Fw: Flexible Work & Parenting (Was Re: Gender, Race,and Publishing on the Left)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:06 PM 6/19/98 -0500, nick wrote:
>income to the household.  however, denying the stronger bond that exists
>between a mother and a young child is ludicrous.  have you ever listened to
>a baby that doesn't stop crying until the mother holds it?  that isn't just
>because the mother is spending more time with the baby as a result of social
>constructs - that baby wants the person with whom it is most connected.  and
>the mother - does she not feel a bit more connected to a child than a
>father?  does shared pain not create the deepest bonds?

I do not feel particularly qualified to argue either way, but methinks
social bond is a result of experience rather than genetically programmed.
The fact that most men do not seem well connected to their children may be
a result of low social value of male parenting, little time spent with the
children, etc.  Conversely, if women indeed have a stronger natural bond
with the children, that needs to be positively demonstrated, among other,
by ruling out any 'social' factor (such as gender roles, expectations, time
spent with children, etc.).

Nancy Chodorov, if memorry serves, offered a still alternative explanation;
the differences are neither 'learned" (in a traditional sense) nor genetic,
but they are deeply ingraimned in how male and female personalities are
formed; girls identify with their mothers because women are the only adult
figures around them most of the time, whiole boys essentially lack an adult
figure they can identify with (since most fathers do not participate in
child rearing), so they develop their personality by negating female traits
they observe in their mothers.  Nice story, although nearly impossible to
verify empirically.

Regards,

Wojtek