Gender Roles?

Over the holidays, we took the children to some indoor playgrounds. Partly to give the kids an outlet for their energy, and partly to give the grandparents a break from the noise and nuttiness. One of the play places had a little town set up, complete with a grocery store, kitchen/diner, laundromat, doctor's office, school, and workshop. In addition, there was a stage for a puppet show, a couple of climbing apparatuses, various foot powered cars, two Thomas the Train wooden train tables, a soft cushion play area, musical instruments and a stage to showcase their talent. It was a wonderful place to spend several hours. Aisling loved climbing onto the various playsets and sliding down, while Devlin gravitated towards the train sets. Ceilidh made a bee line for the "mini town". What was interesting was observing her modelling adult behaviour, in particular stereotypical gender roles. She pushed a shopping cart around and filled it with "groceries", then spent some time in the toy car, stopping for "gas" at the pump. Then she found a baby doll and carried it around while unloading the groceries. At first, I would think that she was role modelling me. but then I watched as she went into the laundromat and started to "iron" the clothes. Hilarious, because in our household, I do NOT iron. That's Daddy's job.
Then Devlin abandoned the trains for the "workshop". Maybe something he's picked up from watching Wayne work on our deck. Or maybe from watching Bob the Builder since he was adept at putting on the yellow hard hat and the tool belt.
Do children learn to model "adult" behaviours from the parents? Do they learn specific roles from television? Does television bombard our children with stereotypical gender roles? For example, women do the shopping and take care of babies while men carry the big construction tools? The commercials obviously cater to the traditional gender roles. How often do we see a commercial for laundry soap with a male actor (unless he's the one wearing the really dirty clothes), or an ad for beer geared to women? Ever see a baby food or baby formula commercial with a "dad" in the advertisement?
While I was theorizing about the gender roles with Wayne, Devlin and Ceilidh then moved to the kitchen area. What we observed next threw my theories out the window. Ceilidh sat down at the table and ordered, while Devlin rushed around to "serve" her. (As an aside, why is it that Ceilidh is more than happy to pretend eat the vegetables, but won't dream of touching the real thing unless coaxed/ bribed/ threatened?) Again a role reversal from the usual way of life in our household.
Throughout this all, Aisling was happy to climb and hoist herself all over the place. She slid down the big kids' slide and quickly declared her boredom with her age-appropriate play area. She wasn't at all interested in the mini town area, except to grab a baby doll out of its doll sized stroller, and try to get into the stroller herself!