Discuss the Impact of Child Gender on Parenting
Various studies on parenting styles reveal that the manner in which parents bring up their children could have a considerable impact on their future endeavors. Parents exhibit varying parenting styles while raising their children, and this is evident in everyday activities both at home and in public. According to McGillicuddy-De Lisi and De Lisi (2007), there are four main parenting styles: authoritative, rejecting-neglectful, authoritarian, and permissive. Authoritative parents tend to be warm towards their child but firm in setting rules. Authoritarian parents value obedience and are strict in enforcing rules. On the other hand, rejecting-neglectful parents rarely engage their child and are hence seldom involved in promoting personal development or discipline. Finally, permissive parents hardly discipline their child, are accepting and warm, and hardly impose limits.
Varner and Mandara (2013) note that gender differences and their effect on social life have informed psychological and sociological theory over the years. In particular, scholars have been concerned about the extent to which social differences between women and men on such issues as marriage and education could have been influenced by the social environment in which they were brought up, and more so with regard to the parenting styles to which they were subjected. For instance, parents permit or enforce masculine behavior in boys more than in girls. While there is limited evidence of gender-enforced attitudes or behavior, various studies nonetheless indicate that fathers and mothers retain certain unique parenting styles that tend to differ in magnitude based on the gender of the child.
The idea that a child determines the parenting style adopted hinges on the child effects model (Levine and Munsch, 2013). Proponents of the child effects model contend that children have a huge impact on their parents, especially their parenting style. For example, authoritative parenting tends to look adaptive since "easy-going, manageable, and competent children enable their parents to become more authoritative" (Shaffer and Kipp, 2010, p. 107). In addition, extremely impulsive and stubborn children who also display limited self-control have also been shown to provoke a coercive type of parenting. According to Kim, Capaldi, and Stoolmiller (2003), such children could ultimately wear their parents out, resulting in less affectionate, more lax, and probably even uninvolved and hostile parents. Elsewhere, Odubote (2008) reports that parents are more likely to adopt an authoritative parenting style while raising girls in comparison to boys.
While there is ample evidence in current literature on the effect of a parent's gender on parenting style, the same cannot be said of how the gender of a child affects parenting. Marotz and Kupzyk (2016) are of the view that this could be the case owing to global attempts to increase gender equality. In spite of such efforts, many cultures today still practice a "strict adherence to gender role stereotypes" (p. 139). This has, in turn, helped to maintain the differential treatment and expectations for girls and boys. A study conducted by Endendijk et al. (2015) found that when bringing up boys, mothers usually employ a more demanding and authoritarian approach in comparison with girls, even as fathers are shown to be more casual regarding boys' noncompliant behavior. Elsewhere, Varner and Mandara (2013) noted that in a family of older female siblings and younger boys, parents tended to give the younger siblings more autonomy in comparison with their older children. Moreover, parents tended to hold boys to lower academic and behavioral standards in comparison with girls.
Boys and girls differ in terms of their emotional reactivity, and this too could have an effect on the parents' willingness and patience to guide and assist the child in various learning situations (Bornstein, 2005). The findings of a study conducted by Maccoby, Snow, and Jacklin (1984) appear to support this hypothesis. In the study, Maccoby et al. (1984) sought to evaluate the efforts of mothers in teaching their child assigned learning tasks at 1 year and 1.5 years of age. In the findings, difficult temperament was found to moderate and mediate the observed effects of child gender on parenting. Maccoby et al. (1984) established that at 1 year of age, mothers of children with a difficult temperament, especially sons, were seen to limit their teaching efforts relative to other mothers. Therefore, a child's gender and temperament had an impact on mothers' parenting behavior. In explaining their observed findings, Maccoby et al. (1984) theorized that the gender stereotypes manifested by mothers could have influenced their being less assertive in bringing up their sons, with the temperamental behavior of their sons playing a role in the development of these gender stereotypes.
In sum, the varying parenting styles manifested by parents in bringing up their children are partly determined by the gender of their children. This is in keeping with the child effect model. Girls and boys differ in their emotional reactions, and this has an impact on the parents' willingness and patience to guide them in varying learning situations. The temperamental behavior of sons is thought to influence gender stereotypes exhibited by mothers, and this too impacts how mothers raise their sons. However, there is limited evidence in the literature on how child gender impacts parenting, and as such, it is hard to examine the extent to which this claim is valid. Therefore, there is a need to undertake more research into the area in order to shed more light on the issue.
References :
Bornstein, M.H., 2005. Handbook of Parenting: Volume 1: Children and Parenting. New York: Psychology Press.
Endendijk, J.J., Groeneveld, M.G., van der Pol, L.D., van Berkel, S.R. et al., 2015. Parenting: Science and Practice.
Kim, H. K., Capaldi, D. M., & Stoolmiller, M., 2003. Depressive symptoms across adolescence and young adulthood in men: Predictions from parental and contextual risk factors. Dev. Psychopathol., 15(2), 469-95.
Levine, L.E., and Munsch, J., 2013. Child Development. London: Sage.
Marotz, L.R., & Kupzyk, S., 2016. Parenting Today's Children: A Developmental Perspective. Stamford, Mass.: Cengage Learning.
McGillicuddy-De Lisi, A. V., & De Lisi, R., 2007. Perceptions of family relations when mothers and fathers are depicted with different parenting styles. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 168, 425-442.
Odubote, B.A., 2008. Parenting style, race and delinquency: A comparative study of European American, African American and Nigerian families. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota).
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K., 2010. Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Varner, F., & Mandara, J., 2013. Discrimination concerns and expectations as explanations for gendered socialization in African American families. Child Development, 84(3): 875–90.
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