I'll Take the Tea Set

My mother recently asked what He'en might like for her birthday. Feeling quite cheerfully smug, I whipped out my Magic Phone, activated the Memo app, and rattled off the list that I've been keeping thereon.

When I got to "Tea Set or Similar Pretending Toys," my diplomatic mother paused and delicately posed the question, "Now, are you sure you are good with her having a tea set or, er, a pretend kitchen stove, or things like that?"

This brought me up short. Well, of course little He'en could play with a tea set!  But then I realized that this question was justifiably loaded.  I had been quite a stinker about waving the Women Can Do Anything banner in my teens and twenties. I also probably had been quite a stinker during the same timeframe about my mother's choice to be a stay-at-home-mom.

Now that I've checked out of the rat race to spend my own days cutting sandwiches into triangles and stringing Cheerios onto necklaces, I have a completely different perspective . . . and here proffer public apology to my mother, who was a terrific SAHM.

So I mused over her question and concluded that, yes, I was OK with He'en playing with a tea set. After all, as I told Mom, I spent nearly ten years playing with my Little Lawyer Activity Kit and found it sadly wanting:

One (1) law diploma
One (1) bar admission card
One (1) very heavy desk
Forty-two (42) partially-written letters, briefs, and motions
Two (2) computers

For all this, you pay only $140,000.  Expansion items in the same set, sold separately, include:

Crazy Opposing Counsel Talking Doll:  threatens sanctions when you pull a string in its back!

Grumpy Judge Action Figure:  lifts and lowers a magazine during hearings and repeats, "Denied."

Assorted Business Cards

I know every generation needs to find its own way. But since I've been asked my opinion, I'll say, for the love of God, yes, please buy my daughter a tea set.