Do toddlers pick up gender roles during play?
The differences in mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with their children, particularly in play situations, may influence toddlers’ associations of specific behaviors with male and female genders. According to Eric Lindsey from Penn State Berks in the US, and his colleagues, context, gender of the parent and gender of the child combine in a complex pattern to shape parent-child interaction. Their findings1 are published online in Springer’s journal Sex Roles. The authors looked at how a situation involving caring for the physical and emotional needs of a child – here, sharing a snack – is likely to produce very different types of verbal interaction from both parent and child compared to a play situation. Lindsey and team used data from 80 families recruited from two small cities in Kansas, as part of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Parents and their children were videotaped during a 15-minute parent-child play session and a 10-min
