Quote:
Originally posted by mmm3587
It's almost laughable to me that, through evolution, boys are predisposed to playing with trucks. It's the things that they see, hear and experience that make them want to fill the role that society has determined is appropriate for them.
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I used to laugh at the parents who claimed to have raised their boys in total isolation from any depiction of guns saying that the boys "magically" started using the pointed finger and "you're dead" during play. Silly them, I thought. The boys must have seen someone with a gun between their no-TV households and their ultra-crunchy Montessoris. They had to have seen it somewhere, right?
Until I read a magazine article about so-called primitive cultures in the South Pacific experiencing the same phenomenon going back centuries. Entire cultures that hadn't seen guns, and yet they do the finger-pointy-you're-dead thing during play. Turns out, it's the ancient fantastic wish for the power of the Evil Eye --- the desire to cause effects over long distances, combined with the desire to do harm.
ETA: As for trucks versus dolls, I heard a child development psychologist say that boys seek toys involving the interaction between materials and surfaces (e.g., percussion instruments; sliding things across the carpet) while girls seek toys involving the interaction between proxies for people (i.e., dolls). There's probably a solid evolutionary basis for that development.
