My nephew K. had one pronounced oddity when he was an infant and toddler - he didn’t like women. He didn’t want to be babysat by women, he hid behind his father when he met strange women, though he was outgoing with strange men, and he preferred the company of his father to his mother. Having not the highest opinion of my sister-in-law, I put this down to her influence, and didn’t think much about it.
But now I have a 10-month-old son. He shows no obvious preference between men and women, and little preference between his mother and father. Except he won’t “kiss” me (his kiss being opening his mouth and placing it on the recipient’s cheek). In contrast, he will kiss his mother on request. When he was a few months younger, while he wouldn’t kiss on request, he would lay a smacker on both of us on occasion.
I put down BabySponte’s refusal to kiss me to the fact that he spends much more time with his (stay-at-home) mom, and this was one of the areas in which he expressed a preference for his mom over me.
But this week in the in-laws came to visit. They live far away, and it is pretty likely that he didn’t remember them, as the last visit was three months ago. It turns out that BabySponte will kiss his grandmom, but won’t kiss his granddad. So it looks like BabySponte will mack with the ladies, but not the menfolk.
So on to my question: can anyone give me a summary of the hows and whys of differing behavior by infants and toddlers to persons of different genders, and/or give me a link to some articles on the subject? My Googling was a bust, probably because I don’t know the correct terminology for the subject.
You’ll have to ask him when he gets to the age, but it could just be that you and grandpa are scratchier. Kids can be picky about things like that.
I don’t recall my kids having any gender preferences, but they were both kind of fascinated by their godfather, who is a big Portuguese guy with a bushy black mustache. (My husband and I are both Northern European types and somewhat similar in general appearance.)
Yep, it’s the scruff. Caileigh will veeeeeery carefully kiss her Daddy on the lips, but if any of his beard or mustache hair touches her, she jerks away and says “yuck!” She won’t kiss anyone on the cheek, even though we’ve always mostly kissed her on the cheek.
This afternoon she did the same thing to my 14 year old. I heard her from the other room, and I told him it was time to shave (he only needs to shave about once a month). He accused her of ratting him out!
Many many babies are afraid of beards or glasses. Some are frightened by deep booming voices. While I haven’t thought about it before, I’ve never seen a baby with a preference for men - SuaSponte’s nephew is the first I’ve heard of.
