Respect Children's Choices

My daughter, Sequoia recently developed an interest in Barbie dolls. Developmentally, that's totally normal for a four-year-old girl in a western country. Of course, my mind went through all the usual conditioned responses starting with 'Barbie is bad.'

Taking a step back and looking at Sequoia with full respect, I had to ask myself why I thought Barbie is bad. Arguments along the lines of 'Barbie fosters negative body images and therefore lowers self-esteem in girls' flittered around my mind, until I forced myself to really examine those ideas.

I came across a line from education reformer John Holt that rung true to me, and completely changed the way I think about raising Sequoia; "Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts."

I started thinking about how I was raising her; if she was truly free to control her own mind and thoughts, and if she thinks Barbie is great, who am I to judge that she is wrong? I realised that trusting her means also trusting in her choices, especially when she chooses things I wouldn't choose for myself.

The Origins of Barbies

I started reading about Barbies, and found out that the first Barbie was invented by a mother who saw that young girls are groomed to the exclusive goal of becoming housewives and mothers.

The only dolls available on the market were baby dolls, and this woman wanted her daughter to have a different model to inspire her. So she created one of the first 'adult' dolls; Barbie was a woman who broke society's constraints, and became a lawyer, a doctor, an astronaut, while remaining an independent, single woman. She even maintained a boyfriend, Ken. Yet, the negative connotations with Barbie remained in my mind.

Letting Children Focus On What They Enjoy

I realised that so much of those prejudices were not the voice of my own heart, or the voice of reason; it was the voices of thousands of other people around me. I keep hearing from parents who are worried that their beloved child plays with Barbies, or spends "too much" time on the computer, or playing video games. Some parents even complain to me that their children read too much.

Myself, I spend a lot of time on my computer. However, no one criticises me for that, no one questions my judgement, or suggests that I'm spending "too much time" on the computer. I'm an adult, I can spend my time how I choose, and it's accepted that what I do on the computer is productive work, even though I often spend time playing games and surfing online.

If a child spends a lot of time on the computer, it is often assumed to be a 'waste of time' that could be better spent outdoors, or doing something 'valuable.' Even if the child is learning from this computer time, unless it's actually typing out homework, the child is all too often criticized for spending too much time in front of the screen.

Children, like adults, find things that interest them, and explore those interests to their fullest. Sometimes a child will delve deeply into a given interest, to the exclusion of all else. Things like spiders or science or ballet or Super Mario will be explored with an all-encompassing focus.

I remember my brother becoming obsessed with dinosaurs around the age of seven or eight. After a few months of self-driven study, he knew all the Latin and common names of every species, could tell which were carnivores and which were herbivores…. Our parents were so proud, and gave him full support and endless encouragement, bragging to everyone about his accomplishment.

Later, when his interest in dinosaurs waned, and he became obsessed with video games, he was constantly badgered to turn off the games. Our parents dismissed the fact that their son was learning to read and type, and to control a mouse in order to play computer games, not to mention developing hand-eye coordination, and even programming.  The important point is that a child spends time on the computer because they have chosen to do so; because it interests them and sparks their passion.

Recently I saw a young girl shopping with her mother. The girl picked out a dress that she thought was beautiful; all frills and lace and pink and yellow bows. The mother loudly proclaimed the dress' ugliness and tried to dissuade the girl from her choice.  The girl's face fell, she seemed so crushed, but she still wanted the dress. In the end, her mother agreed to buy the dress if her daughter promised only to wear it for playing 'dress-ups.'

Nurturing Independent Children Who Trust Themselves

What the child learns from this is that their interests aren't valid, that she is only 'good' when she shows interest in the 'right' things, and she must constantly look to her parents to know which choices are the correct ones. This undermines her confidence and self-esteem far more than any Barbie doll ever could.

It undermines her ability to make decisions, and ultimately, the child may grow into a person who must always look to others to make their choices. While the child is young, this can seem to be a good thing; the child is 'obedient', but before too long, the child stops looking to her parents for inspiration, and follows her peers, unable to make her own judgements.

When children grow up constantly looking over their shoulder to see if their choices are the right ones, eventually, they subconsciously stop making their own choices, and simply follow what everyone else is doing.

Children must learn to make decisions based on their own judgements, and the only way they can learn this is by doing it, by experimenting from a young age with the responsibility of making their own choices.

Realising that I could either choose to trust Sequoia to make her own choices, or give her the message that her choices can't be trusted, I bought her a Barbie doll, and even looked through eBay with her to buy bags of old Barbies. Sequoia loves those dolls, and plays with them often. I see how much joy she gets out of playing with them, inventing stories and lives for them, and I see her intact self-confidence shining brightly; she knows what she likes and it doesn't bother her if I don't share her desires.