Socialization into gender roles begins at birth and, nowadays, may begin even before! Parents can now know months before birth whether the fetus is a boy or a girl and can begin to prepare accordingly. Parents even speak to the unborn child—a mother simply by talking and the father by putting his mouth close to the mother’s belly—and communicate ideas about their “little boy” or “little girl.” In a real sense, then, these parents may begin trying to communicate gender-specific messages before the child is even born (whether the child actually is influenced by these sounds diffusing into the womb is, of course, another question). Parents awaiting the birth of a child are filled with gender expectations, stereotypes, and desires.
Question: I don’t think there anything wrong with letting boys and girls act like boys and girls! Why try to discourage boys from playing with guns and girls with dolls? Everyone I know grew up that way, and they are okay.
The same people who believe that they "grew up okay" are often the first to complain about the nature of gender relations in the United States. Perhaps we should not forbid boys from ever playing with toy guns (anyway, they would probably just make other toys into guns) or forbid girls to play with dolls, but trying to encourage children to appreciate the activities of the other sex can only help matters. Research has found that parents allow their girls more flexibility in toy choices, whereas they limit the toys that boys play with to mainly masculine toys (Wood, 2002).