And how sneaky of them to fill them with exactly the sorts of appliances and furniture that most little girls (including one of my own) love to play with.

What's next, trains and trucks for boys? Oh, the humanity!

We saw a commercial for this monstrosity last night, and it made our stomachs turn . I guess it sort of falls in line with the mindset of having college courses in homemaking and how to be a good (read subservient) wife. Hello 1950s.

I saw a commercial for that little house and thought it was adorbale--and more than that, I KNOW my toddler would love it. Know why? She doesn't come to my work to see mommy typing away on a computer (how fascinating, anyway). She sees me at home where she loves to help me unload the dishwasher and load the laundry machine. Her toy kitchen and baby dolls are two of her favorite toys. Maybe the commercial is stupid, but the toy surely doesn't seem at all ominous to me. The only thing I thought when I saw the commercial was, "Oh geez, that must cost a fortune!" And by the way, I work full time.

Have you ever gone inside a Pottery Barn for Kids store? They clearly gender identify the toys with color. Pink stoves & refrigerators, etc. This is nothing new.

Get over it.

Many modern women had tea sets, stoves and nursery sets as little girls. Yet, miraculously, our little developing minds were not irreparably stifled.

That's because we also had other Hasbro toys like Play-Doh, Lite Brite, Tinkertoys and Playskool products.

But the Rose Petal Cottage does have an insidious side, just not what you think. This isn't about molding little girls into housewives. It's about molding little girls into little home-decorating consumers. Everything is "made just for her with beautiful appliances and accessories that she can arrange however she likes."

Next she'll be shopping at Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. Then they'll have her registering online for her pretend wedding.

Hmm, registering online for a pretend wedding... Should I be patenting or copyrighting that?

...every five days, Little Leah pays to have the countertops du jour put in her kitchen, as well as appliances with the latest, trendy finishes. Since black granite countertops and stainless steel appliances are what people are told to purchase today, maybe Little Leah could do the same. And Hasbro could make and sell other structures, such as home redecorating centers and interior design shops, so that Little Leah could be properly trained in excess. Hey, they could even make a monstrous SUV so that Little Leah could drive from playshop to playshop and just never you mind that the playshops are merely on the other side of her playroom. Training for consumption is serious work and time mustn't be frittered.

that excess and consumption are the enemy.

The little play-sized motel room that Leah and her family will call "home" while the kitchen and bath are out-of-commission because, of course, renovation NEVER goes quite on schedule! And throw in a miniature ATM while you're at it...

Just sign me "Been There Done That!"

I think by the age of 3-6, the target range of this toy, kids KNOW what a laundry dryer is for but if they see a computer they see it being used for brief periods of time.

Hasbro is just one of many companies that make them. Granted, its Rose Petal Playhouse marketing pushes consumerism and smacks of the Stepford wives. But what sets it off from the others in its price range is its all-encompassing product line -- most of the other playhouses don't have a comprehensive line of furniture and appliances, for instance -- which actually provides products that said consumption can be directed to.

However, Hasbro's Rose Petal Cottage is small potatoes in price compared to others on the market. The high end La Petite Maison and Liliput play homes (apparently the term "play house" is too plebian for them) go for $20,000 - $30,000 and up. Buying your kids one of THESE palatial play houses really sends a message about consumption!

Film at 11. I mean, come on. Every preschool/kindergarten worth its salt has an extensive "home play" area, complete with stove, laundry, ironing board, dishwasher, etc. If it's made of primary color wood, this is considered practically a developmental necessity by numerous schools of child development theory. Kids play at doing the things they see their parents doing. It seems to me that the sin committed here is that Hasbro put this out in girl-pleasing colors and pitches it in such a way as to upsell additional accessories. And I agree that selling consumerism is a crappy thing, but that doesn't make playhouses retrograde and demeaning.

why are we upset about this? why is it unsettling that a little girl might want to play house with her own stove and muffins and baby cradle? are easy bake ovens bad now too because they're training the next generation to be subserviant housewives? it is a little too pink, but most 3-6 year old girls really love pink. did I? no. but my little girl sure did and still does. is that society or genetics? i'm guessing genetics since i dressed her like me until she could choose for herself and my wardrobe consists primarily of blacks and browns. in our house my six year old sees me baking muffins and putting the baby's laundry in the wash. then she sees me go to my office and catalogue artifacts for the archaeology consultants i work for. i thought our goal was to be well-rounded self-defined women. can't baking muffins and doing the laundry be a part of that or to be modern women are we not allowed now to do anything domestic?

Catherine, you do little girls a disservice by assuming that if you give them a play house with a pretend stove in it, the only thing they're going to do is pretend to cook on it.

If that thing had been mine, I might have "used" the washer and stove for their intended purposes once or twice, realized it was completely boring and stupid, and then the washer would have become a portal to Candyland and the stove part of the laboratory for my mad science experiments. Just because it's a Little Miss Stepford Wife play house when it comes out of the box hardly means it'll remain that way. In fact, adults are so incredibly bad at figuring out how kids think and play, it's funny to me when we try to come up with pre-scripted toys like this. Kids could care less.

(Also, props to the consumerism-noticing folks. That's far scarier than watching a toy company get all gender roles on kids who are likely to ignore them in the name of Actual Fun, anyway.)