Girls will be girls as gender roles rule, says Sally-Anne Youll

Is this the dialogue between characters in a bad Sunday afternoon John Wayne film? A chat between a 1950s man and wife?

You might think so, but no. It's my daughter overheard talking to her brother, at the tender ages of 10 and eight, already well versed it seems in 1950s gender stereotyping.

We laughed, but deep down I wondered if I had raised a Stepford Wife of the future?

Before you start judging, it wasn't real life, they were actually discussing the game Minecraft – the current childminder of choice.

Stick them in front of a device with the Minecraft app downloaded and they'll be occupied for hours, building homes, schools and empires all in pixelated graphics that look like they're straight from a 1980s ZX Spectrum.

I had thought it was an innocent rival to the more mind-numbing computer games of the age, with its focus on creating a simplistic utopian world of palaces, woodland and self-sufficient smallholdings.

At least I thought it was innocent until my son discovered you could get a bow and arrow and I found him shooting the animals he had created.

But that's another chapter in the story of my failings as a 21st century parent.

So how have these gender roles become so entrenched in their mindset when I like to think I have done nothing to enforce them?

My son was never admonished for wanting to push a doll round in a pushchair as a toddler.

My daughter (so far) shuns make-up and hates to even have her hair brushed.

She does loves One Direction, however, and clothes – although her fashion sense is something I have tried but failed miserably to exert an influence over.

(So you want to wear short dungarees, with a fluorescent pink thick fluffy jumper underneath and gladiator sandals. On a cold and rainy night. And you don't want your hair brushed? OK, I say sounding like the teenager she is turning into. Whatever.)

The truth is that they have their own personalities and there is, whether we like it or not, very little influence we have over what is their essential nature.

Whether it's choices in fashion or computer games, or whether to be a career woman or Stepford Wife, who knows what the future holds.

At least in the world of Minecraft the two of them get on like a house on fire, which is more than they do half the time in real life.

Maybe there is something to be said for traditional gender roles after all.

I'm just off to the crafting table.