Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin examined differences in parenting sons and daughters. In theory, every parent wants to raise their children in the same way. Reality suggests something more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a study on parental investment, researchers analyzed responses from 105 adults who evaluated the behavior of their biological mothers and fathers during childhood. The questions covered memories of emotional support, discipline, protection, education, sport, relationships, dating, and levels of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study found that, in the families remembered by participants, mothers were more clearly involved in raising children than fathers<\/strong>. This may not surprise anyone familiar with long-standing gendered divisions of childcare and domestic labor. Yet the differences between the treatment of daughters and sons did not appear in every area. They emerged in specific situations and in the kinds of support each child received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daughters more often received parental advice about relationships and dating, along with emotional support and greater protection. Boys had more freedom in their relationships with peers.<\/strong> Parents also invested more often in their athletic activity and physical training, and encouraged them more strongly to compete with their peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers interpret these patterns as a form of mostly unconscious adjustment of parenting to the child\u2019s sex. In this reading, parents intuitively prepared each child for different challenges that women and men may encounter<\/strong>. That is why, as the scientists suggest in an article published in Human Nature<\/em>, we can assume that in many homes a son and a daughter may remember their childhoods<\/a> somewhat differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were also areas in which the researchers did not find significant differences in how daughters and sons were raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\nParenting Differences Meant Different Challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n