Engineer Barbie

I think toys these days have all the wrong idea. I think they're too complex. Okay, it's totally baller that there are mind-control games, but really, My Future Kids aren't getting their hands onto a mind-control game until they're able to turn it into something actually cool. Good toys are all about the imagination, they're no good if that step has already been taken care. My Future Kids are getting Lego and dolls, regardless of gender.

I think dolls kind of get a worse rap than they deserve. The argument has been made (by SMBC, so there's that) that since we girls dolls to play with and boys Lego to play with, it's no wonder that boys grow up to be engineers and girls do not. Okay, it's possible that that argument is valid, I bet Lego are great for developing spacial reasoning. But that doesn't mean that dolls will make you dumb, even if only by taking up time that could be better spent with Lego. Dolls are largely inanimate, but that doesn't mean that playing with dolls means that any less is going on than with the infinite combinations of Lego. Where Lego concern physical interaction, dolls concern interpersonal interactions. If you say that giving girls dolls is the reason they don't go into math and science and engineering, you might as well say that giving boys Lego is why they suck at understanding other people. Just because Lego results in a physical product at the end, it doesn't mean that Lego are any more educational than dolls.

I can't really think of any other toys that a kid might need. Maybe a good set of dress-up clothes and props. 

I will play games with My Future Kids. I really like the idea of a family game night. I always loved board games as a kid, but I never had people to play them with. 

Back to dolls. I wonder if more realistic dolls results in less creativity in play. Do Barbies actually give people unrealistic body expectations? When a doll is designed as a character, do kids keep the doll in character? Does veterinarian Barbie actually spend a lot of her time taking care of animals or not? I had dolls as a kid, and I remember that some were definitely better than others, but that might have been the presence of fully articulating joints and flat feet.

Oh yeah, kids need crayons. Also markers and paint and whatnot, you get the idea. 

I think that might be it. They can figure out the rest. 

in retrospect, I'm and engineer, but I really only had a small collection of Lego that didn't get much use. I have no idea what I used my excessive childhood free time doing. Was it playing with my peers? I would find that surprising, considering how I turned out. I guess at daycare there isn't much choice. For some reason, I think I may have preferred stacking blocks to building things with Lego. I don't know why. I guess I might have spent a lot of time reading, but it can't have been that much time. Huh. There should be a book about the Life and Lies of Child Self.

I think I might have spent a lot of time playing pretend. I wonder if playing pretend actually helps. I guess it helps with relating to other people. I wonder if there's a study on the types of games kids play in relation to their mental development.