second week assignment

Growing up as a child one remembers how their parents treated them. For example, a boy might remember his dad for yelling at him. The boy will grow up to remember all the bad things his father did to him and vow to himself not to be like that. Usually one learns from the mistake of others. In this case, a father whose father never spent much time with him would try to spend plenty of time with his own son. The father would remember the pains of his father ignoring him and would not want his son to have those same feelings of loneliness.

“Parents play a major role in shaping children’s understanding of gender in general and their own gender in particular.” (pg 171). Fathers encourage in children to behave according to their gender. In sons, they require them to be more aggressive, independent, competitive and overall tough. For daughters fathers want them to be more emotional, gentle, and lady-like. When a father interacts with children, they tend to talk more with their daughters and engage in activities more with sons. Mothers tend to talk more openly about sensitive subjects such as emotions and relationships with daughters than with sons. Both mothers and fathers talk more personally with daughters than with sons. This explains why daughters tend to explain things more freely with their parents than sons do. Fathers typically spend time with their children playing physically more than taking care of them. They like to engage in play that is more physically exciting and they help children develop skills and conquer challenges. Today’s father talks more with children than fathers in previous generations did. “Fathers more than mothers stretch children by urging them to compete, achieve, take risks, and move beyond their current levels of ability.”(pg 169)