Sample PIE Paragraph on Gender

 

Since parents play the most crucial role in their child's life early on, it's necessary that they work hard to provide gender neutral toys or range of toys that are considered both "feminine" and "masculine" so their children are exposed to a wide range of ways of being and are not limited because of their gender.  Though "X: a Fabulous Child's Story" is fiction it can inspire us to think about what we surround our children with, not only in the game parents play, but what they buy and expose these young minds to.  Though the X-periment cost "23 billion dollars and 72 cents" getting your children a wide range of toys can be done.  The Official Instruction Manual recommends; "Buy plenty of everything" and so the Joneses "bought all kinds of toys" and X ends up being a well-liked and well-adjusted kid.  Similarly, in "I Don't want my Daughter to Feel Like She Has to Sacrifice Something," Eve Perlman, a real mother of two, discusses how girls can really delve into their true interests and how parents can help with that early on in terms of the toys they give them.  Pearlman includes Janet Fleming's advice from Conejo Valley Neighborhood for Learning who shares, "If I gave my daughter a doll, I also gave her a medical kit or briefcase."  She adds: "My son had dolls and trains" (122).  Here, we can clearly see that Fleming made a conscious effort to provide a range of toys for both her daughter and son, as toys can be very influential in terms of what kids like or idolize.  Kids play with these toys for hours and bring them everywhere they go.  Parents send messages to these young ones explicitly and implicitly about what is valued or not, so it's important to present this wide range of messages/choices to their developing minds.  

                  When I was little even though I had a twin sister, she was always given the blue clothes and toys and I was given the pink, maybe because I was smaller than her and supposedly more feminine.  This color was chosen for me and not what I would have chosen; I didn't like the frilly stuff maybe because I was given so much of it and maybe because it seemed daintier and....