Before the birth of our child, my teammates and I swore that we would never let our child become the center of our lives. now what? It's a shame. I give him at least five hours a day. In the two and a half years since he grew up, I need to respond to his needs almost all the time. My child is only two and a half years old, and he already has countless Picture books, toys... In order to better raise him, I have read more than a dozen parenting books.
Even so, I still found that I stepped on a lot of pitfalls in parenting, and the biggest reason behind this is that I believe too much in the "power of parenting".
My belief in the power of parenting begins with my desire to raise a son who is both "masculine" and "feminine." Since I'm a feminist and have always believed in "gender constructivism," I've always wanted to observe and influence his preferences for colors, toys, etc. as he was growing up.
This kind of thinking can be traced back to when I took the "Gender Studies" course in my master's program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and "gender constructivism" was almost a truth in that course, completely denying "biological determinism", for example, " Gender constructivists" would argue that typically masculine qualities such as aggressiveness, masculinity, and dominance are nurtured, as are typically feminine qualities such as submissiveness, weakness, and caring. For example, it is because parents always buy blue clothes for boys, so they prefer blue, and it is because adults always buy toys for their children according to this premise - boys Like cars, girls like plush toys, etc., so children have these other options for men and women.
I used to take this kind of "gender constructionism" for granted, and then I thought that if I changed my parenting style and intentionally provided my child with stuffed toys such as dolls, bunnies, giraffes, and even dressed him in pink. Small skirts, braided wigs, want to experiment to see if "gender temperament" can be constructed? Will my child be both "masculine" and "feminine"? But reality proved me wrong, he still showed a clear obsession with cars, or he preferred those "boyish" toys, such as when he was 23 months old, he can clearly express that he likes tractors, and As for the 2nd birthday party I threw for him, it was "tractor themed". Now he is 30 months old, and he has also entered the "sensitive period of order". He will line up all his cars, such as police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, Thomas trains, etc., and he likes it the most every day. It's all about fiddling with these little cars and making up stories with plausibility.
I communicated with the mothers of the girls around me, and they further deepened my suspicion of "gender constructionism". One by one's mother told me that one day, one day, one day, one day, one day, one day, one mother bought her a new pink dress, one one by one. One especially likes her soft and waxy new skirt. After receiving it, she will make every one of her plush toys feel the softness of the skirt. This contrast is simply too obvious. The boys in my family don't show any concern for "relationships" at all. They hardly build up feelings with these plush toys, and they don't have the "caregiver" qualities that they all show. I always ask my mother, "Mom, am I beautiful?" and my son never asks, "Mom, am I handsome?"
Maybe I am too eager to prove the existence of "gender constructionism". In order to prove that as a feminist, I can raise a child with "diverse gender temperament", I put this expectation on the child, I want him to Loves pink (but he still chooses blue out of a bunch of colors), I want him to love stuffed animals too, and I even want to instill in him the quality of "taking care" of others. But isn't that too narrow?
If he just likes cars more, likes to queue for them, likes to know how fire trucks work, likes to tell him the name of each car in the book "1000 Vehicles", what's wrong Woolen cloth? All the while, I've been caught up in gender bias against boys, even down to "masculinity".
With this confusion, I read Judith Harris, a well-known American psychologist, "Parenting Myths - Can Parenting Styles Determine Children's Personality Development?" ". This book challenged the traditional cognition and caused a huge shock and reverberation in the academic circles. It says that our parents have little influence on the "gender concept" of infants, but the influence of their peers in childhood will be relatively large. He will choose to identify with the boy group and learn the behavior of the boy group, which is different from girls Groups, that is, the socialization of gender.
Experiments have found that human males' "urge to dominate their peers" can be detected when they are two and a half years old. My child has indeed proved the view that "men are more dominant". He is now exactly two and a half years old, I also began to arrange for my father and I to do things for him, such as my mother lying down and my father going to "make milk powder".
So "Myths of Parenting" satirizes my "parents who want to raise their children as male and female": either join a hunter-gatherer group, or move to the most remote parts of the world, where there aren't enough children to separate Form groups of boys and girls. And as long as there are enough boys and girls to be divided into two groups, it is almost impossible to train children to be both "masculine and feminine" because they themselves will definitely choose sides , select a group for gender identity.
"In the formation stage of children's characters, girls are more like other girls, boys are more like other boys, girls who are bluffing will become quieter, timid boys will become braver, and both sexes The differences between children are getting bigger and bigger, and the two curves that originally overlapped gradually separated, and the overlapping part became smaller and smaller." The book "Myths of Parenting" believes that these changes are caused by children themselves. , they choose not to identify with their own parents, but other children of the same gender as them. That said, so far, no research has blamed parents for differences in gender development.
It was this specific experience that made me realize that as a parent, the influence I might be able to exert on my child is very limited. Frankly speaking, when the elders or friends around me commented that my child is smart, it is because his father and mother are different. With a Ph.D. and a master's degree, so when he's smart, I'd be a little sensitive to think that such a statement underestimates the role of my child's parenting education, because I've always been trying to create a loving parent-child relationship and provide for my children. Provide stimulation with toys, picture books, etc. In other words, I too want to flaunt my "power of upbringing". ——I've put in so much time and effort, can't I show it off? But after all, isn't this a form of narcissism as a parent?
Although the book "Myths of Parenting" has received many voices of doubt even today, it still loosened the bonds of my old mother. It at least reminded me that as a parent, it is of course useful for the upbringing of children. , but its usefulness is limited. Parents will have some influence on their children, but in the end it may be just those basic right and wrong concepts and values. But in the future his other behaviors and attitudes will depend on what kind of companions he has.
I used to think that my family of origin was not good enough, so I was obsessed with raising my next generation with a higher standard, but Freud's curse of "anything can be blamed on the family of origin", is it also true? It can be broken - mother and father upbringing is not the key factor in determining a person's life. They also have to learn socialization from their peers and form personalities in the process of group identification. The help of parents comes from genetic inheritance and whether they provide an economic foundation and a stable growth environment.
At the end of the day, raising children should be as natural as sex, because evolution itself is a carrot-and-stick process. Nature makes us happily do what she wants us to do, if parenting was a chore, do you think chimpanzees would do it? Parenting means enjoying the joy of being a parent, and if you're not happy, you've gone too far. As a mother, it is really unnecessary to think too much about your children and worry too much, because there are many, many things that are beyond your control.
Even so, I still found that I stepped on a lot of pitfalls in parenting, and the biggest reason behind this is that I believe too much in the "power of parenting".
My belief in the power of parenting begins with my desire to raise a son who is both "masculine" and "feminine." Since I'm a feminist and have always believed in "gender constructivism," I've always wanted to observe and influence his preferences for colors, toys, etc. as he was growing up.
This kind of thinking can be traced back to when I took the "Gender Studies" course in my master's program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and "gender constructivism" was almost a truth in that course, completely denying "biological determinism", for example, " Gender constructivists" would argue that typically masculine qualities such as aggressiveness, masculinity, and dominance are nurtured, as are typically feminine qualities such as submissiveness, weakness, and caring. For example, it is because parents always buy blue clothes for boys, so they prefer blue, and it is because adults always buy toys for their children according to this premise - boys Like cars, girls like plush toys, etc., so children have these other options for men and women.
I used to take this kind of "gender constructionism" for granted, and then I thought that if I changed my parenting style and intentionally provided my child with stuffed toys such as dolls, bunnies, giraffes, and even dressed him in pink. Small skirts, braided wigs, want to experiment to see if "gender temperament" can be constructed? Will my child be both "masculine" and "feminine"? But reality proved me wrong, he still showed a clear obsession with cars, or he preferred those "boyish" toys, such as when he was 23 months old, he can clearly express that he likes tractors, and As for the 2nd birthday party I threw for him, it was "tractor themed". Now he is 30 months old, and he has also entered the "sensitive period of order". He will line up all his cars, such as police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, Thomas trains, etc., and he likes it the most every day. It's all about fiddling with these little cars and making up stories with plausibility.
children's cars
As a mother, the process of raising boys made me doubt the "gender construction theory". Once, on the parenting app "Kinbaby", I saw a small game for early education check-in, which is to let children imitate adults to take care of them A doll, I did the same, I picked up the bottle I had prepared to feed the doll, and I was excited to show it to Man (my son's name), but he was uninterested while feeding the doll, fiddling with it. After a while, I went to play with the car again. I was very discouraged: "Don't they all say that they are constructed? Don't they all say that children are blank paper? Then I teach him to take care of such characteristics, why is he not interested? Don't you say that liking cars is an acquired construction? I Why do you think he was born?"I communicated with the mothers of the girls around me, and they further deepened my suspicion of "gender constructionism". One by one's mother told me that one day, one day, one day, one day, one day, one day, one mother bought her a new pink dress, one one by one. One especially likes her soft and waxy new skirt. After receiving it, she will make every one of her plush toys feel the softness of the skirt. This contrast is simply too obvious. The boys in my family don't show any concern for "relationships" at all. They hardly build up feelings with these plush toys, and they don't have the "caregiver" qualities that they all show. I always ask my mother, "Mom, am I beautiful?" and my son never asks, "Mom, am I handsome?"
Maybe I am too eager to prove the existence of "gender constructionism". In order to prove that as a feminist, I can raise a child with "diverse gender temperament", I put this expectation on the child, I want him to Loves pink (but he still chooses blue out of a bunch of colors), I want him to love stuffed animals too, and I even want to instill in him the quality of "taking care" of others. But isn't that too narrow?
If he just likes cars more, likes to queue for them, likes to know how fire trucks work, likes to tell him the name of each car in the book "1000 Vehicles", what's wrong Woolen cloth? All the while, I've been caught up in gender bias against boys, even down to "masculinity".
With this confusion, I read Judith Harris, a well-known American psychologist, "Parenting Myths - Can Parenting Styles Determine Children's Personality Development?" ". This book challenged the traditional cognition and caused a huge shock and reverberation in the academic circles. It says that our parents have little influence on the "gender concept" of infants, but the influence of their peers in childhood will be relatively large. He will choose to identify with the boy group and learn the behavior of the boy group, which is different from girls Groups, that is, the socialization of gender.
Experiments have found that human males' "urge to dominate their peers" can be detected when they are two and a half years old. My child has indeed proved the view that "men are more dominant". He is now exactly two and a half years old, I also began to arrange for my father and I to do things for him, such as my mother lying down and my father going to "make milk powder".
So "Myths of Parenting" satirizes my "parents who want to raise their children as male and female": either join a hunter-gatherer group, or move to the most remote parts of the world, where there aren't enough children to separate Form groups of boys and girls. And as long as there are enough boys and girls to be divided into two groups, it is almost impossible to train children to be both "masculine and feminine" because they themselves will definitely choose sides , select a group for gender identity.
"In the formation stage of children's characters, girls are more like other girls, boys are more like other boys, girls who are bluffing will become quieter, timid boys will become braver, and both sexes The differences between children are getting bigger and bigger, and the two curves that originally overlapped gradually separated, and the overlapping part became smaller and smaller." The book "Myths of Parenting" believes that these changes are caused by children themselves. , they choose not to identify with their own parents, but other children of the same gender as them. That said, so far, no research has blamed parents for differences in gender development.
It was this specific experience that made me realize that as a parent, the influence I might be able to exert on my child is very limited. Frankly speaking, when the elders or friends around me commented that my child is smart, it is because his father and mother are different. With a Ph.D. and a master's degree, so when he's smart, I'd be a little sensitive to think that such a statement underestimates the role of my child's parenting education, because I've always been trying to create a loving parent-child relationship and provide for my children. Provide stimulation with toys, picture books, etc. In other words, I too want to flaunt my "power of upbringing". ——I've put in so much time and effort, can't I show it off? But after all, isn't this a form of narcissism as a parent?
Although the book "Myths of Parenting" has received many voices of doubt even today, it still loosened the bonds of my old mother. It at least reminded me that as a parent, it is of course useful for the upbringing of children. , but its usefulness is limited. Parents will have some influence on their children, but in the end it may be just those basic right and wrong concepts and values. But in the future his other behaviors and attitudes will depend on what kind of companions he has.
I used to think that my family of origin was not good enough, so I was obsessed with raising my next generation with a higher standard, but Freud's curse of "anything can be blamed on the family of origin", is it also true? It can be broken - mother and father upbringing is not the key factor in determining a person's life. They also have to learn socialization from their peers and form personalities in the process of group identification. The help of parents comes from genetic inheritance and whether they provide an economic foundation and a stable growth environment.
At the end of the day, raising children should be as natural as sex, because evolution itself is a carrot-and-stick process. Nature makes us happily do what she wants us to do, if parenting was a chore, do you think chimpanzees would do it? Parenting means enjoying the joy of being a parent, and if you're not happy, you've gone too far. As a mother, it is really unnecessary to think too much about your children and worry too much, because there are many, many things that are beyond your control.
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