Are gender-neutral, inclusive elements in Lego toys and Roald Dahl books effective? Parents and cultural experts debate

SINGAPORE — Mr Tang Meng Kit and his wife are making active efforts to raise their now three-year-old child to be tactful in his future social interactions, but the couple often find their progress stymied by external influences.

Mr Tang, a 36-year-old engineer who is also the father to an eight-month-old girl, said: “For example, we don’t encourage him to say ‘fat people’. But one way or another, he learns about it and out it comes from his mouth and we have to correct him.”

He believes that it is important to inculcate a sense of inclusivity in a child from young, but Mr Tang, like several others interviewed by TODAY, said that it can be an overkill if taken too far.

These comments came on the back of recent announcements by two popular brand names that they were making some changes in an effort to be more inclusive.

On Feb 24, British news media reported that Puffin, the publisher of the late whimsical wordsmith Roald Dahl, would be releasing a separate version of his classic children's books that had been combed through by “sensitivity readers” — people who read for offensive content, misrepresentation, stereotype and bias, among other things.  

For instance, changes would include using “enormous” rather than “fat” to describe the antagonist Augustus Gloop in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and “beastly” rather than “ugly and beastly” to describe Mrs Twit in The Twits.

Gender-neutral terms have also been added. For instance, where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Oompa Loompas have been described as “small men”, they will now be “small people”.

Separately, toy manufacturer Lego also announced this month that it has released a new range of characters for its Lego Friends Universe series that not only represented people of different cultures and ethnicity, but also mental health conditions and physical traits.

Revisions to intellectual property or products to meet the zeitgeist of inclusivity and diversity are not new, and Puffin and Lego are following suit, ostensibly responding to the perceived need to align with contemporary attitudes.

Some other examples include a new edition of Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was published in 2011 without the mention of a racial slur.

In 2021, consumer products company Hasbro gave the venerable Mr Potato Head toy a new identity by dropping the salutation “Mr” in its name in a bid to make it gender-neutral.

MIXED REACTIONS

Parents in Singapore interviewed by TODAY such as Mr Tang and others generally welcomed the move by Lego, but they questioned the effectiveness of Puffin’s decision.

Mr Tang said that children sometimes see themselves represented in toys and so, having a diverse range of characters, as in the case of Lego, would be a good way to teach the young that there are other people who are not like them.

And even if his son does not play with the brand’s toys, he added that just seeing these characters at a shop may spark the child’s curiosity and lead to conversations.

“This creates awareness and hopefully, with it, empathy and sympathy (for others),” Mr Tang said.

Mr Calvin Chew, head of the Christian Outreach to the Handicapped daycare centre, said that because the Lego figurines represent various types of people, it helps to “normalise” the mindsets of persons who play with them constantly that everyone is equal regardless of how they look or behave.

However, a father of a special needs son disagreed and said that such efforts by toy makers are unnecessary, because toys do not need to be representative of the real world since they serve as tools to stimulate the imagination.

The 51-year-old electronics engineer who gave his name as just Ravi said: “It’s too early to show children (the realities of life)... There is no need to force it. Let it take its own pace.”

Mr Ravi, who has a 21-year-old son with autism and another son aged nine, suggested that parents should instead entertain their child’s curiosity if they encounter someone different from them, and patiently contextualise why this is so for them.

“To have a situation where you remove the ‘Mr’ in a toy’s name is so absurd. It’s not like there are no misters in this world,” he said, referring to the Mr Potato Head toy.

IT'S ABOUT THE INTENT

In terms of the written word found in books, for example, Mr Tang said that unlike the physical nature of toys, words are abstract and a child will have no grasp of the importance of a word unless it is explained.

Returning to his earlier anecdote, he said that just because a word that is now deemed offensive is removed, it does not mean that it will lead to a “perfect society” where no one offends another.

Agreeing, Mr Chew from Christian Outreach to the Handicapped said: “It's really all about the intent, rather than the terms chosen.”

To illustrate, Mr Chew recounted how he was once on a study trip to a primary school in Australia that caters to children with special needs and it was situated next to a mainstream school for “better integrative opportunities”.

He then learnt from a staff member of the special needs school that some of the students from the mainstream school would go right up to the fence separating the two schools and taunt their counterparts by shouting: "You have special needs!"

Mean-spirited children, he said, would still use insulting, offensive or humiliating words to hurt others.

The crux, therefore, lies in how children are taught and shown kindness, compassion and understanding towards people with different needs, and it is not all tied directly to cultural products such as literature and learning materials such as toys.

Mr Tang stressed the importance of parents correcting their children when they step out of line in their behaviour towards others.

Giving his perspective on cultural products, Associate Professor Barrie Sherwood, a novelist and an expert on creative writing at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), said that literature is not meant to be read in a void.

“We contextualise what we read with broader knowledge and react with delight or disgust to, for example, the biases and beliefs of the characters therein.”

And when one reacts negatively to fictional characters that are, for example, either sadistic or manipulative, it “reaffirms our belief in kindness”, Assoc Prof Sherwood added.

Providing some context for the editing of Dahl’s work, Assistant Professor Katherine Blyn Wakely-Mulroney, who lectures on the author in one of her children’s literature courses at NTU, remarked that the status of the beloved children’s author has been called into question many times in recent years as a result of his anti-Semitic views, among other things.

“Dahl was a remarkably gifted children’s author, but he was also a remarkably nasty, bigoted human being,” she said.

However, she did say that although she understands why modern publishers are concerned about the ethics of giving his books to 21st-century children, censorship is never the solution where literature is concerned.

Removing or revising offending passages from Dahl’s books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda is more beneficial to Dahl’s publishers who are making these adjustments for commercial reasons, than it is for inclusivity in children’s literature, she added.

“There is no need to make Dahl into something he wasn’t. As it is with the diverse Lego toys, the emphasis should be on creating new inclusive works, rather than trying to refashion old books according to modern tastes.”

Assoc Prof Sherwood also said that someone else’s literature or artwork is not the place to promote one’s own agenda, no matter how laudable that agenda may be.

“We have to be free as readers, viewers and audience members to interpret the art we encounter, judge it, accept or deny it, and in so doing, evolve as civilised human beings.”

From a parenting point of view, Mr Shaun Ho, a father of three children aged one to eight, said that such censorship or editing would only serve to mollycoddle children.

The 36-year-old logistician worries that if society goes down this path in which any form of media a child consumes has to be politically correct, it could be to their detriment.

“Like that, our kids, if you scold them just a little bit in future, they will just crumble (from having a lack of emotional resilience).”

NO SHORTCUTS

Commenting on these developments, Dr G Kaveri of the Singapore University of Social Sciences said that the early years are the formative years when young children develop their identities.

Gender identities, for example, begin to develop by the time children are three years old, added the senior lecturer in early childhood education at the university's SR Nathan School of Human Development.

Even though children’s literature and toys are powerful tools to enable the young to discover their individual and social identities, Dr Kaveri said that there is no shortcut or an instant formula to promote inclusivity and diversity.   

Rather, it is up to the adults in young children’s immediate environments — parents, caregivers and preschool educators  — to influence a child's disposition.

For instance, everyday interactions offer an excellent platform to respond to children’s questions and comments and to discuss diversity with them.

“Having intentional conversations about inclusivity and diversity can help children develop positive individual and social identities and build relationships with others, which is closely connected to their overall well-being,” Dr Kaveri added.

This means that adults must make careful and intentional choices about how to respond to children’s questions and comments, including using respectful language.

"Adults must capitalise on these opportunities and make good use of the teachable moments to facilitate (a child's) understanding of the experiences around them," she said.

“If children are left to their devices, they can form conclusions about identities with implications for their social competencies.”