Sons are more indulged than daughters: is it true?

Parents often write posts on social networks about their sons, moreover, such posts collect more likes than stories about daughters. This conclusion was made by the researchers^*. To do this, they analyzed the posts of more than 600 thousand users on the social network VKontakte aged 18 to 50 years.

A reader from Saratov tells what it’s like to be a child who gets noticeably more attention at the expense of other children.

“I felt very sorry for my sister”

Artem, 24 years old

“Mom raised us alone. My father left when I was five, and my sister was only a few months old. Of course, it was not easy for my mother. And with age, I realized that I would need to take care of the family. At the same time, I felt that I was receiving more attention and care than my sister. My mother took care of me, always made sure that I was full, well dressed. She saw me as a support, so she always supported me in everything.

When my sister went to school, I began to notice that my mother monitored her progress more strictly and constantly set me as an example to her, although I was not such a diligent student. But I got away with a lot. In addition, the sister had to take on much more household chores, even though she was younger. And then my mother began to entrust her with taking care of me – washing and ironing my clothes, cooking, cleaning. I was very sorry for my sister, and I did not take advantage of this position – I took on everything myself and openly spoke about this to my mother.

Now I have moved to study and work in Moscow. We have a good relationship with my mother, I am not offended and do not blame her – after all, she took care of us alone, it was difficult for her. Perhaps she was looking for in me the support that her father did not give her.

Since I moved in, all household chores have “hung” on my sister. Of course, now she gets more care, because I live separately and earn my own money. However, from time to time, my mother still sets me as an example: how do I manage to study and work, provide for myself and help them.

“Women try to make up for the lack of love”

Artem’s story is quite typical. And such an attitude towards sons, as a rule, is formed by mothers. This happens most often either in single-parent families, or with a passive father. Psychoanalytic psychotherapist Anastasia Saurina believes that the reason is that the child and parents do not live the oedipal period in a normal way.

What does this mean?

“Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, actively pointed out the peculiarities of the upbringing of boys and girls. – explains the specialist. – In the family system, the mother for the girl means not at all the same as for the boy. This is because the child tries to identify with the parent of the same gender from an early age. And with the parent of the opposite, he tries to build relationships that he will continue to win back with a partner.

It is important for boys to identify with the image of their father. So they understand that they can become worthy men. It is equally important for them to observe how the father communicates with the mother – in this way the sons determine their attitude towards women.

“Both parents are equally involved in shaping their child’s sense of self, regardless of gender,” notes Anastasia Saurina. – This is what the norm looks like, according to psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

But it happens that in the family the image of one of the parents does not look attractive to the child. Broken hierarchy or complex relationships between parents force children to adapt and choose, as they think, the safest role for themselves.

If one of the parents is physically absent, his duties can be shifted to a child of the same sex. And that can be traumatic. In incomplete families, a situation is often encountered when a son, even a small one, becomes the head of the family in the absence of a father. And most often the child is not ready for the responsibility that has fallen on him. But such a role also has its advantages, which are difficult to refuse: for example, power and undeniable authority.

At the same time, sometimes mothers unconsciously try to compensate in communicating with their son what they did not receive from their partner. Women strive to make up for the lack of love: they literally set themselves the goal of raising a man who will love them devotedly and wholeheartedly for the rest of their lives. And they are extremely afraid to lose this last hope. That is why such mothers put the boy on a pedestal, in fact, simply tying him to themselves.

It is also important to take into account the historical attitude towards boys in the family. From time immemorial, a woman who gave birth to a son enjoyed special respect. For example, back in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries in the Novgorod Republic, a widow who raised her son had special rights. Also, the mother-in-law had the opportunity to get a daughter-in-law under her command and, at least at a late age, gain authority, which she was deprived of due to gender.

It may seem that such reflections are only relics of the past, but to this day, echoes of the patriarchal way of our ancestors resound in some women.

^* Based on research by Elizaveta Sivak and Ivan Smirnov (NRU HSE).