I'm pretty sure Shark Week never covered this...
Tonight, when playing with a stuffed toy seal, the Lynxcub announced "This seal's name is Robbie. He has a biiiiiig snowboard!"
I was not particularly surprised, because that's the name of the seal on Pingu, a kids' TV show that he really likes (featuring claymation penguins, for anyone not familiar with it), who does indeed have a snowboard. "Does it have a picture of a shark on it?" I asked, since the one on the show did.
"No," he answered. "It just has a whole bunch of fish on it, so he can share it with his friend Pinga." Now at this point, I got a bit worried. You see, Pinga is Pingu's little sister (a freakishly adorable baby penguin). And I could not help thinking Uh-oh - is he already, at 4 years old, and despite our best efforts at avoiding gender conditioning and all that, thinking that sharks are a 'boy' thing and that a female character wouldn't want to use something that had an image of one on it? Curse you, patriarchy, leave my kid alone!
I was already mentally rehearsing the Talk we were going to have to have about that as I asked, as casually as I could, "Oh? Does Pinga not like sharks?"
"Oh no," he said, emphatically - and then, grinning manically, cried out "She fights them! With her light sabre!" And as I started to crack up laughing from that visual (seriously, this is Pinga - the one holding the book), he added "And kills them and cooks them and eats them!!!"
So, apparently sharks are no match for a light-sabre-wielding baby penguin. And apparently the Cub and I do not, after all, have to have that talk about gender stereotyping anytime soon...
I was not particularly surprised, because that's the name of the seal on Pingu, a kids' TV show that he really likes (featuring claymation penguins, for anyone not familiar with it), who does indeed have a snowboard. "Does it have a picture of a shark on it?" I asked, since the one on the show did.
"No," he answered. "It just has a whole bunch of fish on it, so he can share it with his friend Pinga." Now at this point, I got a bit worried. You see, Pinga is Pingu's little sister (a freakishly adorable baby penguin). And I could not help thinking Uh-oh - is he already, at 4 years old, and despite our best efforts at avoiding gender conditioning and all that, thinking that sharks are a 'boy' thing and that a female character wouldn't want to use something that had an image of one on it? Curse you, patriarchy, leave my kid alone!
I was already mentally rehearsing the Talk we were going to have to have about that as I asked, as casually as I could, "Oh? Does Pinga not like sharks?"
"Oh no," he said, emphatically - and then, grinning manically, cried out "She fights them! With her light sabre!" And as I started to crack up laughing from that visual (seriously, this is Pinga - the one holding the book), he added "And kills them and cooks them and eats them!!!"
So, apparently sharks are no match for a light-sabre-wielding baby penguin. And apparently the Cub and I do not, after all, have to have that talk about gender stereotyping anytime soon...