We read in Sunday's ARA a report that gave parents tips on how to help themselves The boys want to dress up as superheroes and the girls as princessesTo offer them other, more "educational" suggestions. The keys I always used when it came to denying or granting a costume, I confess, were stinginess and laziness. But I disguised it. Because if we have to dress up for Carnival, let's do it on the inside too. I created the character of the sustainable mother who doesn't want to pollute the planet with clothes bought at Temu, which will take up a lot of space in the closet and next year won't even fit the dog. I became my own mother, wanting to take advantage of the opportunity and do something creative for the sake of children's imaginations. Just think, readers, that on the day we were supposed to wear pajamas, I had to go to Montse Interiors to buy a pair that looked new, because what we actually wore at home were those pants from the market and the t-shirts from races. I've always laughed when the rule has been "wear mismatched socks." And when hasn't it?

Efforts have been underway for some time to eradicate sexist language, including reducing sexism in areas such as advertising and toys. Is the same effort being made in the children's costume sector? In other words, has the range of options broadened beyond princess or ballerina costumes for girls and superhero, police officer, or athlete costumes for boys? For psychologist Elena Crespi, the answer is a resounding "no." She points out that although a new self-regulation code came into effect three years ago, aiming to prevent catalogs and advertisements from linking a type of toy to a specific gender, "wherever we're going, we still see that in firefighter and police officer figures and toys, boys continue to be the protagonists of images typically associated with girls." The only change, he adds, is that if there is, for example, a police costume in which we can see a girl as a model, the dress automatically changes to sexualize that child with tighter trousers or a skirt, a shirt that opens more or a shorter t-shirt."