(Um, yes, hi. Remember me?)
My Nana is fond of telling a story about how my Dad called me "Little Mama" when I was small. I think the Alzheimer's has mixed up the characters in her head because I was never called "Little Mama." The nickname is sweet and has a nice ring to it, but no one else remembers me being called this, including my Dad.
Lately I have been calling Ella "Little Mama" because she has been all about her dolls and stuffed bears. She obsessively changes a doll's diaper, clothes and shoes. She props the bears in her booster seat and shares bits of her snack and sips of her milk. She carefully sets them in her little person chairs and props a book in their lap. She is becoming a little mini-Mom to her rapidly growing kingdom of dolls and stuffed bears. The dolls have been around since she was born, and so have the trucks and matchbox cars that she has yet to touch. What made her choose the dolls over the trucks?
I read an interesting article in Wondertime magazine about this very question (I didn't see the article on their site - it was in the November 2007 issue, and it was called "Darwin's 18-Wheeler" by Mark Cherrington). In battling with the nature-versus-nurture question, the author cites a study involving monkeys at play. When a group of male and female monkeys were given dolls, toy dishes, tools, and trucks to play with, the female monkeys chose the dolls and dishes while the male monkeys chose the tools and trucks. The conclusion being, of course, that at least some of our gendered behaviors are a product of our very nature. Mildly disturbing, but interesting and not entirely unexpected.
October 17, 2007
Little Mama
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2 comments:
Or, perhaps it is because these are the actions that are modeled most often for her. I agree that some gender specific behaviors are inherent, but also that what is modeled is equally important. I would bet that if instead of reading to and feeding her you were beating her that she would mirror that behavior with the dolls too. You are her strongest role model that she has and she is mirroring what you do everyday. Really, how often do you play with cars or trucks? The dolls just fit better into her realm of life experience. She is actually showing what a great mama you are by mimicking all of the wonderful things that you do daily. I thought about all of this a lot when Sam was equally obsessed with hammers and running the vacuum, dusting, and picking-up laundry. Jake was putting the floors in at that time and I was constantly cleaning it all up. He was projecting what he had observed. Now, of course, he lays in the bed eating snacks and watching bad TV, because that's what WE are doing :)
Yes Bonnie, by all means I lean mostly toward the nurture side of the debate. I think that is why the Wondertime article suprised me so much. There were some strong arguments that made me question, just for a second, if maybe the nature side is stronger than I thought.
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