The source text is written by a married woman who is a mother of three boys.

In the text, she discusses about the different factors affecting the way a child plays as well as the influence that these factors have on his transition into adulthood. The author writes in an informal tone and supports some of her claims with her personal experiences as a mother. Her intended target audience would thus be young, first time parents and child psychologists.

The writer expresses her concern of how children would be shaped by gender stereotypes and how it would affect the grown-ups theyll become. However, I question if she is truly concerned for the childs interest or for the parents desire for their child to be what they want him to be. This is shown when she expresses her expectation for her son to be a sweet and caring man. In the article, the author writes of parentsnoble goal to empower our sons and daughters to make their own way in the world and to liberate them from the rigid definition of what it means to be a man or a woman. However, in my opinion, the issue most parents are concerned about would be that their child is conforming to societal expectations of gender roles and identities. In fact, most parents would be worried if their child does not fit into the gender stereotype society had already formed and becomes someone whom the public is not ready to accept (i.e. gays). Therefore, it leads me to wonder if the author had truly believed in allowing children the freedom to test these gender boundaries to create a new identity for their own. The author also mentions that a childs urge is to imitate whatever social routine is at hand in which parents play a large role in. This shows that from the time a child is born, his parents are already beginning to influence him to be the adult they want him to be by the way they behave or speak. Thus, I am inclined to believe that the call for liberation from the strict stereotypes set in

place by society is not just for the childs freedom to explore outside the boundaries of these stereotypes but rather for the parents to mould their child according to their desires.

In further analysis, the author explains the impact of the cultural factor affecting the way children play when she claims that when your daughter watches a commercialboys are oohing and ahhingshell most likely pick up...on the subtextthis isnt a toy for girls. I infer that the writer is saying that when a girl watches something most boys are interested in, shell get the cue that this is not a girls thing. However, the evidence she provides is not substantial to prove this point and hence, it shows that she has a narrow point of view. This is because she assumes that girls would naturally deviate from things which interest boys, which is not often the case.

Overall, I think that the author is fairly successful in presenting the different factors affecting the way a child plays. She includes evidences from other experts as well as her wealth of experience as a mother to explain how the different factors work. However, as seen from the previous paragraph, I feel that she should have included other factors to ensure that her thesis has a broader point of view. For example, she could have shared how children themselves are constrained to conform to societal expectations of gender identity so that it seem that there is indeed a greater need for parents to step in to free them from such pressure, and not that parents are only more concerned if their children fulfill their expectation.