Boys and Girls Are All From Earth

Lately my 6-year-old has taken to shaving his legs with his dad’s electric razor. Daily. And because I’ve been reading and reflecting on the book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps – and What We Can Do About It, I’m trying to find ways of discouraging his leg-shaving without coming right out and saying it’s only for girls.

The book argues that although there are biological differences between boys’ and girls’ brains, they tend to be overblown in the media. The author, Lisa Eliot, starts in infancy and lays out what neuroscientists know and don’t know about sex differences in the brain. She also explores skills like writing (presumed to be a “girl” skill) and science (stereotypically “boy”). Her conclusion is that culture plays a huge role. Parents and schools alike may say they’re gender-neutral, but biases creep in despite our best intentions.

At the end of each chapter she summarizes how parents can raise boys AND girls who reach their full potential. For example, in the chapter on infants, she concludes with these tips:

• “Talk to your babies, especially boys. Of all the purported tricks for raising smarter children, this is the only one that has been scientifically proven: the amount of language directly addressed to a child in the first few years of life significantly influences his or her vocabulary size, reading ability, and writing skills for many years to come.

• “Listen too! Communication is a two-way street. Babies learn as much about language from their own attempts at vocalization as they do from our chatter.

• “Books for babies, especially boys. Of all the ways to talk to babies, reading aloud is the best. Reading is the single most effective way for adults to increase their own vocabularies, and guess what: it works the same way for children.

• “Stop parking your baby. …While all children these days need more exercise, the many variations of infant recliner sweats reinforce girls’ less active tendency.”

Her tips go on to talk about cuddling babies, being vigilant against ear infections, challenging girls to explore their world, keeping fathers involved, breastfeeding for one year and avoiding plastics with BPA. Finally, she advocates that we pay attention to our own stereotyping, which we all do whether we mean to or not. (Think about how many times you’ve praised “cute” girl babies and marveled at “active” boys.)

And so my son continues to shave his legs. We talk about how professional swimmers shave off their body hair to be faster in the water. We talk about how his dad and a lot of the other adults we know don’t shave their legs. And we talk about the importance of moisturizing after shaving. That, at least, really is gender-neutral.