Have you ever stopped to consider the different expectations that we have of men and women when it comes to expectations of parenting? Unfortunately we do not do a very good job of training either sex to becoming a parent, but the training that is available tends to be directed towards females. We are still a society that expects more nurturing and parenting from mothers than fathers. When we see a woman caring for a child we judge how well she is doing and expect perfection. When we see a man doing the same tasks, we praise him for helping out and accept the effort no matter what the quality of the effort is. This is a message that begins early in childhood and extends through the life time.

When I stop to think about this I realize that I encouraged my daughter to practice parenting, but not my son. My daughter had dolls and kitchen sets and all the accessories for playing house. I never went out of my way to buy baby boy dolls or to encourage my son to play that he was a pretend daddy. There were times that my son played house with his sister, but the whole feeding the dolls and changing the dolls and putting the dolls to bed were not part of the play for my son. If I were to do things over I would buy baby boy dolls for both of my children. That is the other thing that is strange is that all the dollies to play with and clothe tend to be girl dolls. There is the Ken doll that goes with the Barbie doll, but they are adults. Baby boy dolls are a little harder to find, but they are available. Cabbage Patch dolls are starting to create more of the baby boy dolls. I feel that this is very important. Boys need to be taught and shown how to care for children so that it will be a natural thing to them to perform the parenting tasks.

The school that my children attended is doing a better job of offering parenting and family living classes to both sexes. When I was in high school is was very rare for any of the boys to take child development classes or family living classes. They were taught in the home-economic rooms and the unspoken message was that these were classes for the girls to take. I did teach my son how to use the washing machine as well as how to cook and clean, but I never talked to him about child care. I cannot believe I did no preparation for the most important job he will ever do, parenting his children.

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