Girls can be robots too: Whither the fembots of yesteryear?My son has reached the dread age where the genders start to separate at school, and he’s not happy. While he likes nominally traditional boy things, such as baseball and basketball and watching cartoon explosions, he also enjoys the company of girls. But the girls at his school mostly play sugar-and-spicy games like princess or Holly Hobbie (which, amazingly, still exists), while the boys run around and pretend to be robots. Given a choice, my son, who’s repeatedly declared that princesses are for losers, would always rather be a robot. But given an additional choice, he’d want the girls to be robots and aliens too. Somewhere in the universe, and certainly in his mind, there are tough female robot and alien role models, but they never show up on the playground. Sadly, the era of pre-school egalitarianism seems to be ending fast.

In my vast experience as an alternative-themed parenting guru, I’ve heard from a lot of parents concerned that our culture is feeding gender stereotypes to their children, almost from birth. They worry about the Disney Princess marketing juggernaut and worry more seriously about Bratz culture, with its makeover parties for six-year-olds and dolls who live only to shop, gossip, and show off their flat bellies. They seem less bothered by the culture surrounding their boys, who, as usual, are playing with trucks and beating one another with sticks, but there’s still concern. An ad for Tonka trucks says “Boys: They’re just built different." This goes along beautifully with an ad for a hideous product called “Rose Petal Cottage,” which features a little girl doing the wash and making cookies accompanied by the lyrics "I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!" It would be foolish to completely deny gender differences, but is it really smart to propagandize our children into Stanley and Stella Kowalski? Man as brute and woman as precious subservient flower is so last century.

We’ve all encountered the tomboy who can execute a perfect hook slide and the little guy who enjoys wearing mommy’s pantyhose. We also know the girl who wears princess dresses to school or the boy whose only mission in life appears to be pile-driving other children into the ground. But the rest of our kids, the ones whose tastes and behaviors don’t entirely seem bound by their chromosomal makeup, can occupy something I call the “nerd middle.” Therein lies the solution to gender stereotyping.

Spongebob's friend Sandy: One tough squirrel Beyond the Transformers and Hannah Montana is a rich menu of dorky gender-neutral characters that command fan fealty, like all corporate entertainment products must. But they also confound traditional notions of what boys and girls should be, and how they should behave. The major female character on Spongebob Squarepants is an ass-kicking karate squirrel from Texas, while the show’s titular hero breaks out into show tunes unbidden, can’t drive a lick, and cares for his pet snail like a little girl would her kitty.

The Star Wars movies have Princess Leia (if not much else) to balance out the portentous testosterone. The lead children in the Narnia saga and The Golden Compass are smart, capable, brave—and girls. Dora The Explorer doesn’t seem interested in makeup and boys, and her cousin Diego only has eyes for baby animals. The Backyardigans, a show that’s previously received a whuppin’ in this space, also passes the nerd middle test. Crappy music aside, The Backyardigans teaches girls that they can be pirates, spies, Vikings, or cowboys. Just as importantly, they teach boys that girls can be those things.

Even superheroes, the traditional rulers of the fortress of male dorkitude, can and should be presented to girls in the nerd middle. In the Justice League: Unlimited cartoon series, which many of my son’s friends watch, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, Black Canary, The Huntress, and several other heroines are presented as the equals, and often the betters, of their male hero counterparts. Kim Possible vaults into action on the Disney Channel, and, while dropping this reference makes me feel old, let us never forget the lessons of The Powerpuff Girls, a show whose central joke revolved around the fact that little girls named Blossom and Buttercup kicked ass.

Golden Compass-Kicker: Lyra Belacqua makes a great role model So the right messages are out there. Why, then, in a world where there’s always a Pink Ranger, has the concept of girl power been so marginalized? Why does it seem radical to suggest that it could be otherwise? For every parent who grumbles about the evils of the Rose Petal Cottage on Feministing, there are a hundred who wouldn’t think twice before taking their girls to the mall to buy Barbie’s Dream Beach House. Even Lisa Simpson, a gender-neutral girl hero if ever one existed, worships her Malibu Stacy dolls. It’s as though we’re willfully ignoring the gender-mixing messages of the media our children consume. Either that, or we never really absorbed the messages in the first place.

From age five on, boys play t-ball while girls take ballet. Coed sleepovers, which really should be acceptable up until age 10, rarely even get off the ground. My wife and I, like good self-righteous urban liberals, try to counteract this as much as possible. Our son plays flag football, but he also takes gymnastics. He likes to peg ants in the backyard with a squirt gun, but he goes to cooking class on Monday evenings. We wrestle in the backyard, and then sometimes on rainy days I take him to kiddie yoga. When he goes over to his girl cousin’s house, they have a gender-free good time: shooting hoops, playing “zoo,” watching Electric Company videos, and staging elaborate High School Musical dance parties. Well, the last activity is pretty girly, but it is her house. Sometimes you must make concessions.

American life, on the surface, has never been more gender-neutral than it is now. Women go to war, and men make dinner. Men win Dancing With The Stars, and there are female American Gladiators. Both genders, apparently, are capable of playing the role of Bob Dylan. The only real gender-exclusive things in the world are the siring of children and childbirth, though recent current events have even called that exclusivity into question. Yet the Bratz persist, and Joe Francis, the pig behind Girls Gone Wild, continues to make millions even as he stews in jail. It’s up to us parents to encourage the gender-neutral side of our culture, and to try and persuade our children that the battle of the sexes need not continue along the same path.

Elijah’s best friend (or second-best, depending on the week) is a cute, smart little girl named Ariel. They’re weird in the exact same way, and it’s obvious that they get each other. Friends like that are rare at any age. Their favorite activity is to play Star Wars, and Ariel always gets to be Luke Skywalker. The fact that a girl is playing a male lead barely even occurs to them.

OMG I just want to EAT his little FACE: Keep the baby-talk indoors, pleaseSex, as Jaime Lynn Spears has recently reminded us, sometimes has consequences. Once a week we analyze what’s going on in post-nookie, post-partum circles.

This week: TMI! Holly Vitale at Babble hits a nerve with her diatribe against parents who drool all over their babies in public. I always sort of thought this was only an opinion held by callow, childless youth, so I’m pleased to discover that some parents are equally grossed out by having to witness scenes like this:

It's like they're having a moment, but the moment goes on and on. I look down at my six-month-old son and wonder if I've depressed him by not cooing enough; by not wrestling him enough; by not generating enough hyperbole around him.

Sandra and Kelly finally rest, panting like — dare I say it — spent lovers. And I kind of feel like I've been trapped in a honeymoon suite watching friends make out.

Vitale doesn’t really get into the reasons why excess babylove grosses her out, but she hints that it’s a competition she doesn’t want to get into: Who loves their kid more?

Speaking of PDA, over at Offsprung Hipster Handbook author Robert Lanham looks at what he calls “Peakers”—parents who publicize how totally fulfilling their sex lives are now that they’ve reproduced. Lanham thinks it’s a generational problem: All these thirtysomethings who came of age in the 90s spent their unencumbered years too busy being ironic to have sex, so they’re making up for lost time.

Which raises an important question. In which of the following conversations would you rather be a third wheel? Your options are:

A) "I think you're the most KISSED baby in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD!” and

B) “Thank God I got a c-section. I would have hated for my vagina to lose any of its elasticity!”

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Mystical reflections of Yom Kippur When: Saturday, September 22, 3:45 PM Where: Quadrangle Club, 1155 E. 57th St Why: Explore the oneness of time, space and consciousness with a totally far-out discussion by Rabbi Yossi Brackman on the mystical dimensions of Yom Kippur.

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Yom Kippur meditation and break-fast When: Saturday, September 22, 9 AM Where: 1404 Greenfield Ave #1

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Yom Kippur services with special speaker Cindy Sheehan, followed by vegetarian potluck break-fast When: Saturday, September 22, 9 AM Where: St. Mark's Lutheran Church, 1111 O'Farell St. Why: This might just be the ultimate hippie Yom ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Interactive Yom Kippur services When: Friday, September 21, Kol Nidre 7:30 PM; Saturday, September 22, Morning Service & Yizkor, 10 AM; Neilah, 4 PM Where: The Lincoln Theater, 541 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach Why: The Mosaic club’s goal is to bring Jews together and promote environmental awareness through worship and outdoor activities. They’ll all be at these services in ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Maayan Tikvah's Yom Kippur services and break-fast When: Saturday, September 22, 4 PM Where: Rabbi Allen's home (email for address: rabbikza@verizon.net) Why: Like you, ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and BagelsWhat: Tashlich drum circle and nature hikeWhen: Thursday, September 13, 4 PM and Friday, September 14, 9 AM Where: “where Venice Beach meets the sand”Why

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and BagelsWhat: Kabbalistic erev Rosh Hashanah servicesWhen: Wednesday, September 12, 8 PM Where: The ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and BagelsWhat: Jewish Drum CircleWhen: Sunday, September 9, 2 PM Where: North Lakeside Cultural Center, on Sheridan Rd just north of GranvilleWhy:

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and BagelsWhat: Interactive Rosh Hashanah ServicesWhen: Wednesday, September 12, 7:30 PM through September 14 Where: The Lincoln Theater, 541 Lincoln Road, ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and BagelsWhat: Tashlich, a nature work, and a pot-luck vegetarian dinnerWhen: Friday, September 13, 5:00 PMWhere: Meet up at Rabbi Katy Z. Allen’s home ...

Diverse Jewish events abound around the holidays, but they tend to concentrate around certain cities (especially New York), and they’re none too easy to find. Luckily, we’ve done the legwork for you. To match our readers up with the best Rosh Hashanah events in the country, we’ve identified seven common Jewish archetypes and found events for each of them in six major U.S. cities: New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. From traditional services to drum circles to the ubiquitous Chabad hoedown, there's something on this list for every Jew. Which one are you? Options below: The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels ...

The Hippie: Dreadlocks and Bagels What: Vegan Rosh Hashanah dinner at Sacred ChowWhen: Friday, September 14, 7:30 PM Where: ...