Oh great, thank you - now I have that godawful song stuck in my head

Me too

What should he have been?

I always thought Tizwas and Swap shop were good shows growing up as a kid. We used to watch them for the whole morning on rainy Saturdays, no morals no messages just a bit of fun. They don't seem to have anything like that these days.

I replaced it with The Rain Song, which I had on in the car at lunch

Pink, and pixelated.

I seem to recall in Britain in the 80's there was some push to ban Enid Blyton in public libraries due to the sexist nature of the stories. Mostly because the boys took the main lead in the stories and made all the important decisions.

Do'nt remember public libraries, but schools dumped them.

I don't think there is as much of a problem with outdated gender role definitions as we may be led to believe. In some cases the 1950s attitude prevails but anecdotally, I am hard pushed to think of any women or girls I know who see themselves in any way subservient to men, or that their abilities are in any way inferior.

I am including my own daughter, who loves princess, dresses and being girly enough to throw my parenting ability into question by certain trendy city types (need I mention that was deliberately rude ). She is certainly no pushover when it comes to dealing with blokes. Or anyone, for that matter.

Yeah, I believe the schools dumped them too.

I remember our English class starting a class library one year. At that time I thoroughly enjoyed reading short ghost stories. My teacher reluctantly allowed them in the library but I always figured it would be better for kids to be reading them than not reading anything at all.

It's more nuanced than that. It's not just about girls having self confidence, though that is an element. It's also about the attitudes of the men that she will encounter and who may be in positions of power over her throughout her life.

Gollywogs wasn't it?
My daughter has spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on her looks which could have been better-directed perhaps, then again she's got a smokin' hot Persian boyfriend out of it so I can't be too harsh on her

We are teaching her not to take shit from anyone, male or female, so hopefully she will be OK on that front. She is remarkably strong minded, quite honestly, I think it will be her causing other people trouble

That, at least in 14 years time anyway, won't be my problem, so rather them than me ...

It's certainly not easy to know how to advise girls.

A lot depends on their peer group.