Tamara Olsen didn’t expect to care so much about the color or style of kids toys so much, before she became a nanny. It was when she and her husband noticed that the Lego people owned by her niece and nephew were distinctly male or female — the boys had red shirts with rocketships on them, the girls had pink shirts with butterflies — that she thought there might be a problem.
Now with a one-month-old son of her own, she is much more educated — and appalled — by the situation that lies ahead for parents and the toys they buy for their boys and girls. This is because she — like many other parents — simply wants for her children what they want and what makes them happy, whether that is deemed "boy" or "girl" by society.
"Big boy" things
P&B: How do you feel before you had your baby, and knowing you were having a baby, how had you already started thinking about gender binary as a mom?
Tamara: So I did online classes and I was a nanny full-time, just because I wanted a different experience and was getting tired of school. The people I nannied for were very concerned with their child's gender. Like someone thought their baby girl was a boy once, so they went and pierced her ears. They never wanted anyone to make that mistake again. They had their toys clearly defined, Ella's toys and Ryker's toys, they were different. She was 1.5 and he was 3, and there were these big boy things that he could do that she couldn't yet, cause she was too young, and one of them was that he could pick out a movie and put it in the movie player. One time I went to do it and he said "Oh, no, sorry, that's just for big boys." And I realized that he didn't realize the difference was big and little, he thought the difference was boy and girl. So he didn't think I was allowed to do that cause I was a girl. And it really sparked my interest, cause I feel liek that's something you say all the time: "What a big boy," or "What a big girl, such a good job," we put their gender as part of it. So that's what got me interested in it. And I found out a few months later I was pregnant and that stuck with me; I didn't ever want my son to tell a grown woman she wasn't allowed to do something because she wasn't a boy, and that I had accidentally taught him that without knowing.
P&B: So you have a
newborn baby. Even
now, with who knows
what he's going to be
A mom crossing the divide
“I realized that he didn't realize the difference was big and little, he thought the difference was boy and girl. So he didn't think I was allowed to do that cause I was a girl...I didn't ever want my son to tell a grown woman she wasn't allowed to do something because she wasn't a boy.”
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BY Mandy Morgan Ditto
Tamara Olsen with her one-month-old Weston in their home in Logan, Utah.