Why Do Men Treat Children Differently Based on Their Gender???

Question

I've noticed that fathers that play with their daughters tend to be more gentle and more emotionally intimate. Fathers that have a son tend to be more agressive in playing with them and not that emotionally close. While women treat whichever gender their child is as the same.

Answer 1

Most likely they are treating their sons and daughters the way they saw their parents treat their sons and daughters. I believe the way fathers treat their sons as opposed to the way they treat their daughters is a learned behavior.

Also, all fathers are not the same. I have only one sister, no brothers, and my father was not all that emotional with me or gentle for that matter. He raised me up to be tough and throw a baseball the right way, to climb trees...essentially to be a tom boy. My father was an only child, so his only model for how to treat your children was how his father treated him. My father never had a real chance to observe his father raising a daughter.

How this all got started would be a good topic for research. I'd have to guess that when mankind was in the hunter/gatherer stage, males were better able to be the hunters and so raised male babies to be tough. Females were better suited to gathering and did not need to be so tough, but did need to be protected.

Lastly, women have a greater tendency to love their children equally than do men.

Answer 2

In case you haven't noticed, boys and girls are different. Boys like to be a bit more rough and tumble while girls enjoy more gentle interaction. The result when a boy plays with a man they tend to be male together. When a boy plays with a woman, because the woman doesn't relate as well to the whole rough and tumble play the play tends to be a bit more gentle. Conversely, when a girl plays with a man they generally don't enjoy the rough and tumble stuff and the adult generally plays the way the child wants to.

Are you implying that there is something wrong with men treating boys and girls in the way they most enjoy?

Answer 3

I don't know. I am the youngest of 4 daughters - and was the "surprise" of the family - in that I wasn't planned.

My folks treated me as a boy, however. I played with popguns instead of dolls and climbed trees and rocks - while my sisters played "house." Dressed in dungarees when my sisters wore dresses. I even had a boy nickname. It wasn't until I went to school that I realized that I was a girl - not a boy.

I guess I was the son my father never had.

Answer 4

I've noticed that too. Maybe they're uncomfortable with tenderness between males. They may even think they're doing their boys a favor by being distant. This is why we must carefully screen who we date- you never know who you'll end up with or who will be the father of your child. I also noticed that men walk in front of their children, even if they're very little. The child lags behind and sometimes gets distracted and the man doesn't even know he's lost his child. They don't watch them in the store and allow their child to wander away. Once a man had several kids, the smallest one was standing in a shopping cart. He wasn't paying attention to ANY of them and the little one was playing dangerously. After several near misses, she eventually fell backwards out of the cart. A woman standing by me and I caught her- we each had one of her arms- and set her back in the cart. The dad noticed none of this. Oh my word! I don't think young men think of themselves as potential fathers, so they don't question themselves and start to prepare for the responsibility. The pickings are slim when seriously considering a man for your life.

Answer 5

Very true point you raise. But as the child enters puberty or adolesence, notice how protective the father is to his daughter--and mom isn't much less. Fathers DO tend to give their sons some looser reign, while Mom also tends to be ever on the watch for their child.

Answer 6

Sociological studies show that its not only the fathers that socialize kids differently, but everyone in general. They did a study on the way mothers hold their children, and found that there were differences even on moms holding their newborn boys vs. girls. It a societal thing, and women do it without realizing it too. I took a sociology class and our assignment was to repeat that study, and I found it was true as well.

Answer 7

I think that men are unsure of exactly how much they can rough house with a little girl b/c men tend to view their daughters as being delicate. While they view their sons as being tough. You may look from the outside in and see that there is "less emotional closeness", but as women, we can't really see what's there. Men (fathers and sons, brothers...etc) bond in a different way than fathers and daughters, mothers and sons..etc. Just as a mother will always have certain bonds with her daughter that she can never have with her son b/c he will never experience the same things as a female so they can't bond over that issue. It is all in how you look at things. I look at my husband and sometime think that he is closer to our son b/c he rough houses with him and lets him dig in the dirt and often is a little more careful with our daughter. But then I see him tending our garden and teaching our daughter how to weed and water and I see that they have their bond in a different place.

Answer 8

Becuase daughters are seen as more fragile and the father connects emotionally. With the son its sports and cars and other things. Guys don't really talk about how they feel and thing like that. Mom's are mom's. Thats that.

Answer 9

Well my dad played with me the same way he played with my brother and now Im to tough for my own good. Me and my brother are alway beating the crap out of each other even today. He 24 and Im 25.

But now that we are older things has changed. All of the sudden my dad wants me to be his little girl. But that cant happen because I wasnt raised like that....

Answer 10

there are some dads that play aggressively with their daughters. they grow up to be tomboys, sometimes. and it's not just men, it applies to women too. i think just the basis of sex gender itself without anything else has to do with it. men prefer to be more intimate with a female. and women and their sons...well, then there's the risk of her son being called a "mama's boy". girls get off easy, where society simply understands. they usually get the "daddy's girl" term if she's close to her dad. but the whole 'father and son' thing applies greatly on the relationship between dads and sons almost like being brothers.

it's really the social norm where girls are seen as more delicate and gentle(and it's true, beside any social influence) so the parent responds in the same manner towards her needs and role in society(for better or worse). boys are taught to be manly and aggressive, hence the old tradition of 'teaching him how to be a man'. you wouldn't want either of you to be seen cuddling your son affectionately(where people understand more if it's a girl), and he plays with dolls, and he gets so emotional at times he cries. boys and men just aren't expected to do those kind of things in our society. there's nothing wrong with it, but society sees it different. those kind of boys and men are usually called "wimps", "sissies", and "gay".

and girls who act like boys are labeled too. they get labeled as a "tomboy", or in more derogative ways, as a "*****" if she's assertive and aggressive. there's nothing wrong with being a tomboy. in fact, most of the women who are executives of fortune 500 companies were surveyed to have been tomboys.

oh, and other mammal animals playfight aggressively with both their male and female cubs. it has a evolutionary link of being able to defend themselves and hunt for food. that's why female animals(like lions) can hunt just as well if not better than the males. well here, thanks to human biases, women are the "housekeepers" and men are the "breadwinners". girls can be just as aggressive as boys, it's just that society suppresses them into some way they think it's what "perfectness" is.