New Year, Birthdays, and The Female Brain

- January 20, 2012

In our family, you can't celebrate New Years without celebrating Becky Roo's birthday too! We decided as the sisters, to spend time with our in-laws over the actual Christmas holiday and then spend time with our immediate family on New Years weekend. So, as you can see, we had one fabulous strawberry cake to celebrate. Don't you love her hat too? I think she looks extra special!

sweet nephews helping blow out the candles

Say hello to the sweetest Mallaroo, our little niece is just precious!
Here's the part of the blog where I inform you of the female brain. RANDOM.
SOAPBOX: Many of my college professors all tried to tell me that little girls and boys are all "socialized" to play with toys differently- I totally disagree! When I was in Nicaragua where children don't have toys, the little boys were still fighting with sticks and the little girls were cradling them. My professors however, would claim that little boys are told that they have to play destructively by our society, and gender is ultimately learned behavior (all to support the claim that we should all have a choice to decide what gender we are. SAD) If this is true, then how did Mallory know to feed and cradle the baby for four hours in a row when her brothers did nothing of the sort? Plus, if you read this book about the female brain then you'd know that little girls have different hormone surges than boys. I believe at 22-24 months, little girls have a surge of estrogen and boys, testosterone. However, there is what is known as the case of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: "CAH." CAH is when a boy or girl has the opposite hormone surge. So, if a little boy suddenly has this rare instance of CAH, then he may not be as aggressive as the other boys in the sandbox which can lead to comments like, "she's just a tomboy" or "he's just not that into boy things yet." These statements can unfortunately affect someone's outlook on life and maybe even their gender in the future in our sad society (we like to put people in boxes).

ALSO, girls have more developed visual and sensory nerve systems in their brain than boys do at this age... so, naturally God allows little girls to recognize facial patterns and tones of voices better than boys.. to nurture better maybe? Pretty fascinating! For example, if you say to a little boy, "get over here right now" when he's about to do something inappropriate, he can not hear the difference in your tone (warning him to stop) of voice like a girl can. So, instead of merely telling little boys what to do or not do in a certain tone of voice, they have to be shown by example and physically moved from the edge of the pool, away from the sharp object, and into your arms. (and/or spanked!) Ultimately, if you know someone who thinks they are a girl trapped in a male's body.... we are called to love people no matter their gender, to show them the love of Christ, and not love the sin in others. There's much more to this but I'll stop here since I'm not a parent but, only a very experienced babysitter. I still have a lot to learn but maybe you learned something new today! maybe. Thanks Mallory!!