I like superheroes

It's truly amazing how insightful kids can be. In this video, a little girl, Riley, talks about the negative aspects of marketing. She discusses the fact that girls are supposed to buy pink and princesses, and boys get the superheroes.

"Some girls like superheroes, some girls like princesses. Some boys like superheroes, some boys like princesses!" Riley exclaims, making a very good point. So many things in our daily lives are separated into "girl things" and "boy things." At a young age, our society tells kids what they should like.

For all of my birthdays through my preschool years, I was given Barbies and other dolls. I quickly grew bored of dressing them up and having them go to balls. Instead, I began to give them horrible haircuts and then using the mangled dolls to fight crime and achieve world peace.

I'm against the idea that pink is a girl color and blue is a boy color. "The companies who make these try to trick the girls into buying the pink stuff," Riley muses. I think this isn't just the fault of the companies who make toys, but also society as a whole. This brings me to another story.

I was at a little family reunion when I was around 10. One of my cousins, Karlei, had pink Crocs, and our 3-year-old second cousin Zachary decided to put them on. He really wanted Crocs and didn't care about the color, but his dad sure did, spending a good half hour making snide remarks about the fact that his son was wearing pink shoes. He told Zach that "pink is a girl color" and "boys don't wear pink."

This is exactly the wrong type of message to send to kids. Why is it wrong for a boy to wear pink? It's just a color. This video really inspired me. I think it's great that this girl understands something I've just begun to realize myself. Our society tells us a lot of things about what we can and cant do, but how important is it to be "normal?" I think it's better to be yourself and not let anyone else dictate how you live your life.