People first and foremost

A friend recently recounted to me an incident in which, during a chat about what job she might like to do, his four-year-old daughter resolutely insisted: "I can't be a doctor because I'm a girl." The funny thing - he went on to explain - was that the child's only experience of doctors was through their family GP, who is, in fact, a woman.

How do children learn such gender-defined roles in these equality-driven times? Why should a child of the Nineties have such a strong sense of what she can or cannot become as an adult, when her personal experience contradicts such a world view? Where then - if not in their immediate home environments - do children learn about gender-appropriate behaviour? Writing in Natural Childhood, a practical guide to the first seven years (Gaia Books, London), British journalist and parent educator Tim Kahn says that by the age of three, most children are aware of their own gender. "They also have an idea of the different roles of males and females in society, even if their parents do not fit the stereotypes. Thus the child who sees his father cooking at home may still say his mother does the cooking," Kahn writes.

Sheila Porter, a Dublin-based clinical psychologist working with children and adolescents, says such comments from children show us the strength of the cultural image over the child's first-hand experience. However, she adds, on the whole little girls do model themselves on their mothers and little boys on their fathers as part of their psychological development. "We reinforce in very subtle, almost unconscious ways how certain behaviours are appropriate for boys and girls. Research has shown that right from birth many adults handle babies quite differently if they are told the baby is a boy or a girl." Drawing on the above example, Porter suggests the girl may be experimenting with the whole idea of what men and women can do. "Rather than appearing to reprove her, a parent could ask: `do you know any women who are doctors?' She may well solve her own particular task at that moment."

Carmel Wynne, E&L columnist and author of Relationships and Sex- uality (Mercier Press), gives another poignant example of how one preschool boy couldn't find anyone with whom to play "mummys and daddys". When the playgroup leader intervened, she discovered all the girls wanted to play working mothers, while the little boy pleaded with someone to play a "proper mummy" (i.e. a stay-at-home version). "This story shows that there are still some very strong implicit (gender specific) expectations within our society," Wynne says. "It takes about 25 years for a change in attitude to filter down through society. Children mirror what goes around about them. But their parents will always be the strongest models. "How you and your partner relate to one another - not what you say - will determine all of their future relationships."

Kahn says children will naturally explore gender differences in play. "A very young child will happily take on the roles of the other gender in play. Even though a boy may put on a dress and pretend to feed dolls, he still knows he is a boy. This only becomes a problem if adults are anxious about it. "The child needs us to relax and allow him to explore gender differences to satisfy his natural curiosity," Kahn writes. By the age of four or five, the pressure of their peers forces most boys and girls to play only with others of the same sex and to conform to stereotypical behaviour.

"It is important to offer the child choice in his gender role, even though his behaviour is likely to conform to stereotype. He will be able to use this choice when he becomes a young adult and makes decisions about the kind of person he is," writes Kahn.

Keeping an open mind about the nature of child's play is therefore one strategy that can allow children to explore gender fully. Porter agrees: "It is important for both boys and girls to be free to care for dolls or teddies, because this helps them come to terms with how they are cared for and what they need from us. "Any behaviour has multiple layers of meaning for the child. All we can do is provide the play things and let the child get on with it. "Children are perhaps wiser than we are and they will know how to get what they need from play. Children will turn a piece of wood into a doll and pull it around - to such is the power of their imaginative worlds."

Children's literature is another area where gender stereotyping comes under a lot of discussion. As in play, stories also carry several levels of meaning for children. Providing a good variety of books, from classic fairytales to contemporary "politically correct" children's fiction, allows children to soak up both the magic and the realism.

The remarks of teacher and writer Mildred Masheder in Natural Child- hood provide good advice to parents concerned about such issues. "We have it in our power to start our child on a path that is far less `gender fixed' than in previous generations," she writes. One should remember that all children have a part of them that is neither male or female. They are just themselves, and they are people first and foremost.