When We Grow Up

"From the album’s opening sounds—the jaunty strumming of a banjo on the title track—Free To Be posited a world in which every boy 'grows to be his own man, and 'every girl grows to be her own woman.' The land of Free To Be was a place where girls could grow up to be mommies and doctors, and they didn’t have to get married if they didn’t want to. It was a place where boys could cry or play with dolls without fear of scorn. It was a place where boys and girls could be friends, no matter what they looked like or acted like—unless the girl was a prissy princess, in which case she would be eaten by a tiger."

Dan Kois in Slate looks back to the 1972's Free to Be... You and Me.