When did toys become confusing in the first place?

The Target controversy is really silly in my book. People are acting like this is some move away from "traditional" values, but the silly thing is that the gender segregation of toys is relatively new.  I remember playing happily with legos all the time when I was a kid, and I even remember turning one of my girl dolls into a boy and putting boy clothes on it. It was my favorite doll, and his name was "Kyle," and I loved him more than anything. I dressed him in little football jerseys and striped shirts, which were very "in" back then for both genders. I remember having several long sleeve shirts with thin stripes on them. I think it probably had something to do with Bert and Ernie. I was Ernie for Halloween when I was three years old, but I don't think anyone acted like my mom was allowing me to experience gender confusion or anything like that. I didn't get confused because I couldn't figure out where the toys I was supposed to shop with were; I liked Sesame Street because we ALL liked Sesame Street. It was an everyone show, not a boy show or a girl show.

If people really want to go back to pre-baby boom, to before women were in the workplace, back when there were "traditional values," then they should go back to how toys were in the 1940s. I thought perhaps this 1940 Sears Christmas Catalog might shed some light on the matter.
Do you see those bears?  I wonder how kids knew which were for boys and which were for girls?  It must have been hard for Santa to figure out which one to give to which kid, you know before, they were made with pink and blue bows attached. And it almost appears as if that 3-in-1 play table may be designed for the boy and the girl to play with together. Can you imagine?  How confusing.  It's like the boy might accidentally forget he has a penis or something unless they paint it blue and put trucks all over it.

All of these toys from the 1940s are marketed pretty much gender neutrally. Because this was before people were obsessed with needing to buy their children's happiness I suppose.

 Kids shared rooms and toys were kept for a long time and passed on, and parents didn't get rid of stuff from one baby to the next if it was a boy or a girl.  These were people who remembered what it was like to live through the Great Depression, and they knew that hunger could be just around the bend, and they didn't need to waste money buying excess toys, just so that each child could have things specifically for their gender because really... toys are toys. The "toys" that we grown ups use every day, televisions and computers and such, they aren't really gender segregated either, so I don't know why everyone gets so upset about this.

Maybe it is because we just don't seem to have enough time for anything lately. And we are so "driven" as American people, our goals and our drive for success determine so many of our decisions. We move away from family to take better jobs in areas where houses cost less so we can have more space. For what, though? For our kids to fill with toys sent to them through the mail by grandparents who feel so disconnected from their grandchildren that they make comments like, "How will I know what type of stuff my grandson or granddaughter might like if the aisles aren't labeled?" Sigh. It makes me so sad.

I'd rather live in a tiny house near a family I love, and let me parents get to know my kids well enough to buy them toys that fit their personalities, which they understand intricately because of all the time they spend together. But living far apart sometimes happens no matter what, and my husband's grandma lived hundreds of miles away from him for his entire childhood, but she'd make the six hour drive to come see him several times a year, and every Sunday night for as long as she was alive they talked on the phone for like an hour. She knew her grandson so well. Just like my kids' aunt who lives in another state knows them so incredibly well that she figures out how to navigate the labels that have made most of what my son really wants to play with somehow unacceptable for him to play with, because dress up clothes are not "for boys" and he knows that.  I read blogs by other moms of gender creative kids, and I think it is totally cool that those boys are confident enough to rock Monster High costumes and stuff like that, but my kid just is too predictably impacted by labels. 

It isn't surprising. As humans, we are driven towards herd mentality as a leftover from our hunter gatherer ancestors who survived threats from predators simply by staying with the pack. When the pack says something is "safe," we subconsciously feel driven to the pack's label of "okay," even if we don't realize it. Some people are renegades, but my kid is not. Sometimes he is (like when he decided that he was going to be Maleficent for Halloween, regardless of any negative reaction), but most of the time, he is not.

Fortunately, people like my son's aunt have figured out that it is possibly to buy Halloween costumes year-round now, and buying popular fantasy and sci-fi characters in blue packages... totally possible. And so it was that for my son's birthday... he got a Guardians of the Galaxy costume. He doesn't even really know anything about it or the character, but the "Star Lord" apparently wears a pretty cool outfit, by any gender's standards.

We don't need labels to tell us what kids like. Kids can tell you what they like...  if you take the time to listen.