I had this idea to go to start setting up my daughter's play room before the winter hits and everything gets a lot more difficult to source and obtain. I wanted to get the kid furniture early so as she grows into it she knows where everything is. Parameters: 1. Wooden. 2. Numerous roles and activities.

First I tried IKEA. It has a great little role play kitchen setup and all the accessories for it. Great. It's wooden, looks better than our own kitchen, just what we wanted. The range elements even light up.

IKEA

Good? Hell no.

What about all the other activities we do as parents that she would want to role play? We don't live in the kitchen.

I can tell you one thing, good luck finding a similar quality workbench. Forget a little computer desk or something of the techy sort, all I wanted was a wooden workbench with little pretend tools that weren't crap quality. I do home renovations when I have time (as you can guess by my previous posts) and I wanted for my daughter to be able to imitate some parts of it. Kids do that, the emulate their parents until one day they realise their parents are full of shit.

Source

This is the best one I found so far but unfortunately plastic. This company does have a solid selection of activities.

Step2 Toys

Girl vs Boy Toys

If we look at the issue as girl toys vs boy toys, if you have a son then he's getting crappy plastic tool benches while your daughter will have pristine kitchen setups, complete with a little sink and microwave. Is there some sort of a toy furniture manufacturers' vendetta against boys? I know the SJW crowd ruined Lego play for some boys, but I doubt they have the power to suddenly make every manufacturer only produce crappy plastic tool benches while making high-quality wooden kitchen sets.

Now that I think about it, there are far fewer toys and activities designed specifically for boys than there are for girls in the stores. For boys, you're supposed to give the little tyke a ball and say "go play". Girls, on the other hand, have a giant selection of craft activities full of pink and purple sparkles. If a girl doesn't like making bracelets or something there are fifty other things she can make out of those kits. The only similar activities designed for boys are model car sets which are impossible for a child to complete themselves (or for most adults). Boys who don't like cars are shit out of luck.

I personally think that manufacturers should ditch the whole girl vs boy toy crap and market more toys to both genders. Girls do need to know how to use a hammer (I helped a lady move some boxes once and when I asked her why all her paintings were on the floor or leaned up against things she said it's because she's been single for a decade and there was no one to hang them up for her). Boys need to know how to sew because, as my grandfather told me, "in the army you need to know how to repair your own uniform". These are just examples.

KidKraft - Amazing detail and quality but unsure why the color segregation

At this rate she's going to get real tools to play with and I'll be making her a workbench (or just buying one, most of them look like children's toys anyways). Now I understand why when I was a kid my dad gave me a real wood etching set and said go burn whatever you want.

Blaming the Stores

Here is an article in The Atlantic that outlines gender-segregated toys and mentions that in the 70s the segregation decreased due to women in the workforce. However, when I venture into the cesspool of Walmart I don't see anything except segregated isles of the same crap. The toys that are actually gender-neutral are for much older kids (think Lego-type sets) or for very young babies, which she already has.

Here is another article that notes that kids who play with a full range of toys are better off than those who don't: "We concluded that strongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys." My rant about the lack of quality workbench aside, this article supports my idea of giving my daughter more options than just pretend baking a cake.

I'm just going to take a guess, as a reasonable person would, and derive that the reason for gender-segregated toys is that families with both boys and girls have to spend double on toys rather than buying toys the kids can share. That's pretty smart. Fucks up the kids, but is pretty smart. Target is changing things now but for the wrong SJW-related feminazi-lobbyist reasons (and are being boycotted by Bible-thumpers who can't figure out what to buy their grandkids without pink and blue isles). At the same time, forcing activities attributed to the opposite gender is the other extreme of parental retardation. LiveScience writes that even monkeys know what toys they prefer. The article offers a good analysis of the issue but ultimately the theme is that children should pick what they wish to play with. It just can't all be made out of wood to make a matching playroom, unfortunately.