Two Tribes?

[iNow]

10 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

From who?

From the environment itself, most likely. 

11 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I prefer my own personal observation of a small population to the confirmation bias of an unscientific community.

I think I see now where the core issue exists. Thanks for being so open about your preference for and priority of personal opinion over decades upon decades of peer reviewed research. 

[Peterkin]

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

She's now a delightful adult.

And no longer subtly manipulative? I'm very pleased to hear that. My middle-aged kids have changed very little, in temperament, taste or attitude or method of expression, since they were 6 and 7 years old. They may have behaved quite differently at 2 at 3.

[TheVat]

14 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Boy: I want some sweeties!

Me: Your mother will be back soon. Have some patience.

Boy: I want some patience now!

Compare and contrast:

Girl: Daddy, daddy, the ice cream van's here.

Me: You can't have one.

Girl: I didn't want one. I thought you might like one.

This I suggest is an entirely different level of sophistication in manipulation. I know it's a population sample of two but the difference is staggering which is why I remember it so clearly. 

An observation (aside from the obvious precocity of the girl):  while hormones can play some role (on impulsivity, e.g.), I would think it's reasonable to ask if the difference in sweets strategies are more due to personality variations and not necessarily a function of the stubby Y vs the savvy X.  Some solid research, across diverse cultures, would help here.  

Sorry to see things here turned a bit acrimonious after that.  Hope we can get back to early learning research and see how all these notions of little boys and girls hold up.  My own conjecture is that girls get more positive reinforcement for patience and emotional intelligence in some cultures, which then magnifies a relatively small initial difference.  

And other factors tend to blur any clear picture of "innate" personality.  Birth order can make quite a difference what social strategies emerge.  Total hours of contact with each parent, ditto. Parental behavior towards each other can also introduce modeling of certain tactics that we as parents may not even be aware we're modeling.  

(my own family btw, also boy and girl, does not provide an anecdote that supports the patient girls hypothesis - indeed, the girl was somewhat more impulsive and reckless, and LOUDER, for vast stretches of their childhoods and youth. )

 

[Peterkin]

29 minutes ago, TheVat said:

And other factors tend to blur any clear picture of "innate" personality.  Birth order can make quite a difference what social strategies emerge.  Total hours of contact with each parent, ditto. Parental behavior towards each other can also introduce modeling of certain tactics that we as parents may not even be aware we're modeling.  

Very much so. The presence of grandparents and other caring adults. Peer group interaction and socializing with the community at large.

I have been child-watching (I know - don't even) for decades in various environments, and I have seen cultural differences. Without getting into specifics, the boys of some ethnic backgrounds do seem more self-assertive, even aggressive, than others; some nationalities seem to raise boys more serious and mature, while others encourage childishness. However, I have observed very little cultural difference among girls. They all seem to go through the same phases at the same ages.

[MigL]

On 2/4/2023 at 10:01 PM, iNow said:

Does that help to clarify my points, or have I really missed the mark?

It does. Thank you.
Except for this 

On 2/4/2023 at 10:01 PM, iNow said:

Just walk away and shut up about it.

I am of the opinion that we should be talking about it even more.
Understanding the reasoning behind other's viewpoints is the path to mutual respect.

[iNow]

28 minutes ago, MigL said:

I am of the opinion that we should be talking about it even more.
Understanding the reasoning behind other's viewpoints is the path to mutual respect.

Hard to disagree with that. Maybe it’s just me, but I get the very real sense that folks open to accepting others for who they are tend also to be more open to mutually respectful discussions than are folks that feel repulsed by who other people happen to live… and it’s a several orders of magnitude difference IMO.

[mistermack]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:20 AM, iNow said:

Not when one lives in a culture where being gay is accepted as perfectly normal and entirely valid.

People shouldn’t have to beg society for basic decency and respect just bc they happen to love differently than you do.

Fair enough. But I will try to make it clear, I'm commenting on the real culture that I experience and read about, and not the imaginary one that you are pushing for. I'd be happy when it arrives, but till then, I'm commenting on the current reality.

On 2/5/2023 at 1:51 AM, iNow said:

What is abusive about accepting a child as they are, giving them support when they realize they’re homosexual, trans, or anything else deemed to be “unsavory” by the ignorant masses?

"Conversion therapy" has recently been made illegal in the UK, because it's abusive. I think it's equally abusive to push a child in ANY direction of sexuality. If they feel one way or the other, it should be left till they are adult for them to make up their own minds how to handle it. 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by mistermack
shpellin

[iNow]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

I'm commenting on the current reality.

As am I. Please avoid subtly attempting to dismiss me as some Pollyanna. I’m more than capable of supporting my position. There are many realities involved here, and one of them is withering while the other is not. 

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

I think it's equally abusive to push a child in ANY direction of sexuality

Except you’re not being consistent in your logic. Parents push children into “you are male!!” and “you are female!!” directions every. Single. Day. 

You’re NOT arguing against that. You’re happy defending the status quo where parents “push” genders on their children which you happen to find acceptable. You accept that. You just don’t like when the conversation steers into same sex. 

Anyway, nobody here is arguing that parents ought to PUSH their children anywhere, only that they stay the hell out of the way and show some acceptance when children do decide for themselves that they feel different from the norm. 

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

I think it's equally abusive to push a child in ANY direction of sexuality. If they feel one way or the other, it should be left till they are adult for them to make up their own minds how to handle it. 

That's easy to say from a distance. Parents don't really have the option of letting their children grow however nature intended: they have to be present, protecting, guiding, curbing destructive behaviour, encouraging the child toward social and financial success to the best of their ability and judgment. They themselves are products of a society and culture. Doing the best they know and believe, they may be seen as harmful by people with different views. They may not be aware that they're 'pushing' according to someone else's definition. Because we raise our children to fit into the world as we know it, we raise them incorrectly: we don't know the world they will inhabit.  

[Phi for All]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

If they feel one way or the other, it should be left till they are adult for them to make up their own minds how to handle it. 

Something tells me that gender identity is much more basic than that. Should we wait until they're adults to determine if they're right handed or left? Applying a one-size-fits-all solution seems like a big part of the problem. 

[Intoscience]

Going back to the OP, you do see in general males more interested in things per-say, how they are built, how they work, etc... and females more interested in people, caring, nurture... etc. Not exclusively of course, since it is a spectrum, so we are talking about as we tend towards the extremes. We often see male dominated jobs such as construction, engineering etc.. whilst there are female dominated jobs like nursing, care work... You have to wonder whether this tendency is learn't or innate from birth.  You see similar traits in nature where quite often the female tends to the younglings and the males go to hunt, or protect, or just move on etc... This then begs the question?

Do we tend to be biased because our "nature" leads us this way? Or is it indeed the society in which we live and what we learn?  

I think that it is a combination, of both. You see boys playing with dolls and girls with cars (nothing wrong in that) but has it been observed and documented on how they play with them, how they interact with the objects they show interest in?  

[Phi for All]

33 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

We often see male dominated jobs such as construction, engineering etc.. whilst there are female dominated jobs like nursing, care work... You have to wonder whether this tendency is learn't or innate from birth.

We see a lot more diverse tendencies in cultures that allow them, so it definitely appears to be learned. Male dominance is also a LOT more toxic and competition oriented than what women do. Men will jeer at a woman who wants to operate heavy machinery (like it requires testicles and muscles to work a backhoe), but have you ever heard of female nurses deriding male nurses? The job market is heavily influenced by the worst of male behavior, mostly because men are encouraged to look at everything as a competition, even when cooperation is more profitable. 

41 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

You see similar traits in nature where quite often the female tends to the younglings and the males go to hunt, or protect, or just move on etc...

Except when you don't. Plenty of males take care of young among different species, like penguins, marmosets, foxes, frogs, and seahorses.

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Do we tend to be biased because our "nature" leads us this way? Or is it indeed the society in which we live and what we learn?

I personally don't think our brains needed a lot of hardwired traits the way many animals do. I think our capacity for intelligence and learning lets us determine how to best adapt to any given situation, and would be hampered if we had too many rigid ways of thinking. We're not limited to fight or flight; humans can negotiate, bluff, or reason out even better ways to deal with our world.

[mistermack]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

I’m more than capable of supporting my position.

To your own satisfaction, yes you are.

 

5 hours ago, iNow said:

You’re happy defending the status quo where parents “push” genders on their children which you happen to find acceptable.

You don't seem to be aware that the huge majority of children are correctly labelled. Not pushed. An absolutely teeny miniscule minority are truly wrongly identified, or intersex. I don't accept that the huge majority of kids should be non-labelled, just because of a teeny minority. That minority, handled sensitively when they become adult enough to make adult lifetime decisions, can be helped. 

[Phi for All]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That minority, handled sensitively when they become adult enough to make adult lifetime decisions, can be helped. 

I think you conflate gender identity with sexual orientation quite a bit. You keep making references to waiting until children are adults, like it's akin to sexual consent.

Your gender identity is defined as your innermost concept of self as male/female/blend/neither. Children can figure that part out better if they aren't corralled into what their parents want.

[mistermack]

18 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Your gender identity is defined as your innermost concept of self as male/female/blend/neither.

That's clear then? Not a bit of it. My one trans friend went all the way MTF, but he still regrets it some days, not others, and will present as either. He told lots of lies to get it done. He's not happy, that's for sure. 

23 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Children can figure that part out better if they aren't corralled into what their parents want.

Do you have evidence for that? Anyway, on what imaginary planet will parents ever stay out of it? My friend is still confused, and he was adult when he changed. But at least he knows he made his own decision as an adult. 

[geordief]

So ,on a practical level we might teach parents and families to be aware of behaviour in children at the applicable very young age  whereby they exhibit dissatisfaction with the outward symbols of their gender identity?** 

As a result some parents could bring this up with their doctor and  the situation might be  closely monitored for the next year or so  until  ,hopefully the child  is happy with the gender role (or lack of gender) it is playing.

Then the question may arise whether the child has chosen the gender  that "matches" its body and further decisions may or may not need to be taken  and whether or not any bridges need be burned.

Find as many cases (early on) where "if it's not broken ,don't fix it" applies and deal with what remains.

I am wondering whether the crisis point may lie around the preschool ages and if it it can be addressed  there,the overall problem will be much less thereafter.

 

** I think @Peterkin was suggesting this.

[Phi for All]

2 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That's clear then? Not a bit of it. My one trans friend went all the way MTF, but he still regrets it some days, not others, and will present as either. He told lots of lies to get it done. He's not happy, that's for sure. 

Without knowing their history I don't know how to respond to this argument. You claim regret, but obviously haven't thought it may have been vastly different without the nightmare they must have endured needing to lie to anyone about such a core part of themselves. I'm sure you know your friend much better than I, but are you sure you know the source of their unhappiness? I'm reminded of stories I've heard about children doing impulsive things because they felt their parents weren't listening to them. 

9 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Do you have evidence for that?

Most children have a stable sense of gender identity by the age of four. They've known for a couple of years what the physical differences between boys and girls are. By four they generally know whether they feel like a girl, a boy, a bit of both, or neither. They've begun now to feel the pressures of gender role behavior, and are deciding how they feel about the things boys are supposed to do and the things girls are supposed to do.

I said children can figure out their own gender identities better without pressure from their parents, because I assumed that pressure is focused on making a typical choice. The children who make typical choices would still make them (which makes the parent's interference worthless), but the ones who feel differently will end up getting villified (which makes the parent's interference detrimental). 

 

[mistermack]

39 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Without knowing their history I don't know how to respond to this argument.

Yes, it's not really an argument, it's really just to explain where I'm coming from. That guy was very much one of the lads when he was younger, a bit of a fighter so I'm told. 

 

39 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Most children have a stable sense of gender identity by the age of four. They've known for a couple of years what the physical differences between boys and girls are.

That doesn't tell you much. Most children ARE what they were assigned as birth. People applying for hormone treatment are about half of one percent, including adults.

Kids are different, in that they are notorious for going through phases. I'm not saying gender identity in children is just a phase, just that it can be. I can't name it, but I've seen a tv program about individuals who were encouraged or allowed, whichever you prefer, to undergo hormone treatment as children, and bitterly regret it now, and no longer identify as the opposite sex. That was less than six months ago. So it's not black and white, some do get really harmed by it. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by mistermack

[Peterkin]

55 minutes ago, geordief said:

So ,on a practical level we might teach parents and families to be aware of behaviour in children at the applicable very young age  whereby they exhibit dissatisfaction with the outward symbols of their gender identity?** 

I think middle-class North American parents already hover quite enough over their precious offspring. How about just giving them all some room to explore, experiment, try different roles and costumes, toys and behaviours. They don't need to be dragged to a doctor every time they throw a tantrum when they don't get their own way. But if a pre-schooler is throwing tantrums over the same issue again and again, you might need to examine and discuss that issue. Sometimes it's as simple as he won't wear an item of clothing to daycare because another kid made fun of it, or everybody else has moved on to a different favourite cartoon character. Children are very much influenced by their peers. 

If a child really has been labelled incorrectly, they're usually very clear about it. And, yet, sometimes it's just envy of something a child of the other sex has or is allowed to do, or imitate someone they admire. If that's the case, it'll pass. Stand back, give them some room, don't micro-manage. Also, of course, there is a wide range of aptitudes, proclivities and temperaments in all human beings - and that's another aspect of the personality they are working out between 1 and 5 years of age. Plus sibling dominance and dependency. They have a lot to figure out. If it's not hurting anybody, let 'em try it.

But parents have a whole lot of hopes and dreams, plans and expectations, that they've been carrying since before the kid was conceived - or since they themselves were children. They long for the child to like what they like, want what they want - be like them, or rather their own more perfect incarnation. They can't help being disappointed when the child doesn't play with the toys they've picked out so lovingly, or don't enjoy the activities the father or mother has so looked forward to sharing with them.  It's hard to refrain from pushing. 

55 minutes ago, geordief said:

am wondering whether the crisis point may lie around the preschool ages and if it it can be addressed  there,the overall problem will be much less thereafter.

It often seems to, again because of how the child wants to be regarded by their peers. If they get no pressure at home, they may still be running into problems with other children. By now, though, I think the caregiver will have been educated to deal with gender variance and discrimination.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Peterkin

[MigL]

58 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I said children can figure out their own gender identities better without pressure from their parents, because I assumed that pressure is focused on making a typical choice. The children who make typical choices would still make them (which makes the parent's interference worthless), but the ones who feel differently will end up getting villified (which makes the parent's interference detrimental). 

I don't understand this.

Children less than 2 years of age are basically a set of eyes.
They see the world around them and make judgements about themselves in comparison.
( whatever they don't understand by looking at it, is picked up and chewed on )

The 'world' aroung them consists mostly of the parents ( and possibly siblings ).
They are influencing the child's gender identity simply by being in the child's line of sight.

It would be interesting to see studies done on baby boys ( possibly artificially inseminated ) into the mother of a lesbian couple.
Would the baby boy have issues identifying as male without a 'reference' in his formative years ?

( if there is such a study, I'm sure haronY will reference it )

 

6 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Male dominance is also a LOT more toxic and competition oriented than what women do.

Clearly you've never worked with a bunch of women before.
They can be rather ... 'catty'.
( no offense to cats 😄 )

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by MigL

[studiot]

34 minutes ago, MigL said:

( whatever they don't understand by looking at it, is picked up and chewed on )

Love this comment.

I remember being set to watch my much younger infant male cousin a time or two. He was definitely in that age group.

And he spent most of the time I was watching crawling around chewing the table and chir legs (no he did not pick them up).

Interestingly when his sister came along a couple of years later I never saw her do this and I was told she didn't.

Personally I blame the family corgi setting a bad exmple. Perhaps the lad identified himeself as a corgi.

 

[iNow]

3 hours ago, studiot said:

I remember being set to watch my much younger infant male cousin a time or two. He was definitely in that age group.

Did you happen to notice how all of his little pajamas and onesies and jumpers (or whatever you Scottish blokes call em… maybe a romper?)… did you happen to notice they were ALL blue and white and gray. Not pink, though? 

Sadly it wasn’t just the parents who were in on it. Apparently all of their friends showed up to the baby shower with blue and gray and white onesies and bibs and socks and hats. Not a damned one was pink though, and the baby wasn’t even born yet.

Heck… Not even the mom had seen her baby boy yet… what with him still gestating inside her belly and all… yet already the social gender cues were being reinforced everywhere and across all corners.

Not yet even breathing air outside instead of breathing fallopian fluids, but already gifted trucks and blocks and planes instead of dolls and kitchenware.

Obviously these roles and characteristics we see today are all genetic in origin. /sarcasm

 

(and only quoted you here as a jumping off point, this is not a reply to you directly)  

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by iNow

[Peterkin]

We all know the sit-com meme of the father and grandfather buying footballs or baseball mitts for a baby. What if it is a boy, who will eventually be happy and comfortable as a boy, but who just doesn't like sports? While lots of girls like football and baseball , but hate kitchens and have no time for dolls. I really hope that mind-set has been overturned in the past 20 or 30 years and adults have stopped making such fools of themselves.

[iNow]

25 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I really hope that mind-set has been overturned in the past 20 or 30 years and adults have stopped making such fools of themselves.

Not according to the paint section at the local hardware store. Parents and parents-to-be all standing there buying the “right” color to paint their still unborn child’s nursery… making sure it’s pink or blue or a similar gender-based hue. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by iNow

[MigL]

That's even more far-fetched; that a baby is born knowing that pink is associated with girls, and blue with boys.

Or do you think they gather this information during their formative years by associating colors with the gender of their parents or siblings ?