Gender and Parenting
By Deb Falank
I just came across an article promoting the legal institution of marriage. The excerpt below is from the section titled “Evidence From the Social and Biological Sciences”.
Fathers excel when it comes to providing discipline, ensuring safety, and challenging their children to embrace life’s opportunities and confront life’s difficulties. The greater physical size and strength of most fathers, along with the pitch and inflection of their voice and the directive character of their speaking, give them an advantage when it comes to discipline, an advantage that is particularly evident with boys, who are more likely to comply with their fathers’ than their mothers’ discipline. Likewise, fathers are more likely than mothers to encourage their children to tackle difficult tasks, endure hardship without yielding, and seek out novel experiences. These paternal strengths also have deep biological underpinnings: Fathers typically have higher levels of testosterone—a hormone associated with dominance and assertiveness—than do mothers. Although the link between nature, nurture, and sex-specific parenting talents is undoubtedly complex, one cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence of sex differences in parenting—differences that marriage builds on to the advantage of children.
I’m all about marriage and stable families and agree with much of the broader outlines of the article. However, I find the particular stance in this paragraph to be a little disconcerting on two points, the idea that effective discipline requires particular physical characteristics, and that men are more likely than women to instill perseverance and inquisitiveness. What do you think of these premises? Is effective parenting really defined by gender in this specific way?
Deb Falank writes about women, animality, violence and Christianity at the soulful eye.
Tags: Deb Falank, Gender, parenting, Theology Matters
September 16th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I think one of the eminent researchers/ writers on the topic of parenting styles is D. Baunrind. She describes three styles — the empirically most effective style is “authoritative”. http://www.devpsy.org/teaching/parent/baumrind_styles.html
Not related at all to size or gender.
Almost all of the current parenting research builds on a uses Baumrind’s three styles to evaluate parenting. I’d disregard the above statement.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:15 am
I’d say at best it’s simplistic. I don’t know what it is about evangelical Christians, but for some reason they seem to see empirical science as true in a way that cultural theory, anthropology and the ‘arts’ end of the social sciences aren’t (actually, I’d hazard a guess it’s to do with their view of the sort of truth in the Bible, but that’s a whole nother bag ‘o fish. But the problem with the empirical end of the social sciences is that they tend to be pretty oblivious to the way that their assumptions are culturally constructed. All in all, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d bet Judith Butler et al would have plenty to say about that,
September 16th, 2009 at 11:32 am
My daughter has been left raising her two sons and my sister, my nephew. These boys readily refer to their mothers because a father is just non existent in their lives. The boys seem very boyish without being disrespectful. My daughter was a teenage mother, but now her boys are setting an example at school in behaviour and scholastically. I think the article is biased in that it probably only looked at a certain group of people, not across a viable spectrum.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I think that’s overly simplistic and unnecessarily dualistic. I think the role a mother and a father plays in parenting is really complex. Sometimes one person is called upon to carry it out alone, other times you have two people working it out in a unique way. For instance, my children will tell you that I’m the disciplinarian in our family.
And … of course, this completely discounts a gay family where one would have two mothers or two fathers.
September 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
The best kind of parenting involves the grandparents
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September 16th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I don’t know where social construction comes in here, but it does seem that boys respond better to male discipline. Its important to note that social construction comes in here – but it may be that boys are socialized to respond male discipline.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:42 am
So far the responses have been about discipline … any comments on this part – “fathers are more likely than mothers to encourage their children to tackle difficult tasks, endure hardship without yielding, and seek out novel experiences”? That seems to me to be completely related to gender role prescriptions and not related to biology at all … it seems almost non-sensical to me.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Here’s another example of how the Christian community is operating 20 years behind the times – or is this article more 50s style? I realize some think that all the new directions the world is taking are simply evil and must be resisted. But they hae no worthwhile alternatives and eventually will concede the point. E.g., what ever happened to comdemning divorce?
September 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Amazing! Not clear for me, how offen you updating your http://www.emergingwomen.us.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
To me, the real point is that parenting is not meant to be a solo enterprise. My daughter learns new things and is encouraged in different ways when she’s with her father rather than with me… But also when she’s with her grandparents or one of my wonderful, loving friends. Some of the differences between us may be biologically based, but they certainly can’t be reduced to biology alone.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Aaaah another article trying to tie us to the biology is destiny ball and chain once again. I’m also sort of puzzled how easy it is for them to hold up so-called science when it supports their notions about men and women but discount it when it denies their beliefs about homosexuality and evolution.
I think effective parenting doesn’t really involve gender, but that’s because I’ve learned so much from people who aren’t just my parents (even though I love my parents and they were and are a huge influence in my life), in addition to being brought up in a fairly egalitarian household. It really DOES take a village to raise a child, in terms of socialization, as sometimes damaging as socialization can be.
September 19th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
It may be true that same sex parenting might have some psychological effects on children. A father and a mother do differ biologically and psychologically. Even if a child is raised by same sex parents the child needs to be socialized with other members and gender of the society so that the child does not develop gender specific traits in itself.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
The most telling thing about this “research article,” is the fact that they claim a lot of principles, truths, and facts with ZERO sourcing. They embed numbers in the text, at some points indicating a footnote, but the references are nowhere to be found. The lack of scholarship is simply embarrassing.
In addition, they self-proclaim themselves at the end to be “scholars,” but none of these “scholars,” are listed by name, or credentials. Any academic, regardless of political or religious affiliation would not cite or document a legitimate article even close to this manner.
“is the result of
scholarly discussions that began in December, 2004 at a meeting
in Princeton, New Jersey, sponsored by the Witherspoon
Institute. This conference brought together scholars from History,
Economics, Psychiatry, Law, Sociology and Philosophy to share
with each other the findings of their research on why marriage,
understood as the permanent union of husband and wife, is in the
public interest.”
Who are these people? we don’t know, they are not listed, so there is no way to fact check any of these very grand claims.
The authors of the article.. two Rev., also fail to demonstrate why they should be trusted as academic sources of information on such topics. I am not trying to demean the Pastorate.. far from it! But, Pastors are experts in religion, theology, and the Scriptures. They are not experts in social policy, programming, or statistics simply by declaring themselves “scholars.”
September 30th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
“To me, the real point is that parenting is not meant to be a solo enterprise” I totally agree with this comment. In fact I would go further to say that in my mind the biblical model is that the father and mother are ONE PERSON. If the children learn that in matters of discipline the parents are of one heart and one mind and 100% back each other up on decisions made then you don’t run into the problem of “kids being more likely to respond to their fathers discipline than their mothers”. This of course takes a lot of communication and work between the parents to make it work but I do think it can work.
And the rest of it about fathers ( and not mothers) encouraging children to seek novel experiences and tackle difficult tasks I think is not based in fact at all – depends on the interests and personalities of the fathers and mothers involved – and what kinds of novel experiences and difficult tasks we are talking about. In our house my husband might be more likely to push the kids into removing the trainor wheels from their bicycles – but I’m more likely to be encouraging them to get into the kitchen and cook the family dinner by themselves. I’m sure in some families those roles are reversed – the whole point being that we each bring different things to the parenting role.
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September 24th, 2011 at 12:08 am
I love everything except one part. Im not totally comfy with the Stienbrenner Tradition thing on the side. I know they want to honor George and reflect the new ownership, but it seems out of place to me.