Those Tonka Truck ads had girls happily playing in the dirt along with the boys. I hate it when we slide backward. Ugh.

...is the point. The copy makes it clear that the ads are saying "Forget all that wussy 'kids play they way they do depending on their personality' crap. We all know boys will be boys and that's the end of it. And we are going to holler that canard until we intimidate everyone into believing it." Call it the GOP/MAXIM bully strategy--even in the face of facts, whomever yells loud enough wins.

As I read this, I was thinking of the extremely heated discussion on here a week or so ago about "helpless husbands" who don't seem to care about housework. Apparently we're programming the next generation to have this same problem.

I agree that both toys look fun, but why not show both genders playing with them? Boys like playing house and girls like playing trucks. I remember this well from my own childhood and I'm sure it's just as true now.

That commercial has been bugging me for weeks, too. Right on the money with this one, Catherine. Thanks!

Little boys do tend to more wild than their little girl counterparts. Just look at the higher rates of ADHD and other school issues (such as not finishing high school or not going on to college) among boys. Is it genetics, testosterone or how they're raised? I don't know.

But I don't see what this has to do with trucks.

You can calmly drive your truck down the hallway or you can use it to smash everything in sight.

As someone who had Tonka trucks as a little girl, when I saw this commercial it pissed me off. How dare you tell me what I toys I can and cannot play with?!

It also strikes me as a bit stupid. Why would you want to try to turn 50% of the toy demographic away from your product? Did Hasbro get a new ad agency?

If my brother or I tracked mud into the house or messed up the living room we were expected to help clean it up. Do parents these days really look on indulgently and then clean it up themselves? Why?

Is it just the same old mantra I hear from so many women about their husbands, "it's easier to clean up after him than to make a big deal about it. You have to choose your battles." A woman who says something like that does, of course, deserve to spend her life mopping up after her husband. Her poorly-raised son, however, will become society's problem.

After my stuffed animals it was my absolute favorite toy - a turquoise pickup truck.

I still have it.

Buyers are likely to go, "hey that's just like my little boy!"

And go buy the truck.

...that if Tonka or Hasbro could sell more toys by showing both genders playing with either product they would. They could double their market! Turns out, nobody is going to buy Rose Petal Cottage for their five-year-old boys regardless of how good an idea it might be. Girls will, however, will get the occasional Tonka truck, as evidenced by some of my daughter's playmates. Ironically, my son would scream bloody murder if he got the Cottage for Christmas but would happily play with my daughter's if she got one. He has school friends over sometimes. Oh how my daughter would love to mortify him by pointing out that the Cottage was his from Santa Claus.

Somewhere around four years old I realized (too late) that the opportunity for complete mind control over my kids had passed. Am I supposed to buy my daughter a truck that she says she doesn't want, and demand that she has to play with it, damn it, because that is what modern times dictate? Is her predilection for playing with dolls somehow a failing on my part in indoctrinating her with gender neutral values early on? Anyway, it's way more complicated than just getting toy makers to throw in both girl and boy actors into their toy commercials.

because a REAL BOY plunges with his clothes into the stream or lake every few weeks and then dries himself off in the breeze.

Boys are so much closer to nature and simpler than mean old girls who would enslave us all to expensive machines.

I saw the commercial for the rose petal cottage and shuddered. I also thought about the whole husbands aren't helpless commentary that happened on here. and I am going to reiterate, my husband isn't helpless. He helps a lot and picks up around the house, he isn't very thorough about the laundry, maybe he could have benefited from this cottage with it's washer and dryer. And as I learned this weekend I would have benefited from a play rototiller.

I did rototill the backyard, it sucked, I wasn't very good at it and my arms jiggled unattractively, but I did it. I never was encouraged to do yard work and I am slowly getting enough confidence to take on some "manly" chores. I would have benefited from a play rototiller and not just the popcorn vacuum rolly thing.

I also have noticed that Boy's toys do a lot more cool stuff and have a lot of lights and electrical components to them. They roll, they light up, they talk to you, they play music. As opposed to girl's toys which are priced the same but just imitate "wifely" life. Like faux makeup kits with a shiny plastic mirror and mini groceries and carts. They don't light up, they don't talk , they are just dull plastic crap that costs the exact same as the cool boy stuff.

I won't buy this crap for my kids unless they paint the washer and dryer chrome and call it Both Pals Cottage.

One more thing I would like a pink rototiller to come along with the Both Pals Cottage...

That is all

Boys are different then girls which is not the same as saying one is better than the other. Yes, there are tomboy girls and effeminate males, but that is not the norm.

They have entire book lines based on "Men are from mars, women are from venus". We are different lady, deal with it.

We are not equal. It's not to say one is better, but to say we are the same is ludicrous and I'm absolutely sick of it.

I'm 34 and I still rough house with guys in ways I have never seen women do.

To try and claim or insinuate it doesn't exist makes you a moron. Plain and simple.