LJ Idol Season 9 Week 7 - Pretending He Just Doesn't See
o/` "The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind." o/`
-- "Blowin' in the Wind" performed by Bob Dylan
When I was a little girl, I enjoyed playing with paper dolls. My grandma would buy them in special punch-out books from the local five and dime. We would spend an entire afternoon putting the dolls together and folding the little tabs which held their clothing in place.
As I got older I was allowed to use scissors, I cut them fashions from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. They didn't make male dolls and so I made each doll a husband. Most of them had children too; each doll had her own life story. I kept a scrapbook in which I placed pictures of homes and furnishings gleaned from realty ads and Montgomery Ward. I kept them all in a special decorated folder and never, ever lent them to anyone. Unlike some of my playmates, I took good care of my toys.
Even so, paper dolls are made of...well...paper. Back in the days before acid free and archival paper, it yellowed after a while and became brittle. If it didn't crumble then it tore at the creases in the little tabs which held the clothing on the dolls' bodies. The stands became limp and folded over instead of holding the dolls upright. Some, in spite of my best efforts to keep them safely, disappeared on vacations and were lost.
As a nostalgic adult, I tried in vain to find some paper dolls with which my twins could play. No one carried them any more, not even the hobby stores. They did have a few wooden figures of little girls with magnetized accessories, and I did buy them one of those sets. It wasn't quite the same thing.
We were playing a virtual pet game on my iPad when a crossover link advertised a new game by the same company. Out of curiosity, I downloaded it. The game, called Campus Life, allowed you to choose doll forms and dress them up. At the time (the game has since expanded to be much, much more) you could also build and furnish rooms with limited options. Vandy, Roz, and I fell instantly in love with it.
Here, in this program, were the paper dolls I'd so loved as a child. We could dress them up to be anything and anyone we wanted from farmer girl to sophisticated socialite. They came with different ethnic backgrounds and interests and with college majors ranging from engineering to library science to fashion design.
Of course, I never let them play directly since the game has a strictly enforced age limit of thirteen and older, but the twins looked over my shoulder as I played and I let them tell me what outfits to put on which girls. As the game added features, quests were offered. Since some of them cost actual money to complete, I found and registered on the forum.
You would have thought I had told them that I let my kids watch hard pornography by the way people exploded when I mentioned that I let my little boy choose the clothes for the dolls. Vandy, although very young, knows what he wants and he's made it abundantly clear that he would rather be a girl. We encourage him and support him as best we can.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
Why not? These are just pixels in a game.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
You're not his psychiatrist or his pediatrician. How do you even know what he needs?
"Boys don't play with dolls."
I don't suppose telling you that being transgendered doesn't make my kid a pervert would matter. You've already decided he's a rapist or pedophile in training.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
Shooters and war games make Vandy cry. He doesn't like killing people, even virtual pixels, or destroying things.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
I don't believe in enforcing gender rolls. I'd rather let the kids play with age appropriate toys which attract their imagination. What's wrong with a boy playing with some doll pixels? He likes fashion and he likes playing dress-up.
"BOYS DON'T PLAY WITH DOLLS."
I can't convince them that there might be other perspectives. As long as they insist on editing reality in the face of facts or or opinions which don't match their narrow experiences, it's an argument rather than an exchange of ideas and it's not one I can win.
The answer is blowin' in the wind." o/`
-- "Blowin' in the Wind" performed by Bob Dylan
When I was a little girl, I enjoyed playing with paper dolls. My grandma would buy them in special punch-out books from the local five and dime. We would spend an entire afternoon putting the dolls together and folding the little tabs which held their clothing in place.
As I got older I was allowed to use scissors, I cut them fashions from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. They didn't make male dolls and so I made each doll a husband. Most of them had children too; each doll had her own life story. I kept a scrapbook in which I placed pictures of homes and furnishings gleaned from realty ads and Montgomery Ward. I kept them all in a special decorated folder and never, ever lent them to anyone. Unlike some of my playmates, I took good care of my toys.
Even so, paper dolls are made of...well...paper. Back in the days before acid free and archival paper, it yellowed after a while and became brittle. If it didn't crumble then it tore at the creases in the little tabs which held the clothing on the dolls' bodies. The stands became limp and folded over instead of holding the dolls upright. Some, in spite of my best efforts to keep them safely, disappeared on vacations and were lost.
As a nostalgic adult, I tried in vain to find some paper dolls with which my twins could play. No one carried them any more, not even the hobby stores. They did have a few wooden figures of little girls with magnetized accessories, and I did buy them one of those sets. It wasn't quite the same thing.
We were playing a virtual pet game on my iPad when a crossover link advertised a new game by the same company. Out of curiosity, I downloaded it. The game, called Campus Life, allowed you to choose doll forms and dress them up. At the time (the game has since expanded to be much, much more) you could also build and furnish rooms with limited options. Vandy, Roz, and I fell instantly in love with it.
Here, in this program, were the paper dolls I'd so loved as a child. We could dress them up to be anything and anyone we wanted from farmer girl to sophisticated socialite. They came with different ethnic backgrounds and interests and with college majors ranging from engineering to library science to fashion design.
Of course, I never let them play directly since the game has a strictly enforced age limit of thirteen and older, but the twins looked over my shoulder as I played and I let them tell me what outfits to put on which girls. As the game added features, quests were offered. Since some of them cost actual money to complete, I found and registered on the forum.
You would have thought I had told them that I let my kids watch hard pornography by the way people exploded when I mentioned that I let my little boy choose the clothes for the dolls. Vandy, although very young, knows what he wants and he's made it abundantly clear that he would rather be a girl. We encourage him and support him as best we can.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
Why not? These are just pixels in a game.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
You're not his psychiatrist or his pediatrician. How do you even know what he needs?
"Boys don't play with dolls."
I don't suppose telling you that being transgendered doesn't make my kid a pervert would matter. You've already decided he's a rapist or pedophile in training.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
Shooters and war games make Vandy cry. He doesn't like killing people, even virtual pixels, or destroying things.
"Boys don't play with dolls."
I don't believe in enforcing gender rolls. I'd rather let the kids play with age appropriate toys which attract their imagination. What's wrong with a boy playing with some doll pixels? He likes fashion and he likes playing dress-up.
"BOYS DON'T PLAY WITH DOLLS."
I can't convince them that there might be other perspectives. As long as they insist on editing reality in the face of facts or or opinions which don't match their narrow experiences, it's an argument rather than an exchange of ideas and it's not one I can win.