When it comes to their children, parents think they treat their kids equally but I say otherwise. Specifically between a son and a daughter, there is an invisible standard held solely based on their gender. This may not be something they see since society normalizes gender stereotypes/bias. An example from my own life would be when my parents didn’t think I was interested in sports but my brother was.
This may not be something they see since society normalizes gender stereotypes/bias.”
— Guest Writer Laila Guzman
Michael Goncher supposes the idea that parents would favor their son more than their daughter. They think their son is more intelligent than their daughter but it is quite the opposite. Parents think this because society says boys are supposed to be smart while girls should just sit there and look pretty. In reality again it is the opposite because girls actually develop a “larger vocabulary and use more complex sentences.”
From my experience I went through invisible standards based on gender roles. Whenever my brother gets in trouble my parents will say “boys will be boys” but when I do the same thing it’s different for me. There was this one instance where my brother was in the living room and he made a mess and didn’t clean up. My parents came into the room, saw the mess, were not mad, and yet they expected me to clean it up. They have a traditional standard that girls clean up after guys and cater to them.
Opponents argue that parents have the same standards for their sons and their daughters and an example would be washing dishes. Parents think they set equal standards that both men and women are likely to wash dishes: 33%-40% of people agree. However, that’s not the case because “women remain more likely than men to perform most of the duties at home” and according to Brenan women are more likely to clean the house with 59% of women agreeing. Also, I witness more girls in my household cleaning than I do guys.
To conclude, parents have different standards between their sons and their daughters. Though they think they set equal standards, they don’t. Parents should open their minds to the possibility that they could be treating their children differently and see how they can fix it–even if that means doing a little research project on how you unknowingly treat your children differently. This can make a big difference on how your children see you. Also, you don’t want them to feel like you favor one child over the other.
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