Cues From the Crib : By Speaking Softly to Daughters, Firmly to Sons, Experts Say Parents Can Reinforce the Gender Gap

On a recent drive from Los Angeles to Utah--a journey that would make almost any mother question her sanity--Tina Ferraro was madly trying to divert her two young children.

“Oh, look, there’s a truck,” she announced to Patrick, 4. “There’s a helicopter. There’s an airplane.”

But to 2-year-old Sarah, Ferraro said, “Oh look, honey, there’s a duckie. There’s a horsie.”

The realization that she was speaking differently to her children came as a shock to Ferraro, a romance writer who lives in Van Nuys. After all, she likes to think of herself as a non-sexist mother whose daughter will “grow up to be President.”

But it perfectly supported the conclusions of a Boston University research group that found parents deliver gender cues to their children by applying different linguistic standards to each sex--virtually from birth. The researchers were unable to provide a definitive answer to the great nature-versus-nurture debate in their study of 88 parents in ordinary playtime situations. But their work did illustrate how language reinforces certain stereotypical expectations of little boys and girls.

The most glaring example was seen in the use of diminutives, according to Jean Berko(Gleason, a psychology professor who specializes in child language development. Gleason and her Boston University colleagues discovered that, by the age of 32 months, little girls hear twice as many diminutives--affectionate words like kitty or dollie in place of cat or doll-- as boys.

“It’s just very clear that verbally, parents treat little boys and little girls differently,” Gleason said. “To girls you say things like ‘Uppie, sweetie, you want your dinnie?’ You just don’t say those same things to boys.

“Unconsciously--most parents haven’t got a clue that this is going on--parents have preconceived notions of what a child is like. For example, parents assume that girls are ‘sweeter’ and more emotional, and therefore deserve gentler treatment and gentler language.”

It should come as no surprise, Gleason said, that frequently “children grow to fit the stereotypes of sweet little girls and rowdy little boys.”

Cynthia Porter, a mother of three and a bookkeeper who also runs an after-school day-care program in her Carlsbad home, said these kinds of gender-based preconceptions make her “crazy.”

“I hear this all the time, when the little boys will be acting up and the parents will say things like, ‘Well, boys will be boys.’ Or I hear parents saying, ‘Girls are so much easier than boys.’

“It makes me livid,” Porter said. “I think, ‘What century are we living in?’ ”

She believes that such examples perpetuate themselves. “The parents allow the stereotypes to continue, maybe, because they are more comfortable with them.”

Porter said she and her husband “strive to be non-sexist in our language, in the way we treat our children, in the way they play and in the way we present ourselves as role models.” Rather than saying “good girl” to 18-month-old Thea, the Porters will tell her she is a “good baby,” the same phrase they assiduously used when Andrew, who is nearly 7, and Jessica, 10, were infants.

Though he makes no such conscientious effort to engage in linguistic egalitarianism, John Graham, a Los Angeles political consultant, said he would be “hard pressed” to say he speaks differently to Hannah, who is almost 3, and 6-month-old John Henry.

With both children, Graham said he avoids using diminutives or cute baby talk. “I just figure you might as well learn the right word,” Graham said. “I just tend to call things exactly what they are.”

But Barbara Clerkin, a Los Angeles nurse, said she and her husband “definitely” talk differently to Kara, almost 2, than to Terence, 7 or Peter, 4 1/2.

“Since Kara has been on the scene, I would have to say it’s just softer around here,” Clerkin said. Although she never would have hesitated to speak sharply to her sons at the same age, “I hardly ever raise my voice to her.”

Gleason’s study confirmed this tendency for parents to engage in softer dialogue with daughters. Mothers, in particular, were likely to respond with a firm “no” to a request or action by their sons, while the same behavior from their daughters often prompted an indirect or diversionary response.

“To a boy, you hear a mother say, ‘No!’ ‘Don’t do that!’ ‘Stop it!’ ” Gleason said.

“With little girls, the mothers were often diverting their attention. They would say something like, ‘Oh, look over there, sweetie. Is that a little buggie on the wall?’ ”

Ruth Cohnen, a Los Angeles mother of two sons and a daughter, said she is “less imperative” with 2-year-old Marissa than with Eric, 6, or even 1-year-old Max.

“When I get as assertive with her as I am with Eric, she cries,” Cohnen said. “She’s a lot more sensitive, and you have to be gentler with her in the way you talk to her.”

Ferraro feels the same way about her daughter. “In some situations I do soften things for Sarah, because she seems softer.”

While boys hear more “prohibitives”--more direct negatives--girls are treated to more phrases that refer to their “inner state,” Gleason said. “You convey warmer things to the girls.”

Frequently, Gleason found, these conversational differences were reflected in the fact that parents use so many more diminutives. At 14 months, her study disclosed, only girls heard words like ballie , gaggy , guggy and hoppity . Both sexes heard words like birdie and chickie . And boys of the same age heard just one consistent diminutive, blankie .

Laurie McCarthy, a Los Angeles investment banker, said these findings squared with her family’s experiences. “There’s no question that we talk to my daughter with more diminutives and more cutesy stuff,” McCarthy said.

Fifteen-month-old Michelle “is always ‘oh, cutie,’ and ‘oh, sweetie,’ ” McCarthy said. At the same age, Christopher--now almost 4--”had little nicknames. He was a fish. He was a dinosaur. Lately, he’s been the pony boy.”

There is a “different style of verbal affection” for the two children,” McCarthy said. Michelle “is just getting a lot more verbal commentary.”

Gleason balked at making a direct link between language and sexism. “The bottom line is that males and females may come with some built-in differences, but society may either amplify or create differences as well,” she said.

The very mention of gender differences in language acquisition may chill the feminist souls of many women, but, as McCarthy, for one, pointed out, “We are different--and I don’t want to be a guy, either.”

Recognizing the differences in language may in fact help to reconcile other differences between men and women, Ferraro suggested.

“Maybe it will help us to become more accepting,” she said.

Or perhaps, said Barbara Clerkin, “maybe it’s something that you need to be aware of, and then decide what you’re going to buy into.”