Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Treating a Baby Girl Differently Than a Baby Boy



I heard a story about a family in Europe somewhere that chose not to raise their child specifically as a boy or a girl. They kept the child's hair medium length, dressed 'it' in plain, neutral-colored clothing and gave no indication to the outside world as to the gender of their kid. Their reasoning was that they didn't want anyone to treat the child differently based on whether their child was male or female. An interesting idea, I suppose.

My sister, who has two boys and a girl, told me that there is a definite difference in the way her older boy and only girl behave and process things, despite the fact that they are just a couple of years apart in age, grew up in the same house and arguably in the same environment. In stereotypical fashion, she says the boy doesn't sweat the small stuff and is loud and sometimes rambunctious, while the girl is more sensitive and emotional. Her point is that no matter how you raise them, boys and girls will naturally (biologically?) trend towards certain character traits. But I wonder how much parents may subconsciously play a role in that...

Even though we're still only half way through the pregnancy, I wonder if we're already treating our unborn baby any differently (read: more carefully) now that we know she is a girl. We bought a bunch of soft, pink, girly things after we found out the gender. We also decided not to show a certain ultrasound photo of the baby (see 'Latest photos' post) which I think Helen would've been OK with if Norby had been a he. Finally, I wonder if some of the stuff I write on here that would be considered funny if our baby were a boy are less humorous or even off limits since we know we're having a girl. For instance, Helen asked me not to use the word 'vajayjay' on this blog (oops, I just did.)

I think there's a happy medium between that family I mentioned at the beginning of this post and treating our little Winglette like a Faberge egg. And since I'm all about equality and would certainly use words like 'junk' to describe Norbit's guy parts had he been a boy, I think it's only fair I not shy away from using similar female words - within reason, of course. It is our baby girl we're talking about, after all.

Do you think parents treat their babies differently based on gender? Should they? I want to hear what you think, so feel free to comment.

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations and we are looking forward to the arrival of your baby girl!
    I think you will find once the baby arrives (and especially if you end up having more than one child eventually) that a lot more of a kid's personality is due to nature (vs. nurture) and there is not that much you can do to shape or change it. As much as I might suggest to my boys that they play with dolls or suggest to my daughter that she play with trucks, they are going to gravitate to what they want to play with... Love, CL

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  2. Thanks for the congrats and the insight, sis. Do you think there's a possibility that parents subconsciously steer their kids in certain directions, based on gender? Have you ever signed your daughter up for baseball? Your sons for ballet? How do you choose in what activities they participate?

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  3. I wanted to enroll Austin in Audrey's ballet class but you-know-who wouldn't hear of it.

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  4. You never know. Austy could be the next Baryshnikov.

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