Mothers and Fathers Play Differently

Mothers and Fathers Parent Differently

This difference provides an important diversity of experiences for children. Dr. Pruett explains that fathers have a distinct style of communication and interaction with children. Infants, by 8 weeks, can tell the difference between a male or female interacting with them. Stanford psychologist Eleanor Maccoby, in her book The Two Sexes, explains mothers and fathers respond differently to infants. Mothers are more likely to provide warm, nurturing care for a crying infant.5 This diversity in itself provides children with a broader, richer experience of contrasting relational interactions—more so than for children who are raised by only one gender. Whether they realize it or not, children are learning at earliest age, by sheer experience, that men and women are different and have different ways of dealing with life, other adults and their children.

Mothers and Fathers Play Differently

Fathers tend to play with, and mothers tend to care for, children. While both mothers and fathers are physical, fathers are physical in different ways.

Fathers tickle more, they wrestle, and they throw their children in the air. Fathers chase their children, sometimes as playful, scary "monsters." Fathers are louder at play, while mothers are quieter. Mothers cuddle babies, and fathers bounce them. Fathers roughhouse while mothers are gentle. One study found that 70 percent of father-infant games were more physical and action oriented while only 4 percent of mother-infant play was like this.6 Fathers encourage competition; mothers encourage equity. One style encourages independence while the other encourages security.

This dynamic also exhibits itself in "gay" households. The USA Today featured an experimental parenting relationship of four gay adults, two homosexual men and two lesbian women. One of the women is the birth mom, while the men are the biological fathers of the children through artificial insemination.

One of the biological fathers believes the birth mother has a tendency to "pamper" the three-year-old boy "too much." "When he falls down, she wants to rush over and make sure he is OK. I know he will be fine."7

Fathering expert John Snarey explains that children who roughhouse with their fathers learn that biting, kicking and other forms of physical violence are not acceptable. They learn self-control by being told when "enough is enough" and when to "settle down."8 Girls and boys both learn a healthy balance between timidity and aggression. Children need mom’s softness as well as dad’s roughhousing. Both provide security and confidence in their own ways by communicating love and physical intimacy.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14