Before I had kids, I thought that each child was an individual, and
didn't believe much in gender stereotypes in children. Little boys ran
and jumped a lot because that's the kind of games they were taught.
Little girls played with dolls because that was the kind of toys they
were given. I thought that if all kids, regardless of gender, were
exposed to the same things, they would have the same tendencies. Then I
spent some time in the real world of kids and figured out that I was
wrong. Possibly there were some differences between boys and girls. From
time to time, I'm going to share some of my experiences that led me to
this conclusion. However, so as to not bias you, I'm going to let you
guess, who are the boys in the stories and who are the girls. Grocery Shopping
Recently, I observed two different scenes of mothers in the grocery store with young children riding in the front of a cart.
The first one had a child in the seat who said they wanted out, and then they simply wiggled out of the cart and onto the floor. The child proceeded to hop around happily.
The second encounter involved a child yelling, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck." The mother said, "You're not stuck. You're strapped in." The child looked upset, but didn't get out of the cart.
Who do you think was the boy and who do you think was the girl?
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The boy was the one who got out of the cart and the girl was the one who stayed in. You can draw you own conclusions about whether gender or individual personalities was the bigger influence on the behavior of these two kids.
My guess was right! Although when my kids were that age, I was a mean mom and made them stay strapped into the cart. Chasing toddlers around a store saying "No, no, honey!" is not my idea of fun. I had to learn the art of distraction to keep them happy while shopping, and frankly, my daughter was awful to take shopping, so I went without her when at all possible.
ReplyDeleteOne of my sons was a great escape artist. When he was old enough to be mobile, but not old enough to be very verbal, he could get out of straps in the stroller or cart and run away in nothing flat even though I was right there. I tried to not shop with him either.
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