Even 9-month-olds pick gender-specific toys

Genetics may influence how children differentiate  girl toys from boy toys.  A new study suggests certain stereotypical gender preferences take root before kids can even walk.

“The boys always preferred the toys that go or move (car, digger, soccer ball), and the girls preferred toys that promote nurturing and facial features (doll, teddy bear, cooking set),” said study author Sara Amalie O’Toole Thommessen, an undergraduate at City University in London.

Nature or nurture?

What is unclear to scientists is whether innate preferences or socialization is responsible for this finding. “It’s too soon to rule either out,” said Walter Gilliam, director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University.  ”One of the things we’ve learned about babies over the many years we’ve been studying them is that they are amazing sponges and learn an awful lot in those nine months,” Gilliam said.

Gender-specific preferences became even more pronounced by about age 27 months to 36 months.  Girls spent about 50 percent of their time playing with the doll and seemed to had outgrown the teddy bear.  The boys spent 87 percent of their time with the car and digger, ignoring even the ball.

In the study, researchers found no association between parents’ reported views on gender-appropriate toys for children, or parental roles at home, and the toys children chose. In other words, dads who did their share of housework and moms who held high-level jobs outside the home were just as likely to have girls who picked dolls and boys who picked cars and trucks.

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