I have two sons and two daughters. I spend a significant amount of my parenting time assuring my amazing children that they can be anything they choose to be even though the Fawcett Society has highlighted that women working full-time still face being paid 17% less than their male counterparts on an hourly basis – a figure that rises to 20% if that woman happens to be from an ethnic minority, 36% if she works part-time and 45% if she both works part-time and works in London. Doesn’t that disgust you? It appalls me and I don’t think it matters if you’re a feminist or not, this pay gap affects every single working person out there. It’s revolting that in this day and age where we’re all supposed to be forward-thinking, liberal and equal that it’s acceptable for the pay gap to still be tangible.

With that in mind, it’s not like I expect the toy companies to pick up the slack for the pay gap but – and this is a big but – this kind of gender stereotyping begins at such an early age and the Early Learning Centre’s marketing is just one admittedly major example of this. Let me show you a webpage from the ELC’s retail site (click for embiggenisation):

Just in case you’re a complete thicket, I’ve highlighted the relevant parts and following the ELC’s lead I’ve even used the appropriate colours. Quite simply, if you have a daughter she’s clearly a princess who aspires to be a nurse or a ballerina. If you have a son, he can be a doctor because of course it’s a man’s job. Right from pre-school levels our children are being segregated into traditional gender roles before they really have a concept of gender constructs themselves.

You know what else pisses me off? And these are simply examples from presents our kids have been bought – a pink shopping till and basket because obviously only women do the shopping or work in retail. A blue multistorey garage since only boys like cars. They even have a pink GLOBE just in case our daughters are too female to look at a regular one. Heaven forbid, eh?

In the interests of fairness, I emailed the ELC yesterday saying:

I have to be honest straight off the bat and say that my post is going to be criticising the shift over the last 10 years in the ELC’s product range. I have personally avoided ELC since giving birth to my daughter 3 years ago as I realised how heavily gender stereotyped ELC chooses to be and the final straw for me today was seeing this page which tells me that my daughter can be a nurse but only my son can be a doctor.
The product range reinforces traditional gender roles – pink microwaves, dolls prams and kitchen sets for girls, dinosaurs and train sets for boys which contradicts the UK educational system’s approach to free play and I would greatly appreciate a statement with regards to this concern.

Their spokesperson responded today with this:

‘Come down to Early learning Centre and see for yourself the huge range of toys in an assortment of colours. Customers can choose a red kitchen, a blue kitchen, a blue cash register, a yellow dolls house or a gorgeous farm

Our photography features boys ironing, girls playing with space aliens, boys playing with dolls, boys cooking and pushing buggies, girls building and playing with remote control insects. We offer anyone who wants to buy toys so much to choose from that no one should feel disappointed when they walk into our stores.

which comprehensively answered my query. Or not.

I’m interested to know how other parents feel about it. Do you identify as feminist? Do you agree with what I’m saying or do you think I’m overreacting?

Looking forward to seeing what everyone has made!

So! I have a swap idea – it’s a parent and child(ren) collaboration, the kids make something for each other and send it along with a letter and the parents make something for the children and send a treat for the other parent. Does that make sense? This way, hopefully we can foster penpal-type relationships between our increasingly computerised spawn whilst making friends with another parent?

If you’re interested, please comment so I can get an idea of how successful this would be. A lengthy prep time before sending would make sense, so final posting in early May? What do you think?

So – the title of my blog post today is artistically challenged because I really am. It’s not even funny, I am the most cack-handed wannabe artist that I know. I wanted to do art for Standard Grade – which is the Scottish equivalent to GCSE – and the art teacher pretty much laughed me out of the room. I can’t draw to save myself, I don’t have the techniques for painting but I am so keen! I’ve been trying to create faces for the little dolls I’ve been making and I just can’t seem to do it.

These are the new dolls – four girls and a boy (I’m going to put together a tutorial for the boy doll at some point soon, promise!). They’ve been sewn up and finished for almost a week and are sitting on my sewing chair just waiting for their faces. As a reminder, this is the dolly I’d made for Elise:

And I wasn’t thrilled by the face. I ended up repainting the eyes more than once because I felt they just weren’t quite what I’d expected. It sounds like such a simple thing doesn’t it, to draw an eye? But I’m a big believer in the power and mystique of eyes, and I want these dollies to be loved and cherished so it’s important to me that the eyes are enchanting, beautiful and not at all frightening. So I shall plough on with drawing eyes until I think I’ve found an eye that works. Wish me luck!

So little Elise turned a whole year old today and it appalls me how quickly that time has passed. From a mothering perspective I remember Findlay’s first year as being one of the longest since I was a kid, when you measured years by when Santa Claus paid a visit. Subsequent years have flown by all too quickly and I could easily sit here and get maudlin about the fact that I have an eight-and-a-half year old son. Eileen and I mused this afternoon just how quickly the time has passed and there’s simply not enough words to explain the conflict of emotions this has stirred in me.

In any case, having a fully stocked craft cantina and a dwindling bank balance I decided that 2010 will be the year of the handmade gift and Elise was the first – and some would say unfortunate – recipient. Whilst searching for a tutorial I thought I’d bookmarked (Mimi Kirchner’s handsewn felt doll) I found this tutorial on Martha Stewart’s website, a step-by-step guide showing you how to make the dolls made famous by Etsy’s #1 seller, Emily Martin.

This was a surprisingly time-consuming project, although that is probably down to my rampant disorganisation and the fact that I sewed the arms by hand. I did really like this little project, my sole complaint being that I’m not confident in my arty skills and having to leave the face until the doll is sewn up was extremely daunting for me. I must apologise for the lack of detail in the photo but poor Bob had about three seconds to snap it for me as I finally ran out the door earlier.

This was my finished version. As she was going to be loved, slobbered on, chewed and rough-housed I deliberately left off any embellishments which Elise may have managed to remove which has left her looking a little sparse to my eye. I have promised a little coat for her which I’ll make at a later date.

I really don’t find it easy to “big up myself” and I’m constantly looking for things to criticise so I’ll end this post here and accept any lavish praise you’d like to heap upon me now

Happy birthday, Elise!

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you all very much for your support and comments over this year. You’ve shared in some of the most magnificent times in our lives as well as some of the worst, you’ve all been so very kind and I’m thrilled to have made so many friends in all of you. 2010 is going to be so busy and I promise to make an effort to stay in contact as much as possible. I wish each and every one of you a fabulous Christmas, and for those who have already celebrated their holiday for the year I hope and pray it was filled with love, laughter and joy.

Now – a little quicky for those of you with young children. As we ALL know, Santa Claus is coming tonight! HOW EXCITED ARE YOU?! But with it being so snowy outside the reindeer will definitely need a bit of help to find your house, won’t they? Every year my children’s nursery put a little bag of Reindeer Food into their Christmas folder and I thought I’d share it with you. (Please excuse the photos as I’m still having to use my phone. We’re hoping Santa brings us a new camera this year!)

All you need is a few tablespoons of porridge oats, mix with a teaspoon each of different coloured glitter, add in some cut up shiny paper if you have it and pop into little bags. I’ve put some into a baby food jar with a painted lid for my little nieces to sprinkle outside tonight before going to bed.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa is good to you!

Now, before I show the picture I need to be honest. I estimated that this lovely lady was in her mid-fifties. She’s actually 71 (and says she doesn’t mind me mentioning that on my website)! I honestly hope when I’m 71 that I have the cojones to do stuff like this. Awesome.

Overall I was pretty happy with how it went, being that I haven’t painted for other people for a looooong time. I didn’t have time to get new brushes, hence the very thick black lines but on the whole it went not bad!

I’ve already half-heartedly started my craft neutral challenge and this yarn (Sirdar Denim Ultra) has been in my stash for about seven years. It met my criteria of being warm, fluffy and quick to knit up so I combined it with this pattern (Ravelry link) which is supposed to be a slouchy beret.

Note the ubiquitous hairbobbles around the wrist mark of the mother of daughters. The eagle eyed amongst you will note an error about three rows into the pattern caused by Erica leaping on me while I was having a knit break and thus losing my stitch marker but since my friend recently told me that Muslim prayer rugs always have an imperfection since only Allah makes things perfectly, I’ve relaxed my ridiculous perfectionist streak. It’s a really mind-altering way of looking at things. In any case, although (I think) the error is highlighted perfectly in the picture it’s really not obvious in reality.

As the title suggests there’s more to this post. Erica has decided that actually she rather likes my hat so I have now cast on Amy Swenson’s Cabled hat (pdf link) for her, but in the meantime I’m having to tolerate this nonsense. Two years old and she’s already raiding my wardrobe. Of course, as is the way of these things she suits the hat much better than I do. Ah well

OKAY! Now we’re done with the schmaltzy PDA I can show you what I’ve been doing while I’ve not been doing anything. I know this won’t come as a surprise to any of you, given that I have four children but I’ve been indulging a lot in that naughty S word…*

…SHOPPING. You filthy minded scamps. What else did you think I was going to say?

So. My good friend Evelyn posted photographs of her gorgeous daughter Esmé over a year ago and of course being me my first response was, “ZOMGshe’sgorgeousEvelynWHEREDIDYOUGETHERDRESS?!!” Evelyn graciously directed me to Cindy’s shop on Hyenacart but alas, she didn’t have any fabulous technicolour dreamdresses available in stock. I bookmarked the store then completely forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was clearing out my email, I found an exchange between Cindy & I. I decided to drop her a quick line to see if she was still making the dresses and oh FRABJOUS day not only was she making the dresses but she had space for me to place an order. Hooray!

I thought Greer was probably a little young for the full twirly dress effect so I got one for Erica and one for my niece Bailey. My sister Stephanie and I have a pretty good deal going, I give her Erica’s clothes once she’s outgrown them then she passes Bailey’s clothes back to me for Greer. We have just acquired a new niece last week when my stepbrother and his girlfriend had a little girl so no doubt these dresses will be passed on to little Maissie too! Anyway, I digress. Point is, beautiful dresses of wonder arrived this afternoon and I immediately stopped what I was doing to make Erica put hers on. It’s so colourful it has immediately washed away bad mood (I was really irritated today because it’s been raining constantly for months and I need some sunshine!)

I think Erica likes it.

What do you think?

*That reminded me of a story. When I was in Primary 3 (so 6-7 years old) I remember grassing someone in my class in for swearing. The teacher asked me what the swear word started with and my precocious little reading mind went into overdrive and I said, “It began with an S.” The teacher had a think and couldn’t work out which particular profanity had been levelled so told me to whisper it, so I whispered, “shit“. She gave me into trouble and told be it didn’t start with S, it started with Sh! Isn’t it funny the things you remember?

So – this dress is knit using the Kaia babydoll pattern and I just squeezed it out of 100g Sirdar snuggly baby bamboo DK. Seriously – I had just enough left to do the drawstring and that was it! It’s a really lovely little pattern although I think if I were to make it again I’d pick up stitches around the armhole and knit little sleeves.

You even got a wee smile from my big girl!