I read Owen Strachan's recent rant against a Sesame Street episode in which "Baby Bear" is told it's OK for boys to play with dolls on the same day my six-year-old son took his Matey Anchors doll to school for show and tell. Maybe my reaction would have been different at a different time.
Maybe the implication that Satan himself is behind my son's desire to own a doll—not to mention show and tell about it!—as well as Sesame Street's "unbiblical and socially disastrous teaching on sexuality and gender" would've brought on nothing more than an eye-roll and a "whatever." I mean, Strachan is the executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and I get that his views on "biblical" gender roles often look different than mine—and certainly different from Sesame Street's.
If my son would have picked his football or any of his more "manly" toys for show and tell, I bet Strachan's words would've still raised my ire. Just as Strachan sees Sesame Street's "open denial of sex roles and gender distinctions" as offensive to God, I find Strachan's stance, that boys who play with dolls (such as Baby Bear or my son, who tumbles and create skits with them) are deviations from God intentions for men, offensive to the many good men and fathers God created.
When we say baby dolls are for girls, that only girls should cuddle and coo dolls, we claim that babies are women's domains, that only mothers should rock and coo and play with their children. What a horrible thing to teach our kids (though it's a common enough claim in our culture). It's a view shared by the "my body/my choice" crowd as well TV writers who malign sitcom dads as doofuses. Strachan probably never imagined he had so much in common with these folks.
This view ignores much of what our Heavenly Father created our earthly fathers to do. Far from offending God when a male plays with or rocks or feeds a baby, I believe it reflects God's own male image. This is, after all, how the Scriptures tell us our Heavenly Father loves us: "The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing" (Zeph. 3:17).
Our God has us in his arms, singing songs, tossing us high, catching us with giggles, and shushing us when we get scared. And what does this kind of love amount to? 1 John 3:1 says that this is why we're called "children of God." It's the kind of giddy, playful, over-the-top, Baby Bear playing with a baby doll, daddy rocking his baby kind of love. I'm so glad God gives us this—and gives us flesh-and-blood fathers to give it too. What a shame that anyone would think this baby business were only the realm of women and miss out on this view of God and this blessing of fatherhood.
In Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me, Ian Morgan Cron writes, "A boy needs to be able to look into his father's eyes and see admiration and delight…. Many of us who live without these gifts that only a father can bestow go through life banging from guardrail to guardrail, trying to determine why our fathers kept their love nameless, as if ashamed."
Strachan gives a good reason why some fathers are ashamed to show this love: because boys are taught, by some, that gushing over babies is embarrassing, unmanly, ungodly. Yet, this is the sort of love kids long for—and frankly, that if we look at God, our Father, the kind of love fathers are made for. Not to say children don't need their dads to be "hunter-gatherers" or disciplinarians, but it's the admiration and delight Cron writes of that kids seek most. It's the love and gushing and feeling like their dads delight in them that keeps kids from bouncing off those guardrails.
Isn't a boy playing with a doll is merely acting this out? Far from being "like a girl" isn't that boy simply tapping into his deep-seeded, God-given and God-reflecting very male desire to show love, to delight in another, smaller human? I think yes. Strachan apparently thinks no. He ends his post admitting that he doesn't see Sesame Street's position on boys and dolls as the end of the world and encourages Christians not to "spaz" about it. "I actually think 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," he writes.
Maybe Strachan's right. Maybe boys playing with dolls is foolish. As foolish as the God who once taught a tribe of Israel "to walk, taking them by the arms" and who lifted them like "a little child to the cheek" (Hosea 11:3-4). As foolish as a man who endured shame and humiliation in marrying a woman impregnated by another and following God's giant call for his wife's life and her boy (Matt. 1:24). As foolish as the father who hiked up his skirts to run out to welcome his lost son home (Luke 15:20). And as foolish as seeing God himself and his delighted love when a boy (or bear) rocks a doll.
Flipping the 40-Minute Sermon
The Seminary Gender Gap
The Real Value of Sex
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Randy Bella
I would not mind either way--doll or no doll, but when what is proposed by Sesame Street is part of a larger scheme to fight God's intent in creating a man and a woman (not two men and not two women), I would stay away from the doll thing or pink or any of that godless fad. With my boys I do my best to salvage as much as possible from the real Moses, Abraham, Daniel, David, etc., and our Lord Himself. Some of these were poets and very tender when necessary, but all of them courageous, and sometimes capable of killing many if that is the call (I pray they never need to). I can tell you that there is not enough time to teach a man to develop his God-given strength and being godly in this culture. Love and fear of God, godliness, holiness, is what they need. Kids really need very little of Toys"R"us and much more of the Lord. If the economy goes down, you will need the toughest boy you can find (with a godly heart). May the Lord help us all.
audrey ruth
Adam, Caryn missed Owen Strachan's point and stressed things he did not stress. I read her article here first, then clicked on the link to read his, and did not see much of a connection. I do agree with Strachan's concerns about 'gender-bending' today, which is very evident on virtually every front, and my husband does too.
Adam Shields
@David and Audrey, I still don't think that Caryn is taking the his words of out context. But do you think that Sesame Street's point that boys should not be made to feel ashamed for playing with dolls is an appropriate point? Because Strachan went digging for this. It is a two year old episode. He says at the end of his piece that this is about much more than whether it is ok for boys to play with dolls is it is about a whole world view of how men and women interact with the world. And I agree with that point. His post was not about boys playing with dolls. His post is using that as an illustration of what is wrong with media and the world. Otherwise he would have dealt with the matter in a very different way.
David Wren
Regardless of the merits of this article, I wonder what the reaction would be to one written by a man, titled: "God Made Girls to Play with Tools, Trucks, and Toy Guns."
audrey ruth
Love Michael Beiber's post, which reminds me of my own husband who is such a marvelous mixture of tough and tender. Throughout the years, he has skillfully done all sorts of heavy "man" jobs, then just as skillfully burped little babies, cared for them when they were sick with fever, then helped them with schoolwork, coached their ball teams, and levied discipline when they grew older. (But he didn't have dolls when he was young, just some GI Joes, lol.) A real man does indeed reflect "the goodness and severity of God." Though my husband is not a farmer, the Paul Harvey Super Bowl commercial also reminded me of him. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/02/dodge-rams-super-bowl-spot-fea tures-paul-harveys-tribute-to-farmers/
audrey ruth
It is true that Caryn's article here does not accurately represent Strachan's statements, or even the point of his article. ITA with his statements I've copied here: "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." My older children watched Sesame Street, but by the time my younger children were of TV-watching age, it had changed and I didn't feel it was wise for them to watch it. The few times I checked it again, that was immediately confirmed. PBS does not broadcast programs with a Biblical worldview, and Sesame Street is no exception. It is not reaching to say that Satan is behind such things, because the Lord has clearly shown us that the world system is constantly seeking to draw us away from Him. Children are always primary targets because of their innocence.
Christine Guthrie
I agree with David - there is a lot of over-stating and over-reacting going on. (and over-dissecting which is typical of the internet) I might not agree with that boys must never play with dolls (although Strachan did not say that exactly), but I do agree that we should not just blindly swallow the values being taught in these children's shows as well in as the larger culture. One value I have not wanted my children to absorb is that men and women are interchangeable (and fathers are only useful if they act like backup mothers). And yes, I am one of those evil mothers that didn't let my kids watch all the trash on PBS.
Adam Shields
@David L, I disagree. This is not over-reacting or misconstruing his words. Here are some direct quotes "boys playing with dolls is foolish" "It’s wrong to train them [boys] in such a way as to blur the sexual boundaries God himself created." "Gender distinctions, in other words, carry all the way through, and are the foundation of the social relationship that speaks of the love of Christ for his church." What Carolyn didn't say, but what is clear to me is that Strachan's point is that the boy in the episode, should be made to feel ashamed to play with dolls. The particular thing that is wrong in Strachan's eyes, is that the boy is being made to feel unashamed at something that he feels is shameful. The only way that I believe that Strachan's words can be construed is that Boys should not play with dolls because that is a girl's toy. Babies are for women not men to care for. Strachan is trying to make this into a larger issue. This is an example of what is wrong with the world
David J
I call a foul on Caryn. Strachan's jumping off point is simply that boys shouldn't play with baby dolls. Whether you agree with him or not (I'll be accused of agreeing with him, but it won't be true), it is intellectually dishonest to say that he "claim[s] that babies are women's domains, that only mothers should rock and coo and play with their children," etc. Strachan says no such thing and no one who is not looking to score cheap points or to pander to his ideological/theological/political opponents would mis-read his "rant" to say so. Strachan over-reacted to the individual Sesame Street episode. (To be fair, you know he's correct in his belief that Sesame Street generally is hostile to biblical morality.) But Caryn likewise over-reacted to and essentially misrepresents Strachan. Two over-reactions don't make an edifying exchange.
Amy Bost Henegar
Amen. Another excellent article, Caryn. Thank you.
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