I wish he could be President 500 times!

He sure knows how to get my Obama glow going time after time!

President for life!

I'm hoping his presidential legacy is as awesome in a few years.

Hope I'm still around to see/hear about it.

Think where we'd be on energy if he'd served a second term and Reagan hadn't ripped the solar panels off the White House roof. Perfect Republican analogy.

But yeah, he has a heart. That counts for a lot=)

Getting rid of the pink/blue "shell."

with boys playing with dolls or girls playing with toy trucks, but I would encourage them to pick up a ball, a golf club, a tennis racket, etc.
Being active is something they can use throughout their lives.

Thumbs up President Obama. He sounds like an excellent father for his girls from this story.

Too bad the boys only got crappy pink princesses and baby dolls

and they might grow up to be the biggest fashion designers in the business.

I just think the packaging and the design of those things are often cloying and over the top. I was shocked to be shopping for my relatives and hit the "wall of pink" that was supposed to be the girls' aisle. Some of the toys were things like Barbie Goes Shopping or other strange things that to me don't have a lot of educational or imaginative value. And it was so restrictive. No science sets, no sports, no puzzles or crafts, just dolls and fake phones or fake makeup. I also don't really like how macho they make some boys things either. I think gender stereotypes have gotten more extreme since the 80s which benefits no one except for the corporations selling that stuff.

I ended up getting my nephew a vintage EZ Bake oven instead because I think he'll love cooking. I bought my niece a gardening set so they can start a garden. I'm a nerd I guess. I'm also excited to do those activities with them, so maybe it's selfish. Oh well, I hope everyone has fun.

I really wish there wasn't a concept of boys toys vs girls toys. I played with both pretty equally growing up, although I prefered boys toys, but my sisters weren't so keen on playing with trucks and stuff so I played with them on their terms.

To: "Does the toy operate on your genitals." But yeah that's awesome!

Love,
Hater

She has a brand new one waiting for her under the Christmas tree. My other niece loves arts and sciences. She has tools, a sketch book and paint under the tree .

And me, their nerdy aunt? I have tools under the tree, too, and some parts I've been wanting. If you are waiting on me to ask for ... hell, what do girls and other women even ask for these days? I truly don't know. If it doesn't involve building something, refinishing something or making something, hell, I wouldn't know what to ask for.

Dolls and makeup, maybe? Thank heavens my nieces aren't weird girly girls!

before this POTUS, his light shines bright. He is just so aware. I do like him.

Thanks, babylonsister!!!!


Oh man, ......love this guy. Love!

"Is your toy made for boys or girls? Do you use said toy with your genitalia? No? Then these toys are not gender specific."

Signed, a mom whose daughter has been passionately in love with Buzz Lightyear and all things science since she was a tot and cannot for the LIFE of her understand why toy companies act like girls like this don't exist

Thanks for posting!

What year is this again? THANK YOU Mr. President for showing some fairness toward children. HELL YES a girl would want to play with legos!

Very frustrating.

Rarely played with the expensive dolls their grandmother thought they should have.

equipment?

They should be able to do it without a lot of crap from people about how it makes him girly. that just shows society believes women's traditional things to be inferior.

A great read for parents with very young daughters.

As a father, once I was made aware of the divide I've done my best to combat it. My wife and I did pretty good until our kids started to get exposed more to general culture in preschool and kindergarten. Two years ago (before going to kindergarten) my daughters wanted nothing but toy dinosaurs and cars for christmas. Last year my youngest daughter wanted a toy snake. This year, they both are migrating towards princesses and dolls. Princesses and dolls are fine for them to like, but I'm nervous that this will pigeonhole them away from science and engineering things.

Anyways, with awareness, you can make sure that you continue to expose your daughters to science and engineering.

I know I'm giving in to the marketing and gender stereotyping by doing this, but I love the Lego products that are targeting girls with more pink and princesses. To a degree it makes it easy to present engineering toys to girls without them thinking that engineering is solely a boy's domain. For Christmas my two daughters will be getting a few "girly" Lego sets, but they also will be getting many more neutral city themed sets as well.

I think I am Obama's type of girl. Although I am the age of his mother.

Every xmas I see the gender stereotypes apple to gifts for nieces and nephews and it annoys me. This may turn out to be one of my very favorite moments in his presidency!

because he's not acting.

humor. He is the whole package.

but he is damned cool.

My daughter has a bunch of Harry Potter sets, and I know a lot of other girls that like Legos as well.

I have two girls, 12 and 14.

My eldest loves the architecture sets and has a lot of those coming this year

My youngest adores the Friends line with all of its stuff - because that's what she's into

My girlfriend prefers the City line with its buildings and cars

Her son has little interest in any of it

I'm all about the Star Wars and superhero stuff. When I was a kid, there were no licensed things but I used to do the spaceship stuff above all else.

Everyone is different. There's just more licensed stuff these days and that's what you usually see in the stores. The LEGO store itself is a bit different, a lot more variety, and a lot more blank slate stuff as well.

and I'm tempted to buy them for myself... same as the Lord of the Rings sets. Wish I had them as a kid

They we like legos, but the pieces were "softer", more rounded and colorful.
Not sure how well it worked.

We bought a set for our daughters, FWIW. They played with them for a few hours, and that was it.

Lego, without a doubt, was my favorite childhood toy. I had tons of Technic sets from the late 80s and early 90s and a decent amount of the space and castle sets from the late 80s as a child. I played and played and played with Lego more than anything else for years.

My two daughters just turned 4 and 6 this fall. For her sixth birthday, I gave my oldest daughter a Lego "Friends" set. She had more fun putting that thing together than I expected and I think she likes building stuff more than playing with the stuff she builds. Her little sister sees her big sister playing with Lego and she wants her own Lego sets now. They are drawn towards the more "girly" sets, but they love to build all the same. I'm going to try to use the "girl" sets to springboard them towards the more neutral sets in the Lego "creator" and "city" line and eventually "technic". However, if playing with princess and "girl" themed Lego helps to get them to spark an interest in building and using the engineering parts of their brains, then I'm all for it.

When I open up my big old bucket of technic legos they go nuts trying to build cars and playing with gears and stuff. As a father, I see no reason why a girl can't be or isn't interested in building stuff, basic mechanical engineering, and using their brain.

I'm getting very off the point here, but selfishly some of the more advanced models offered in the "creator" line are a lot of fun to build. I loved the numerous details in the "Parisian Restaurant" set. I justified buying them for my kids, but they are just as much for me as they are for them (just don't tell my wife that part of my secret)!

I don't want to admit how much I spent on Lego this year for my daughters, but needless to say they will be getting a very robust collection under the Christmas tree tomorrow morning!

My daughter loved princess stuff in first grade, but by 3rd grade, she looked at princess toys/clothes with disdain. (Though, it seems like a lot of girls her age loved Frozen when it came out a year or a year and a half ago...)

My daughter had a few of the Lego friends sets, but put a lot more time & passion into the Harry Potter sets. And, now that she's in 7th grade, she's in the Lego Robotics club at school (unfortunately, one of only 4 girls out of 30 kids in the club...)

I read a study a while back the showed that children (both male and female) that played with extensively with lego toys were much more inclined towards careers in the fields of science and engineering than those who didn't.

Anecdotaly, I was always interesting in science and engineering, I got a degree in chemistry and I'm currently working as a chemist. The other female chemist I work with in my small lab also states that she played a lot with Lego as a child and (obviously) pursued a career in science as well.

A degree in science or engineering opens up many opportunities outside of those fields for a person and most people aren't even aware of it. For example, I briefly worked as a production manager in a warehouse for Amazon.com. I was in charge of people who put books in boxes. As a prerequisite for the job, they only wanted applicants that had a background in science or engineering. The upper level management jobs in the company are mostly filled by people who at one time held my job and, as a result of men being more likely to hold a degree in science or engineering, those jobs are mostly filled by men.

As I'm sure your aware, mechanical aptitude has nothing to do with the genitals between your legs. Good career opportunities start with what kids are exposed to when they are young. However, I'm sure I don't need to convince you of any of that.

And in fact, having older brothers now too old for their toys, they play with all the boys' former toys. They have them, so they play with them.

Over the Christmas break we'll be constructing a convection model of ocean currents to model the changes that might occur in the global ocean conveyor belt if the ice caps retreat and water temperatures rise.

Good for them.

If not, why?

in the first place. So, no, probably not.

My son used to play with my daughter's doll house when he was little. It wasn't pink, but still, what's wrong with that?

States the President was breaking down gender stereotypes, while really it just sounds like he was putting some gender-neural and athletic toys into the girls bin.

Though I'm not saying President Obama was thinking that.

But what has feminism been but women wanting what men have? Men have resisted that. Few have shown they want what women had traditionally.

I remember my nephews were being so cute as toddlers, playing Daddy to Ernie and Elmo. They came in to tell us adults to be quiet because Ernie and Elmo were in bed! Dads are more active in this generation, so they had the example.

Whoever follows him in office I pity.

as kids, my sister and I were constantly given dolls, we had a ton of dolls, somewhere there is a picture of us with our dolls and stuffed animals all around us. So when I was 10 my parents had a boy and he got erector sets, chemistry sets, etc. Well, my parents did not know what to do with them for 10 years, so we were allowed to play with them and we had a blast! My sister took the chem set and I took the erector set and we made stuff.

As girls, we were expected to go to work as secretaries and get rich husbands, not to college. But we both got scholarships and went, my parents had great hopes we would be teachers and get rich husbands. We went into typical male jobs and were successful.

My brothers were not allowed to play with G I Joe because it was a doll and had no interest in anything they could not use as a weapon or drive. I even bought then the magnavox first video game (for over $100 in the 60's) and they had no interest at all. They refused to go to college because they wanted money for hot girls and fast cars and drugs. raise them to stereo types - some take, some don't.

i really like that! You can tell he has daughters.