Greg (oops! I promised him I wouldn’t mention his name in this article) and I were walking through the mall recently when I spotted a toy microwave.

&uot;This is great for Collier,&uot; I said, snatching it up.

Collier is my 2-year-old nephew. In the past two months, he has managed to destroy two microwaves at my mother’s house.

The first one was destroyed when he put the cordless phone in it, hit the quick-c00o button and then sat and watched the phone melt down.

&uot;Phone cook,&uot; he said.

We still haven’t determined how the second one bit the dust, although by this point we had at least figured out that we should unplug the thing when Collier was around. The door became his target then, and it quickly came to an untimely end.

&uot;Light on,&uot; was his response then.

It was because of his penchant for microwaves that I thought the toy one was a perfect Christmas gift.

Greg did not agree.

&uot;That’s a girl toy,&uot; he said.

What?

A girl toy? Boys can’t use microwaves?

I was mad.

&uot;There is no such thing as boy toys or girl toys,&uot; I huffed. &uot;A boy can play with a doll and a girl can play with a toy truck. Toys are toys. Children are children.&uot;

He smiled the knowing smiile of a father and then walked back to the hunting area of the store, obviously in search of big boy toys.

I was still mad, though I learned a long time ago that childless people shouldn’t argue with parents about childrenrearing. It’s like a man saying that high heels are really comfortable.

I guess it’s the whole &uot;if you ain’t walked a mile in my shoes&uot; thing.

Still, I was a child who just so happened to be a girl and my brother was a child who just so happened to be a boy. We shared some toys, right?

Well, maybe.

I played with his G.I. Joe, but only so my Barbie would have a groom with kung-fu grip. He played with my remote-control Barbie Corvette, but only when he discovered he could ramp it off the back deck, sending it spiraling down 10 feet to the ground.

But that doesn’t mean there are boy toys and girl toys and I want my nephews to know this.

They are well on their way, of course, thanks to their enlightened and progressive aunt.

Case in point: we were over at their cousins house once. The cousin just so happens to be a girl and has some Barbie dolls.

Isaac, Collier’s older brother, picked the doll up, bent it at its waist and then used the doll as a gun.

See? A toy set of pots and pans can’t be far behind.

Leada DeVaney is the president and publisher of Hartselle Newspapers (the Hartselle Enquirer and the Madison County Record). She is the former managing editor of the Shelby County Reporter