August 4, 2005 9:00 AM
The Truth About Boys and Girls - Part One
They really are different. Here's what to do about it
Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails? Sugar and spice and everything nice?
What are little boys and girls made of, after all? Before the sixties, this question sparked little controversy. You had a daughter, you raised a girl. You had a son, you raised a boy. But then along came the feminist movement, poking holes in all our preconceived notions of "girlness" and "boyness." "We need to raise boys like we raise girls," said Gloria Steinem — thus blessing "girl" behavior as the norm, and boy behavior as aberrant.
This philosophy, quickly embraced in academic circles, filtered down into the schools and throughout our culture, and finally to parents. According to a Newsweek poll, 61 percent of parents believe that differences in behavior between girls and boys are not inborn, but a result of the way they're raised. But are they?
As a teacher and mother of 11, I've been riding the nature versus nurture pendulum for years. In fact, I gave it a good push myself, prompted by the birth of my daughter Samantha in 1969. My feminist period began with our first trip to the library, when I noted with alarm the absence of girls in kid's books (thankfully, this has changed). Ever the conscientious mother, I spent hours replacing pronouns and feminizing male critters of every species (think curled and beribboned bird in Are You My Mother?).
I firmly believed that boys and girls were different only because of parental programming. Fourteen years later, I had to admit I was wrong. Not because anyone persuaded me, but because I ran into evidence I couldn't resist.
I gave birth to a son.
The moment 9-month-old Josh scooted his spoon across his high chair tray making engine noises, I met my feminist Waterloo. When he purposely ran headlong into danger, wrestled with his sisters' dolls, and sidestepped my domestic disarmament policy by turning every stick and sausage link into a gun, I had to concede there must be something to this innate difference thing.
My experience reflects, in a small way, twenty years of confusion in theoretical circles where concepts like gender differences and sex role stereotypes are researched and debated. These debates grind on slowly. But those of us in the trenches — real parents raising real children — need answers that work today. Even with eight sons and four daughters I still don't have all the answers, nor do I feel qualified to end an age-old discussion on maleness and femaleness. But I do know this: God created our children and calls us to faithfully nurture them as they become men and women. Here's how:
Recognize the reality of gender differences
Our grandmothers told us and now science has given us the official word: Boys and girls are different. Even as infants, boys have higher levels of testosterone, which stimulates aggressive behavior, and lower levels of serotonin, which inhibits it. Researchers have found that infant boys cry more when unhappy while girls tend to comfort themselves by sucking their thumbs. Even at this early stage, girls seem to have more control of their emotions.
Newborn girls spend more time than newborn boys maintaining eye contact with adults. At four months, infant girls have better face recognition than boys. Conversely, infant boys are better able to track a blinking light across a TV monitor (a portent of adolescent video fixation?), and will gaze as intently at a blinking light as at a human face.
Take those incipient neonatal differences and add four years. Now the disparity is even greater, with girls better equipped for building relationships and interpreting emotions, and boys gifted with a better understanding of spatial relationships — knowledge greatly in demand in complex societies.
Then there are the differences in language. Dawn MacDonald, a California mother, says, "The most noticeable difference between my four girls and subsequent two boys has to be the vehicle-noise-imitation thing. In eleven years of raising four girls, I never once heard one of them make any noise that sounded like a vehicle revving up. But when Sawyer was 12 months old, he picked up a toy airplane and "flew" it complete with airplane sounds. At the same age, Kellen did the same thing—only with a motorcycle. And so for the past four years we've been treated to a constant assortment of vehicle noises provided by Sawyer and Kellen — a background to which none of my girls has ever contributed."
In one study, researchers found boys using words only 60 percent of the time and a variety of colorful noises the remainder, while girls use words almost exclusively — as anyone who takes kids to the playground knows.
Genetically, a child is a unique package of possibilities. Certain predispositions will be expressed if environmental conditions are right. And these may fade or flourish depending on how they're reinforced. Stanley Greenspan, pediatric psychiatrist at George Washington University and author of The Growth of the Mind (Perseus Books), compares the relationship between genetics and environment to a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance. "If either Fred or Ginger moves too fast, they both stumble. Nature affects nurture affects nature and back and forth. Each step influences the next."
While science keeps changing its mind, it's clear to parents everywhere that boys and girls truly are different creatures from the moment they arrive. It's what we do with those differences that matters.
What You Should Know
•Theory's one thing — parenting is another. Regardless of what researchers say about the nature versus nurture debate, the bottom line is that you know your children best. Whether your son and daughter are wildly different or very much alike, rest assured that they are created in the image of God.
•Every home's a mini-science lab. Be a good observer and look for ways your children express their differences. Give them opportunities to explore their varying interests.
•Children have a wonderful way of challenging our assumptions. Don't worry if your daughter shows no interest in dolls or your son likes purple. What's important is that they feel loved and accepted for who they are.
•Let language happen. Your sons are likely to use words later and less often than their sisters. This difference in development is rarely indicative of a problem. Keep talking to your son and eventually, he'll start talking back.
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Hope this is helpful - it's from an article I published a few years ago in Christian Parenting Today. Part Two tomorrow.
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Comments
Ain't it funny--my boys loved stuffed teddy bears, and used them in much the same way as a football or a baseball bat, while my girls also appreciated those ugly, plastic, steroid muscle-men monster things, cuddling them and burping them and nestling them on their shoulders. (They didn't need burping of course, this being another one of those boy-noises that substitutes for language skills.)
Posted by: Veronique | August 4, 2005 11:22 PM
I noticed the difference just the other day in my children's view of a rainstorm we were having. As they watched out the window I heard my five year old daughter exclaim over the nice drink of water the plants were getting.. while my four year old boy saw tornados decending from the dark clounds and he saw an army of warriors coming down to fight... (the lightning was their swords..) I just smiled and thought there is no way I could raise him as a girl, or my girl as a boy! :)
Julie
Posted by: Julie | August 5, 2005 5:52 PM
As an avowed feminist, I don't really have a problem with the notion that there may be inherent gender differences between girls and boys.
The controversy arises from the differing conclusions people draw from this phenomenon, and how we respond to apparent gender differences. I, social norms cause gender differences to be for one, think that people tend to draw overly broad conclusions from our observations of how children play. I also think that social norms cause gender differences to become grossly exaggerated. (For example, there is no dispute that men have superior physical abilities in many areas than women. But somehow, this has resulted in social norms in which, until recently, girls and women had ridiculously limited opportunities to participate in sports. In turn, women's lack of participation in sports made women even weaker than they might otherwise be. Now we are finally beginning to see female athletes shatter traditional, societal expectations of what the female body can accomplish.)
As a feminist it is of crucial importance to me that I do not make assumptions about the strengths and weaknesses of individual boys and girls. I do not assume that gender differences in young children translates into a social imperative that the mother must always be the one to stay home with the children. I am also careful not to draw overly broad conclusions from perceived gender differences among young children. For example, I will admit that boys and men probably tend to be more physical and perhaps confrontational than girls and women. But that does NOT mean that mrn are more suited to adversarial professions such as litigation (which is my own field). I may not engage in "in your face" tactics that are often favored by male attorneys but I am an equally aggressive, competitive, and effective advocate (at least!) for my clients despite my more "feminine" style.
Posted by: cmc | August 8, 2005 3:01 PM
This is awfully interesting, and I do have a few comments.
First of all, I've noticed that sometimes people speaking from a conservative perspective act as though society simply suddenly radically changed out of nowhere during the 1960s. But the truth is that changes in male and female roles began in many ways during the industrial revolution. The concerns we have now over latchkey kids and both parents working are depicted in Emile Zola's "Germinal" with as much concern as any article written today. Economic forces as much as any philosophical debate have challenged ideas on the role of male and female.
I do agree that willfully following a radical feminist agenda to make both sexes identical in every way does not seem to work or to be wise. However, I like you observe what is around me, and I notice interesting things. For instance a friend of mine is in some ways stereotypically feminine, in that she loves shopping and fusses over her clothing and adores children. She also rides a motorcycle, has worked in chemical waste disposal, and is perfectly capable of physically defending herself.
Another thing I can't help but think of is that stereotyping of the sexes is just as dangerous as the radical feminist agenda. For instance it suggests that a boy is effeminate if he actually communicates well with words and is more quiet than aggressive, or that a girl is unfeminine if she likes to play with toy trucks.
Posted by: Rob | August 30, 2005 3:59 PM
Perhaps those changes in "male/female" roles began even earlier...in the 20's when women fought for rights to vote? Did that begin the shift to "get out from under" male headship (or in feminist terms: male domination")?
Posted by: Tara | August 30, 2005 9:42 PM
I, too, am a lawyer--and I'm also a housewife. Weirdly, I prefer the latter occupation, but I will gladly take up the mantle of the former for a good cause.
I'd love to ask "cmc": Why do you take a case? Your comment seems to suggest in "effective advocate for my clients" that you do so out of a desire to be helpful. Is that assessment correct--deep down? I know we, as a profession, are committed to justice, but do you take a client because of the justness of his cause, or because he needs help?
I'll bet it's the latter, which is a strong difference between us and men. They "fix." We "help." (Unintended pun.)
Posted by: Doc | September 2, 2005 8:10 AM
