The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[DanaC]

That may be just be two different kids with two different sets of interests and proclivities who just happen to correspond broadly with what we assume their gender will be into. I've known sibling pairs who were exact opposite.

Or it could be the influence of the wider culture in which they live, and over which you as a parent have only minimal control. It's very difficult to tell. The world is noisy with messages, and clearly some girls do get put off somewhere along the line, as boys also get put off. How many little boys are quite content to follow mum round the house 'helping' her vacuum, only to lose that the moment they walk through the school gates?

It takes a fairly strong sense of self, to forge your own way as a small child. Most of us will get pushed or pulled in some direction along the way - to lesser or greater degrees. Maybe we'll let something go that we used to find interesting - forget we ever liked it by the time we're 12. Maybe we just didn;t explore a thing that kind of intrigued us but felt vaguely transgressive, or socially dangerous. Like the little boy who really likes playing in the wendy house.

*shrugs* it's a complex soup of stuff, some of which we have it in us to change, some of which might never change, some of which should or shouldnt change.