[Nancy: I, too, replied only to Beth--so here it is for everyone] Beth wrote:
Now Charlie is showing interest in Barbie, and I actually like to see him playing with these dolls.
I'm glad you brought this up, Beth, because I've been thinking about the same thing. My oldest, a boy, likes to play guns sometimes, and has since he was quite small--I can first remember it before he was three. It really bothered me for a long time. He's never been really obsessed, but he did once chew a piece of toast into the shape of a gun! Anyway, now one of his sisters (also almost three) occasionally starts talking about how she has a "shooter." I find that I greet this totally differently than I did his gun play. Maybe (probably) I've mellowed some as a parent, but also I think I'm glad to see them not fitting stereotypes, and sorry when they do--in either case not really letting them be themselves (unless I successfully keep my opinions to myself).
I noticed this recently going the other way, too. My son (now almost 7) is loving the "American Girls" books and would really like one of the dolls. I am turned off by the complete marketing package of books, dolls, stories, names, and many many many accoutrements (all costing money), but basically these seem like a fine thing to play with, and a big improvement on Barbie. I'm trying to convince my son's grandmother to give him one (and that's another story: she said "I saw a carpentry action figure I thought he might like"). I have friends with girls, however, who hide the American Girl catalogue, hoping they can keep them out of their daughters' lives. I think, as the mother of a boy, I'm delighted that he wants a doll, and like Beth, that makes me care less about whatever I might otherwise have cared about: hard sell marketing and $$ in the case of American Girl, body image etc. in the case of Barbie.
And Beth, I don't know what I'd do about the Barbies. I must say that two things I hope I won't have to deal with, but expect I will, are Barbies and a daughter or daughters who want to wear only dresses and party shoes. Both these things make me crazy. (And maybe there's another example of reverse stereotyping: my son went through a long period of wearing mostly dresses and it didn't bother me at all. But it was never hard to get him to change into pants for climbing or running or some other activity where dresses really seem to me to be a drawback).
Margaret