Gender Difference? Who Knows?

You’ve heard it all before: the stereotypical little boy is aggressive while the stereotypical little girl is nurturing. If you’ve known any little boys or girls, you probably know as many exceptions to these stereotypes as you do children who fit them. Before we had kids, Matthew and I talked about trying to raise our kids as gender-neutral as we could. Much to the chagrin of our moms and grandmas we even tried to limit the number of pink outfits Leah garnered at baby showers.

These days, Leah likes playing with cars and dinosaurs, she loves to run and wrestle with her dad, and she doesn’t mind getting dirty. Still, when it comes down it, her favorite play time is that spent with her “babies.” She swaddles them, rocks them, feeds them, dresses and undresses them, medicates them, disciplines them, and gives them a special place in her bed when she’s not there herself. Did we push this? Nope. At least I don’t think so.

Just when I start to think there’s nothing to that gender difference hogwash, something like what happened yesterday happens. The girls and I were at the library, playing in the kids’ area after story time. Along with big foam letters, coloring pages, and puzzles, there were a few of these big plastic dinosaurs on the tables. A couple of Leah-age boys came over to the table, each grabbed a dinosaur, and commenced an epic battle between good and evil.

“I’m biting you!” said one little guy in his deepest, meanest voice.
“No, I’m biting you,” said the other boy. “ I have bigger teeth, so I’m winning!”
“Arrrrrrrr,” relented the first one tilting his warrior on its side, day-glow plastic legs already showing sign of rigor mortis.
“Ha-ha!” shouted the victor. “I killed you!”

The carnage over, the boys left and Leah stepped in. She righted the fallen stegosaurus and placed it next to its murderer.

“This one’s the mama one and this one’s the daddy one,” she said grinning with maternal pride.

I just smiled back and said, “okay.” Gender aside, I guess I’m grateful for a child who favors kindness to bloodshed. Who wouldn’t?