6.03.2009

Inherently different?

As an undergrad, I took a lot of communications classes. Not speech classes; the ones were we talk about how we hear and what we hear. I was an advertising and psychology major if that makes it more logical.

Since my oh so enlightening days, I knew I didn't want to gender my (future at that time) children. Things that we think of obvious like pink is for girls and blue is for boys are actually "new" ideas. In the early 1900s, the colors were switched. Pink was associated with red and hot emotions which were thought to be manly. Blue was the peaceful ocean and much more feminine. Could you imagine if I had sent out a pink birth announcement for The Bear? People would have flipped.

I'm not the type to force the opposite gender toys on my kids either though. I'm not going to only give The Bear dollies and tea cups. I do want to have both available though and let him choose. Some days he likes to play with his stuffed baseball player doll and some days he's a truck man.

As he grows up and his personality is more apparent, I do wonder what parts of him are just part of being a boy. He LOVES things with wheels. Balls are the greatest things in the world.

I know there are greater differences within each gender than between the averages of the genders. But if a kid is given boy things and girl things with no pressure to pick a certain path (by parents or society), would there be differences?

I am no in means supporting the whole boys with be boys let them beat everyone up thinking. But are boys and girls inherently different from each other?

2 comments:

Sherry Gann said...

You may be interested in reading the new book Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys. I just checked it out from the library but haven't had time to read it. Here's the amazon link if you'd like to read reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Things-Art-Nurturing-Boys/dp/1414322275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244159394&sr=8-1

***Sharon*** said...

Oh yeah. I hear you. But I've got two girls. Both of them prefer to play with dinosaurs, cars and rocks and you know what? That's fine with me.

I totally think that parents (people) influence boys to play with boy things and girls to play with girl things. I try to find a middle ground. Let my girls play with cars while wearing dresses. ;)