, and there’s often sprinklers going off (she’s obsessed with sprinklers!). So we did that, then we came home and did some cleaning, goofed off for a while, then naptime for her. I of course did what I normally do during these weekend naps – worked! Yep, when you’re a mompreneur with a full-time job on top of that, you’re pretty much always working on something. I don’t mind it because I like being busy, but once in a while it would be nice to just lay on the couch and just space out. But I digress.
So after little girl woke up from her nap, we all trekked out to the local bookstore, Book People. Book People is an awesome store, it has a great selection and a lot of really quirky, entertaining gifts. So there we were in Book People, when I spotted this:
(I’m sure you can just hear me sucking my breath in, and imagine the look of dismay on my face as I reached for this). Classics for girls? What are those? Stories of pink unicorns and rainbow puppies?
Oh if only.
I opened the book to the table of contents. Here it is:
OK so let’s analyze why these stories are “for girls”.
The Railway Children – This is a story about a father who is falsely imprisoned for espionage, and his 3 children who amuse themselves by watching trains and waving to the passengers. OK, huh? Prison, espionage…sounds like a veritable boyfest to me. Except for the fact that the story focuses on the children and family and their relationships. Because boys don’t care about that stuff, and that makes it OK for girls, I guess.
The Wizard of Oz – we all know the story here. Can’t say I ever thought of it as a “girls” story, as I have known plenty of boys who love it as well. Guess because it stars a farm girl and a troupe of witches? Yep. Boys hate witches.
The Secret Garden – A story about an ill-tempered young girl who is abandoned, a family that is nearly destroyed, and then regenerated. Yeah I guess boys wouldn’t care about that family and relationship stuff. And this one stars a girl as well.
Black Beauty – Autobiography of a horse told by the horse, who experiences both cruelty and kindness in his life. The horse is even male, and is in no way related to My Little Pony. I assume that this is for girls because boys can’t be bothered with the life history of an animal.
Little Women – A story about…the lives of a bunch of women. Wait – does this mean girls shouldn’t be interested in stories about men either?
Heidi – A story about a little girl who is raised by her aunt after her parents die. I’m assuming that because it’s a book about a little girl, and not a little boy, is why it is a “girls” classic and not a “boys” classic. What, boys can’t relate to a little girl who has experienced a tragedy? I guess not, since they’re boys and boys don’t have feelings. Or something like that.
As someone who hates that there has to be a pink version of everything (there’s even a pink corn popper – oh the humanity!), I was really unpleasantly surprised to find this book of “Classics for Girls”. These are great stories that can be enjoyed and related to by people of any gender. If I were a parent of a boy, I would be equally annoyed that whoever put this book together thinks that my son could not understand or relate to these stories. I would also want my son to see that women can star and be heroines in stories the same as men are. That does seem to be the common thread in these stories – for the most part they all involve female lead characters (except for the horse – and horses are girls territory, we all know that). So why not name the book something that reflects that – “Classics Starring Girls (and Horses) Who Kick Ass” or something along that line?
My daughter, who is almost 2, apparently has no clue of what she is “supposed” to like. This is the book that she made a beeline for:
Of course we bought it for her. That girl makes me proud.
technimom 