Even with the progress that has been made in equality of the sexes, and even among the children of my most right-on, feminist friends, little boys play with trucks and little girls play with dollies.

I wonder if there’s some truth to the stereotype of boys liking cars and girls liking dolls. My son first encountered a toy truck at about 6 months. It captivated him so much that it was all he played with for a week. His first “words” were brrm brrm.  My 9-month-old daycare baby girl ignores trucks but loves to look at dolls and toy animals.

This might be from parents consciously  or unconsciously buying gender specific toys, but maybe that’s not the whole story. In 2005, researchers studying baby monkeys found that girl monkys preferred dolls and soft toys, and boy monkeys preferred cars.

Back in the 1970’s, researchers studied the tendency for boys to play with cars and girls to play with dolls. They found that the way girls played with their toys helped them learn about communication, empathy, and helped them develop emotional literacy. The way boys played with trucks and blocks helped them learn technical skills.

Both skills sets are valuable, but as just about anyone who has tried to talk to their man knows, knowing how to change a tire is not very useful when talking about a  relationship or an emotional issue.  And even though most women are better at communicating than men, it doesn’t help much when you run over a nail with your car when you went out without your cellphone and have no idea what to do.  Our sons and daughters need both skill sets.

And the latest study on gender bias in toys has worrying results. Toys marketed to girls have considerably less educational value than toys marketed to boys. While girl toys are great for learning about emotions and communication, for and encouraging creative, imaginative play, that’s just about all they do. There’s a much wider range of boy toys, and they teach literacy, technical skills, problem solving, as well as creative play.

So perhaps for your little one’s birthday, consider a dolly for your son, or some blocks for your daughter?

The Inside Edition recently featured a reborn artist, who had seven miscarriages and decided to put her grief to good use by making reborns.

Reborns are basically dolls, factory made or specifically sculpted, which are transformed into lifelike baby dolls through painstakingly applied paints (blue tones for the veins are applied first and covered by flesh ones) and body parts (goat hair are sewn onto the head and the body is weighted down with materials like polyfill or beads to give the appropriate feel when held).

These dolls are usually made-to-order and no doll is alike. Some order one made to look like themselves when they were a baby, or to look like their child when their child was a baby. Some order to give as gifts to those who have lost a child or had a miscarriage. Some just order to add to their collection.

Since much effort is invested in these dolls to make them as lifelike as possible, people can mistake them for the real one… initially. And because they are made, they are always perfectly cute, complete with buntings and caps. They cost around $800 or more and take an average of two weeks to produce.

Personally, although I may find them cute, I’d really think it creepy for anyone to play with one. But that’s just me. I also don’t dig those candies that look like babies (or bread that looked like human body parts… but yes, you don’t eat reborns).

What about you, would you like to own one?

Isn’t it fun to browse the toy stores with your baby? You can really spend a fortune on products that say they will teach your baby to spell and count and appreciate music and develop their sensory skills, and improve fine motor skills, and just about everything else you can imagine.Or perhaps it’s depressing, when there isn’t enough money to buy the latest Baby Einstein gadget, and you feel guilty that your baby will miss out on the educational experience they promise.

But what do babies want? They look at the bleeping, singing toys with flashing lights in the store in wonder, and their parents think they will love the toy, and buy it, only to have baby be quickly bored with it. Because after pushing all the buttons, what does it actually do?

But there are toys that are good value (or even free), endlessly entertaining, and educational, and much more so than anything that needs batteries!

Every baby – both sexes – should have building blocks, balls, containers, and a doll.

Building bricks or blocks are great for honing fine motor skills, and fascinate babies, toddlers, preschoolers and beyond. Build a tower for a baby to smash! Older babies love to build their own towers to knock down. Blocks teach engineering skills – a baby must learn how to make a tower or a bridge stay up. And believe it or not, math skills too. If you count blocks, or show your baby how two small blocks are the same size as one big block, you are teaching her math.

Balls are cheap and fun to drop, roll, bounce, catch and kick. They are great for developing gross motor skills. Dads, and often grandads, can be shy, or even think it’s not masculine, to play with babies. Balls are a great toy to bring man and baby together.

Containers Give baby a container. Baby will put things in, dump them out. Repeat x 1000.

Containers are good to stack, nest, sort by size, fill and empty. Great for fine motor skills, and learning the concepts of spatial relationships, In, Out, On, Under. And size too, ask her how many balls fit in the big pot? How many fit in the little pot? Does a big pot fit in the small pot? Or the small pot in the big pot?

This one can be free – baby will be just as happy with the pots from a 6-pack of apple sauce or an ice cream tub as she will be with store brought toy containers. Any activity that entertains your baby, and involves eating ice cream has got to be a winner!

Dolls (If you have a son, and can’t bear to buy a dolly, then a teddy bear, or clown, or animal) are wonderful for teaching social skills, empathy, and last well beyond baby and toddlerhood. Dolls are wonderful for explaining concepts to a baby. A great way to explain about bedtime to an older baby is to help them put a dolly to bed. And it’s precious to watch your baby hugging a dolly who’s had a boo boo – even if baby caused the boo boo by throwing Dolly from the couch! If you are on a budget, there’s lots of websites with patterns to make a beautiful doll from scraps. What could be better than your baby cherishing a dolly you made?

What else is great, simple fun for baby to play with? Check out Part 2!