The development of parental preferences in the first two years of life

Parent-Infant Interaction in Families on Israeli Kibbutzim

Thirty-eight first-born kibbutz-reared infants and their parents were observed in the parents' living quarters when the infants were 8 and 16 months of age. Although childcare was the primary responsibility of nonparental caretakers (metaplot) rather than either parent, sex differences in parental behavior similar to those observed in the US and Sweden were found. As in these countries, kibbutz mothers were more likely to vocalize, laugh, display affection, hold, and engage in caretaking than fathers were. This suggests that immediate competing demands on the parents' time do not account for the widely-observed sex differences in parental behavior. Whereas American infants (especially boys) develop preferences on attachment behavior measures for the same sex parent and Swedish infants develop preferences for their mothers, these kibbutz infants showed no preferences for either parent, suggesting that the relatively similar involvement of mothers and fathers in childcare in the kibbutz context may counteract the tendency to form preferential relationships.

Mothers' and fathers' behaviors toward their 3- to 4-month-old infants in lower, middle, and upper socioeconomic African American families

African American mothers' and fathers' availability, caregiving, and social behaviors toward their infants in and around their homes were examined. Twenty lower, 21 middle, and 21 upper socioeconomic families and their 3- to 4-month-old infants were observed for 4 3-hr blocks between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on 4 different weekdays. With increasing economic resources, children's exposure to multiple caregivers and nonresident fathers declined. Mothers were more available to infants than fathers were, regardless of socioeconomic status. Mothers fed infants more than fathers did, whereas fathers vocalized more and displayed more affection to infants than mothers did when they were examined in proportion to caregiver presence. Mothers and fathers interacted with male and female infants quite similarly, although, in the upper socioeconomic families, fathers of daughters were more available than fathers of sons. Fathers and mothers in the different socioeconomic groups held, displayed affection to, and soothed their infants differently.

The absence of the paternal penis

Girls' experiences of object loss, in conjunction with female anatomical structure, may lend themselves to a particular genital anxiety regarding openness and emptiness. The relational void in giving up the mother as love object may lead to an internal self-representation of a "hole" to be filled, much as the mouth sucks the pacifier in the absence of the nipple. This image may then be extended to the genital representation. In turning to the father, a girl may find that she lacks a relationship with him in the relational space opened up by the loss of the mother; the penis is symbolically withheld from her in the father's relational distance. This lack of sexual and relational gratification, it is proposed, may be schematized by a female as her body being empty of something. The father's absence--the absence of the paternal penis--may lead to an absence of the mental representation of the vagina and to an inhibition of the role the vagina then plays for a woman in sexual desire. Vaginal repression may serve to disguise object hunger that might otherwise be experienced as vaginal longing. An abbreviated clinical vignette, revolving around a masturbatory fantasy, is offered in partial illustration of the thesis.

The influence of children's facial maturity on parental expectations and punishments

It was hypothesized that the perception of maturefaced children as more able to follow complicated instructions, more likely to know right from wrong, more shrewd, and physically stronger than their babyfaced peers would lead parents to assign more demanding tasks to these children and to judge their misbehavior more harshly. Study 1 revealed that parents allocated more cognitively demanding, but not more physically demanding, chores to maturefaced 11 year old depicted in photographs than to babyfaced children of the same age and attractiveness. Study 2 revealed that parents perceived the misbehaviors of maturefaced 4- and 11-year-old children as more intentional than those of their babyfaced peers, an effect that was significant only when parents judged children of the opposite sex. Study 2 further revealed that, with perceived intentionality held constant, a babyface mitigated the severity of punishment recommended for relatively serious infractions by preschoolers, while increasing it for older children. The latter finding was discussed in light of other evidence that people react negatively to the disconfirmation of their benign expectations regarding babyfaced individuals, and that parents perceived the misbehaviors as more unexpected for 11 year olds than 4 year olds.

Father/son relationship during the preschool years. An integrative review with special reference to recent Swedish findings

This review is an attempt to integrate Anglo-American and Swedish studies on father/son relationships. The puerperal period, infancy and early childhood are surveyed. Swedish studies do not support specific stereotyped bonding in the puerperal period. The review confirms the bidirectional nature of the father/son relationship. Thus, counteridentification, i.e. the father's identification with his son, and identification during the oedipal phase, i.e. the son's identification with his father, seem to be essential components in the father/son relationship. However, studies on parent-infant behaviour indicate that different parental roles exist early in infancy. Also, attachment studies point to the specificity of the father/son relationship before the oedipal phase. It is concluded that the major importance of the father/son relationship during the preschool years is to facilitate the son's masculine identification.