Do You Avoid Buying ‘Girls Toys’ For Boys?

It's a legit question - and nobody is looking to parent shame anyone -  so let's try and treat this as a 'safe place' for discussion.  This topic came up on the show this morning, and I'd like to know your thoughts. Would you buy your little boy a toy that is marketed towards little girls?When you think of children's toys that are marketed toward girls, what comes to mind? Princesses, Barbie Dolls, unicorns, basically anything 'pink', right? When it comes to a little boy, you probably think remote control cars and trucks, dinosaurs, Legos and Nerf guns; basically anything that isn't pink.

Now I'm not saying that all things pink are for girls, and all things that make loud aggressive noises are for little boys, I'm just using these types of toys as examples so that we're all using a similar frame of reference.

I have a 3.5-year-old.  I truly, honestly do not care what he plays with - whether it's something his mom bought him or something he likes at school -  as log as the toy is safe and he's enjoying himself, I'm like do your thing little man.

However, of all the things I've purchased for him, I've never bought him something that would fall under the category of a' little girls toy' and to be honest with you, I'm not sure if I could. 

It's not because I'm fearful that my son is going to grow up to be 'this, that, or the other thing';  all of that is nonsense and ignorant in my opinion.  I think it's simply because when I was a little boy, I played with Nerf balls,  He-Man and Tonka Trucks, and while I did have lots of stuffed animals and things, nothing was pink.  That was a long time ago, and things today are different. But we can't deny that certain toys are 'marketed' toward young children differently, and it is pretty obvious 2 seconds into a commercial.

I pride myself on being a pretty open-minded dad when it comes to my parenting style.  My son is my everything, I want him to experience all the things he can at an early age so that he can make choices later in life on his own with as little regrets as possible.

Parenting is so fluid and things come up all the time and at the end of the day, I just want to make my kid happy and hope that in return he's honest, respectful, compassionate, curious, and kind.

Just because I haven't bought him a 'girls toy' doesn't mean I wouldn't.  In the crazy, do-what-you-gotta-do-in-the-moment-to-survive world we live in, it probably just means that I haven't...yet.