Response to Lauren Swanson's "That's For Girls..."

    In Lauren Swanson's recent blog, "That's For Girls...," she discusses an incident that she had with one of her newly adopted little brothers, in which her brother Brian labeled a toy as one for girls. I can definitely relate to this topic because I was raised in the same type of household. I too experienced outside forces that led me in the trap that Brian has fall in.
    When I was younger, I was so not into dolls. My little sister was but I was way too concerned with my Lego projects and playing basketball pick up games with the boys in my neighborhood. Once my mother took us to McDonald's for a fast meal. I was about 5 or 6. At that time, McDonald's was offering two type of toys: Hot Wheels and Barbies. My sister wanted the Barbie toy and I wanted the Hot Wheels, naturally. Mom pulled up to the drive thru and asked for two Happy Meals, one with a Barbie toy and one with a Hot Wheel toy. The woman running the drive thru asked what gender my mother's kids were. Mom refused to answer her question and requested the two different toys again. The drive thru employee continued to ask my mother for the genders of her children, much to my confusion and to my mother's annoyance. So my mother pulled around and chewed this woman out for her lack of customer service, for her attitude, and for her limited point of view. We didn't eat at McDonald's for long time after that. That woman also never got over that point and basically refused to serve us.