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The society in which we live puts a potentially harmful emphasis on gender roles. From babies in blue, to toddlers with barbies, we place our children in boxes labeled "Good Little Boys" and "Good Little Girls". It seems as though our cultural expectations are set in front of us as plastic imitations from the day we are born. Not all girls will become stay at home, cooking and cleaning mothers. Not all boys will grow up to be race car driving firemen. As soon as our gender effects the way someone talks to us or treats us, our learned behaviors begin to overtake our natural and innate behaviors. We take on the behaviors we see in others who wear the same color as us and play with the same toys as us. Our ideas and goals are molded around the picture of this ideal man/woman and we look at them as sort of a role model. This picture is usually a collage of parents, friends, siblings, movie stars, ect. Here is where individuality is lost. We loose a part of ourselves every time we give up something we want for something we're told we "should" want. We let the cycle continue every time we take the baby doll away from the dirty boy and hand it to the girl getting her hands cleaned. If we can't admit that we are at least part of the problem, then there is not much we can do. Blaming retailers for selling us what we continue to buy is screaming hypocrisy. During early development especially, as humans we learn how things work by observing others. Exposing our children to one way of life and one ideal behavior is going to have a major affect on how they continue to become their own person and accept others. We must care about our young ones enough to be an example of determination to become whatever one wants to be. No longer should we fall into boxes and let the cycle continue. Still, we should try to be an example of character to our children, realizing character can be shown in many ways, not.just.one.