Baby Bear plays with doll - CBMW reacts ...world goes on

I know Christians freak out over stuff sometimes. I’m not encouraging you to spaz about “Baby Bear’s Baby Doll.” I don’t think the world is ending as a result of this episode. I actually think that this show is silly, and worth laughing at, because the God-encoded truth about sexuality and gender is obvious, and boys playing with dolls is foolish. Furthermore, the world–in point of fact–has not ended as of October 2011. So make sure you don’t misconstrue my take or CBMW’s take. - Owen Strachan CMBW

Sigh! I can't believe the CMBW stand about dolls and young boys.

If we read anything about the history of dolls you will find that in ancient Greece ‘children’ played with dolls.  I believe that these are some of the oldest toys they have found so far.  They have found dolls in graves of young children – and note here I didn’t say just girls.  Sadly, what Owen Strachan doesn’t tell you is when they started to make ‘fashion’ dolls?  The marketing of this toy was more focused on girls.

Lets put on our preschool cap on here for a moment, and think about this:

Baby Bear wanted to pretend he was a ‘Daddy Bear’.  Is Owen stating playing Daddy is foolish?  Its okay for girls to want to be a Mommy, but BAD for boys of this age to want to be a Daddy.  They want to play their role model, and aren’t born with this hyper sense of masculine and feminine.  Sadly, our culture in time does push that part to the extreme.

Its okay to appreciate their innocence at this age!

Boys do play with different types of dolls all the time.  We have stuffed animals, my brother had a couple of GI Joes, and then we have action figures.  All those things are considered dolls.

Although the stuffed animals?  THOSE must be the ones that are confused!  They are played with by BOTH boys and girls!   Poor things…. They must be confused about their roles!

The message that seems to be lost on Owen Strachan is it is not right to make fun off, laugh at, or hint to a child that wants to play ‘Daddy’ that he is somehow bad for doing so.  That is the child’s innocence talking, and we need to push away our cultural lenses and come down to the child’s point of view.

Boys play with their sisters, and at times dolls are involved.  That doesn’t change any part of their DNA when it comes to their sexuality or gender role. 

Father’s have been known to sit down for tea parties with their daughters.    Daddy’s allow their girls to create hair styles on their males heads, Including putting barrettes in.   

I remember my brother and I putting his GI Joe in my Barbie Camper, and we pushed it down the road in front of our house.  How confusing is that right?  GI Joe has no business in a Barbie camper does he?  It’s a wonder we understand our masculine or feminine side due to that tragic experience!

Baby Bear’s Masculine Side

One additional thing that Owen Strachan seems to miss was Baby Bear putting a ‘boy’ spin on things when he turned the doll’s bib around to make it into a superhero’s cape!  I mean how BOY of him! 

What about the part when he played with a tractor, or football?  That part seems masculine enough.  If we are going to play this game?  You need to stop that notice the ‘masculine’ parts of the short as well.  Sadly, he instead decided to get his nose out of joint instead.

This is the type of stuff that drives people nuts when it comes to CBMW.  A young child wanting to be ‘daddy’ is now not ‘gender role’ enough.   This has nothing to do with gender roles, and has more to do with this man’s discomfort over a boy playing with a doll.  You can tell that by all the ‘male’ dominated things Baby Bear did while playing, and that Owen Strachan completely missed.  I mean seriously SHOOSH right over his head!

Toys of this type are used to model healthy behaviors of their parents, caregivers, grandparents, etc.  Watching a young father nurturing his baby isn’t foolish, nor does it show how gender neutral he is.   Although I will say most people may wonder about the people that think it does!

My parents had a picture of brother when he was about 2 years old, and we just got back from Easter services at church.  He had his adorable little suit on, but he seemed to have this fascination towards my Easter hat, gloves and purse.    Dad took a picture of him wearing all of them.  Who knows what the reasons were for the fascination, but it wasn’t foolish.  He was 2 for goodness sakes.  Nor did it ‘confuse’ him in any fashion as far as his gender, sexuality, etc. 

Masculine and Macho – there is a difference!

I have wonder – seriously – if Owen Strachan took a little to much of the ‘macho’ traits from his child’s play, and incorporated it into adulthood.  There is a huge difference between macho, and manhood keep in mind. 

Macho Definition:
1: a strong sense of masculine pride : an exaggerated masculinity
2: an exaggerated or exhilarating sense of power or strength

Yes, Macho with all its exaggerated masculinity would read into Baby Bear’s actions as being foolish.  A child’s viewpoint, maturity level, innocence, etc. don’t even factor into it.  Sadly, what he seems to miss is the exaggerated masculinity is what is foolish.  Jesus reminded us when he spoke of children, ‘the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this.’

The times, how they have changed. We’ve now transitioned culturally to an era in which the basic foundations of the Protestant worldview are under assault. This is true on many levels, from MTV (obviously) to sexual education in public schools to, apparently, the television shows aimed at tiny kids. This episode, “Baby Bear’s Baby Doll,” is subtly but directly overturning long-held conceptions of manhood and boyhood. Boys can play with dolls; there’s no reason they can’t do exactly what girls do.
The boundaries between the sexes are fluid. Behind this teaching is of course the view that there really aren’t what we call “gender roles” given us as a fact of our existence. Gender is a construct, to use academic language; it’s the differentiated vision of boys and girls our society has historically bought into, but there’s nothing fixed or unchanging behind it. We’re free in this modern and enlightened age to blur the boundaries, and to raise boys and girls in essentially the same ways, without specific training of any kind for distinct manhood or womanhood.

I seriously think Owen Strachan needs to stop looking for evil around every corner.  We are talking preschoolers here, and not teenage boys playing with a baby doll OR watching MTV.  Allowing a child to play with a doll at that age does not make the boundaries between the sexes fluid.   I mean WHO thinks like that???

He acts like children today playing ‘house’ will get it wrong now too.  Don’t you know they reverse the genders just to make things equal. (okay – so I threw out some sarcasm…sue me!)  Most of the time?  That thought never crosses their mind, and yet you would never know it from his reaction of Baby Bear wanting to play Daddy Bear.  Playing ‘Daddy’ is masculine last time I checked! 

We need to put on our ‘child’s mind’ before making assumptions like this.  It’s so ignorant.  We are talking about children right out of babyhood here!

Although he seems to feel its okay to make a child feel badly about how he plays, and seems to forget the mindset of the child during this age.  It’s not okay to allow the child to be a child. 

Why not appreciate the fact he looks forward to being a Daddy?  That he wants to be gentle with his children?  You see those are assets, and it doesn’t mean other aspects of manhood aren’t present at the same time.

No.  They don’t have these silly notions of manhood that he no doubt will learn, and in the case of Baby Bear is starting to learn.  That is why Baby Bear was embarrassed after all.  Notice how girls playing with Ken (Barbie’s male doll) doesn’t blur the gender roles?  How it doesn’t warp the distinct womanhood viewpoint.

Will wonders ever cease!

"The Lord made man and woman, Adam and Eve, distinct as an outworking of his intelligence ..."
Love it (not!) how Owen emphasizes the difference between Adam and Eve when the first man actually emphasized the similarities, "The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:23.) - Marg Mowczko

Muppet Wiki – of Baby Bear Short

Youtube of Short Baby Bear’s Baby Doll.  This the best quality in the world, but at least you can see what was said.

What is Masculine?

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