A few thoughts about boys and monkeys

Did you hear about the study regarding male monkeys and toy preference by researchers in Emory University's Department of Psychology? If not, here's a bit about it:

We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization. We offer the hypothesis that toy preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and humans.

This was amazing to me. I remember someone at my baby shower (for my first baby) giving me books about trucks. I knew I was having a boy, but still, my first thought was: Yuck. I mean, who wants to read a book that simply shows a picture of a truck on every page...Dump Truck, Digger, Cement Mixer? The woman who gave it to me was already the mom of two young boys and she wrote in her card, "My boys love these!" I thought: 'Well mine won't.'

I always assumed that the differences between boys and girls was more nature than nurture. That society and advertising and our parents shaped our preferences and behavior. Well, lo and behold, then I had my first boy. I was floored when, at quite a young age, he started pointing to trucks and buses on the street. I certainly wasn't getting excited about them, so he wasn't learning that behavior from me. Nope, it was 100% innate. His first word was actually truck (pronounced with a c, however,since he had not yet mastered 'tr'). Interestingly, his second word was ball, so we had a few moments where we'd be walking down the street and he'd suddenly shout out "Cock!" followed by "Ball!" But that's another story.

All and all it has opened my eyes - the way that E, without any outside influence whatsoever, has gravitated toward standard boy toys. Although he still likes trucks, tools have taken over as his toy of choice. And his little brother is following in his footsteps. I have no problem with this whatsoever, nor would I have any problem if they wanted to play with Barbie dolls. Whatever makes them happy. In fact, the thing that makes them happy right now happens to be a Minnie Mouse doll that came with a box of Rice Krispies. They fought over it so much that we had to keep buying Kellogg's cereal until we got another Minnie Mouse. Now they take their little Minnies anywhere they go, a blow to male stereotypes everywhere! Just yesterday at the doctor's office a father had to confirm with me that it was Minnie, and not Mickey, they were carrying. I smiled and said "Yep, Minnie," while thinking "You got a problem with that??"