I realized the day before yesterday that I had left out a very important part of my previous post about childhood play. I had forgotten to mention my all encompassing Star Wars obsession. This covered years 3-8 or so. When I suppose Little House On The Prairie took over. I longed for Star Wars toys, but never had any. My parents thought that such toys weren't for girls. I loved going to visit my cousin, so I could play with all of his Star Wars stuff. I also had an uncle that is only a few years older than me, who had just as big of an obsession with Star Wars as I did. He had light sabers, and boxes of action figures. Sometimes, when we would all get together we would play Star Wars.We'd get assigned our character. I'd always be princess Leah. Always. This was not negotiable to me. I'd cry so hard that I'd get sick if I was told otherwise. The couch was the ship, the chairs were the little personal vehicles.We'd decide on a plot and act it out. It was so much fun. I wanted to be her in real life and often pretended I was, reenacting scenes. I could spend hours alone imagining that I was on wild adventures with my imaginary crew. This didn't go very well at school when I did this at recess. I'm sure this is part of why I difficulty making friends. Who says people on the spectrum lack imagination? I know in this way, I certainly didn't!
It is odd that now, I hate Star Wars. I've never watched any of the newer movies, despite my best efforts to. I always fall asleep. It bores me to death, even more so than Star Trek. I don't know what changed, or made things different. I just know that Star Wars played a big part of my life growing up. Too big in fact, to leave out.
If your child wants toys that seem odd considering gender, please just let them be themselves. There's no harm in girls playing with trucks and action figures, or boys playing with Barbies, or dishes. Repressing their true selves is never healthy.
