The difference between boys and girls in terms of behavior is pretty subjective and largely depends on who you are talking to. Some psychologists will tell you that our children are programmed by our expectations, not their genetics, and how we mold them based on those expectations. I firmly believe that is a load of…. diapers.
I do think that families play a huge role in the behavior of the children who grow up in those families, but I also think that gender plays a very big role in their behavior as well. It wouldn’t be a stereotype if it weren’t true at least more than half the time, right? I spent a lot of time working with babies of all ages when I taught at a daycare during college. One thing I noticed right off the bat was the differences in the way the children played, even as early as one year old.
Girls are usually the talkers and boys are typically full of action. Girls tended to seek out my lap while boys were usually climbing onto tables and window sills. When one of the male staff would run into the room with arms wide open, the boys would run at him yelling and hollering to be swept up and swung around, while the girls would cower behind something or scatter away. There were a few exceptions, of course, but in general the boys were the “monkeys” and the girls were the “sweethearts.” It was a boy that tackled me every morning and a girl that always tried to plant a kiss on my lips (much to my embarrassment!).
It is a lot of fun to compare stories with my husband’s parents, who raised two boys and one girl, and my own parents, who had me and my sister. All of us fit the stereotypes to a T, and it looks like my son is going in that same direction. At a year and a half, he is climbing onto tabletops and getting his knees stuck in baby gates. I am always asking my mom if I tried half the stunts my son does on a daily basis and the answer is always “no.” I certainly never ran around the house, full speed, yelling “mow mow” (mower) over and over whenever the neighbor decided to mow the lawn.
I’d be interested to hear about your experiences with gender stereotypes and your kids. Since comments are currently disabled, I’m going to start up a discussion in the forums. You can find it here.