Gender Issues
A few differences between the sexes seem to be innate. For instance, toddler boys tend to be more active and fussier than girls. Although boys don't actually cry more, their sleep tends to be more disturbed. As a group, girls' language skills develop faster than boys'. Girls also develop bladder and bowel control a few months earlier.
Of course, these are tendencies and group averages. The differences vanish when individual children are considered. There are lots of calm, moderate-energy boys who sleep soundly and are potty trained at an early age. Lots of active, fussy little female insomniacs reach their fourth or fifth birthday before they make it through the night without wetting the bed. Most differences are due to how boys and girls are raised. When twelve-month-old boys build towers out of blocks and zoom toy cars across the floor, for example, research has shown that parents nod, smile, and praise them more than when little girls do the same thing. The older boys get, the more support they receive for playing with “boy” toys, and the more they are subtly or actively discouraged from playing with Cinderella. Parents are less upset and react less intensely when girls cross the gender line in their choice of play activities.
Adults typically talk to boys and girls very differently. They subtly encourage boys' independence, offering more support when they head off to explore and providing the kind of guidance that helps them solve problems themselves. In contrast, adults typically provide girls with fewer problem-solving tools by ignoring them more or by solving problems for them. Studies show that adults are more likely to use baby talk with girls than with boys, employing diminutive forms like “doggy” or “dolly” nearly twice as often.
Guys and Dolls: Teaching the Stereotypes
It is not possible to predict what sexual orientation a toddler will ultimately adopt. It is normal for toddlers of both sexes to imitate the behavior of both parents. Sensitive boys with tastes that run more to the artistic than the athletic will have a harder time developing comfort with their masculinity if their parents cannot accept these traits, and instead try to push them into more macho roles.
When children of either sex play with baby dolls, they are doing what they see parents, sitters, and day care staff do: take care of babies. Baby dolls can be helpful to boys as well as girls in several ways. They provide practice nurturing and taking care of a baby, enhance feelings of closeness to parents, and prepare toddlers for coping with uncomfortable situations. Dolls can also help older toddlers resolve their feelings about trying situations and traumas. After imagination has developed and before children can talk effectively about their problems, re-enacting upsetting events through play helps children work through anxieties and come to terms with troubling emotions. Playing with dolls doesn't turn boys into homosexuals any more than it turns girls into lesbians.
Core gender identity is formed during the toddler years. Children may go through phases of being a Mommy's boy or Daddy's girl and regularly mimic the behaviors of both men and women, but by age two they should have a conception of themselves as being male or female. Three-year-olds usually identify with the same-sex parent, which is often reflected in their stance, the way they walk, their gestures, and some of their speech patterns. Toddlers typically identify people's sex by their peripheral characteristics, such as clothing, hairstyle, or use of makeup; they don't have a real conception of what it means to be male or female. To increase identification, the same-sex parent should:
Spend more time engaging in activities the child enjoys, since this can strengthen the parent-child bond.
Be more accepting and less critical, since children emulate people they feel close to.
Be kinder toward a spouse. (Children are protective of both parents and commonly align themselves with the one they feel is being picked on or unfairly attacked.)
Sugar and Spice
Most modern parents want to avoid raising their children in accordance with old gender stereotypes. They want their daughters to have a positive self-image, be comfortable asserting themselves, and have wider career aspirations. They want their sons to be able to express a range of emotions, nurture others, and cooperate as well as compete. However, researchers say it is almost a given that parents will pass on the sexism they've absorbed from the culture-at-large because so much of it is unconscious. Other research has demonstrated the following:
Parents react differently to videotapes of toddlers engaged in routine play. For instance, subjects describe a child's response to a jack-in-the-box as “fearful” if they're told the little one is a girl, but “angry” if they're told the child is a boy.
Most parents are now okay with little gun-toting Annie Oakleys and are far more comfortable than in decades past when little females oversee Tinker Toy, Lincoln Log, and building block construction sights. But many still get squirmy when a boy expresses more than passing interest in a doll or dresses up in a girl's clothes.
Parents display more pleasure and spend more time interacting when their little boy tosses a foam rubber ball in the house than when their little girl does the very same thing.
Girls get more encouragement for staging tea parties and playing house.
When the daily dose of words and hugs are tallied, day care center teachers respond far more often to boys than to girls.
Gender stereotyping on TV remains intense; it doesn't take kids long to figure out who is supposed to want My Little Ponies and Hot Wheels.
In disputes over toys, adults commonly urge little girls to “share” and reprimand them for taking a boy's toy. Adults help little boys “protect their turf” by helping them fend off interlopers who try to take their toys.
That's So Cute!
The differences in the way adults respond to cutely dressed kids shows how subtle but powerful sexist stereotypes are transmitted. When one little miss entered a day care center dressed to the nines, the staff clucked, “Aren't you sweet!” “You're so cute!” “Isn't she darling!” The belle of the toddler crowd smiled and wiggled with delight. A moment later a little boy entered the very same center. He, too, was all dressed in a coordinated outfit. The same staff members clucked, “What a darling little sweater!” “Such cute pants.” “Look at those cute elephants!”The little boy leaned over to study the embroidered elephants trudging across the front of his sweater. The messages conveyed to these children were clear: When she dresses up,
Parents as Role Models
It's not just the differential treatment from adults that instills sexism at such a tender age, researchers say. All toddlers need to do is observe the daily household routine to see that mothers devote more time to food, clothing, cleanliness, and children's feelings while fathers are chiefs when it comes to maintaining yards, cars, and rules. (If spouses argue about who doesn't do enough of what around the house, watching who-does-what when their child starts playing house can settle it.)
Given that most youngsters are exposed to adult sexuality via TV shows, music videos, and commercials, it isn't surprising that curiosity runs high, or that many try to mimic the behavior they see. This is yet another reason to monitor — and limit — children's TV viewing.
Even when “Mr. Mom” is responsible for the household and the mother is the breadwinner, men relate to children differently than women do. For example, women tend to carry infants facing in, toward their chest, while men more often carry them facing out so they can see the world.
It should come as no surprise that by twenty-four months toddlers are adhering to their sugar-and-spice versus puppy-dog-tail roles. If they're not, she's probably being labeled a “tough cookie,” rather than a self-possessed little girl, while adults are probably running out of patience with his tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve and are searching for ways to help him develop a thicker skin.
