The Male Brain (4 page)

Researchers have found that by the time a boy is seven months old, he can tell by his mother's face
when she's angry or afraid
. But by the time he's twelve months old, he's built up an immunity to her expressions
and can easily ignore them
.
For girls, the opposite happens
. A subtle expression of fear on Jessica's face would stop Grace in her tracks. But not David.
By the age of one, David seemed oblivious to the look
of warning on Jessica's face
. Researchers asked mothers of one-year-old boys and girls to participate in an experiment in which an interesting but forbidden toy was placed on a small table
in the room with them
. Each mother was told to signal fear and danger with only her facial expressions, indicating that her child should not touch it. Most of the girls heeded their mother's facial warning, but the boys seemed not to care, acting like they were magnetically pulled toward the forbidden object. Their young male brains may have been more driven than the girls' by the thrill and reward of grabbing the desired object, even
at the risk of punishment
. And this also happens with fathers. In another study, with dads and their one-year-olds, the boys tried to reach forbidden objects more often than the girls. The fathers had to give twice as many verbal warnings to their
sons as to their daughters
. And researchers found that by the age of twenty-seven months, boys more often than girls will go behind their parents' backs to
take risks and break rules
. By this age, the urge to pursue and grab items that are off-limits can become a hair-raising game of hide-and-seek--with parents hiding the danger their sons will inevitably seek.

When David was three and a half, Jessica told me that he never ceased to amaze her, both for better and for worse. "He picks me flowers, tells me he loves me, and showers me with kisses and hugs. But when he gets the urge to do something, the rules we've taught him vanish from his mind." She told me that David and his friend Craig were in the bathroom washing up for dinner when she heard Craig yell, "Stop it, David. I'm peeing." Then she heard the distinct sound of the hair dryer.
Danger
flashed through Jessica's brain. Racing down the hall, she flung open the bathroom door just in time to get a splash of urine on her legs. David had turned the blow-dryer on his friend's stream--just to see what would happen. But being sprayed with urine didn't upset her nearly as much as David's disregarding the "no electrical appliances without adult supervision" rule. For the next couple years, she had to keep all electrical appliances well out of David's reach. But, she told me with a slight blush, "There's one thing I can't keep out of his reach, even in public."

David thought nothing of grabbing and playing with his penis--anytime, anywhere. A boy's public relationship with his penis is something that has made
many mothers wince, including me
. But the male brain's reward center gets such a huge surge of pleasure from penis stimulation that it's nearly impossible for boys to resist, no matter what their parents threaten. So rather than trying to stop David, I suggested Jessica start teaching him to explore this compelling pleasure in the privacy of his room.

A few weeks after Jessica started trying to get David to play with his penis in "privacy," the family went on vacation. As they were walking down the hallway in their hotel, David saw a sign hanging on the doorknob of the room next-door and asked, "Mom, what does P-R-I-V-A-C-Y say?" When Jessica said the word out loud for him, he said, "Oh, that man must be doing
his privacy
in there." From then on, he'd refer to playing with his penis as "doing my privacy."

Later that year, when David came into the office with Jessica, I handed him a lavender toy car from an assortment I had in a shoe-box. He frowned as he said, "That's a girl car." Tossing the car back into the box, he grabbed the bright red car with black racing stripes, saying, "This is a boy one!" Researchers have found that boys and girls both prefer the toys of their own sex, but girls will play with boys' toys, while boys--by the age of four--reject girl toys and even toys that
are "girl colors" like pink
.

I didn't know this when my own son was born, so I gave him lots of unisex toys. When he was three and a half years old, in addition to buying him one of the action combat figures he was begging for, I bought him a Barbie doll. I thought it would be good for him to have some practice playing out nonaggressive, cooperative scenarios. I was delighted by how eagerly he ripped open the box. Once he freed her from the packaging, he grabbed her around the torso and thrust her long legs into midair like a sword, shouting, "Eeeehhhg, take that!" toward some imaginary enemy. I was a little taken aback, as I was part of the generation of second-wave feminists who had decided that we were going to raise emotionally sensitive boys who weren't aggressive or obsessed with weapons and competition. Giving our children toys for both genders was part of our new child-rearing plan. We prided ourselves on how our future daughters-in-law would thank us for the emotionally sensitive men we raised. Until we had our own sons, this sounded perfectly plausible.

Scientists have since learned that no matter how much we adults try to influence our children, girls will play house and dress up their dollies, and boys will race around fighting imaginary foes, building and
destroying, and seeking new thrills
. Regardless of how we think children should play, boys are more interested in competitive games, and girls are
more interested in cooperative games
. This innate brain wiring is apparently different enough that behavioral studies show that boys spend 65 percent of their free time in competitive games,
while girls spend only 35 percent
. And when girls are playing, they take turns
twenty times more often than boys
.

It is commonly said that "boys will be boys," and it's true. My son didn't turn Barbie into a sword because his environment promoted the use of weapons. He was practicing the instincts of his male brain to aggressively protect and defend. Those stereotypically girl toys I gave him in his first few years of life did not make his brain more feminine any more than giving boy toys to a girl would make her more masculine.
I later found out that my son had plenty of masculine company when it came to turning Barbie into a weapon. In an Irish nursery school, researchers observed that boys raided the girls' kitchen toys and even unscrewed the faucet handles in the miniature sink
to use as toy guns
. In another nursery-school study, researchers found that preschool boys were six times more likely than girls to use domestic objects as equipment or weapons. They used a spoon as a flashlight to explore a make-believe cave, turned spatulas into swords to battle the "bad guys,"
and used beans as bullets
.

The next time I talked to Jessica, she told me David came home from kindergarten one day with a black eye. His teacher said he had called Craig a sissy for playing with the girls, and Craig hauled off and hit him. Jessica said, "I felt so bad for him that I took him out for ice cream, and out of the blue, he turned to me and said, 'I love you, Mommy. I'm gonna marry you when I grow up.' Seeing him with that black eye and hearing him say that to me just about broke my heart. Why would his best friend hit him like that, just for calling him a name?"

I told Jessica that by the time a boy is just three and a half, the greatest insult
is being called a girl
. Boys tease and reject other boys who
like girls' games and toys
. And after the age of four, if a boy plays with girls, the other boys soon reject him. Studies show that beginning in the toddler years, boys develop a shared understanding about which toys, games, and activities are "not male"
and must therefore be avoided
. Boys applaud their male playmates for male-typical behavior while they condemn everything else as "girly."

Curiosity about the origins of boys' strong preference for masculine toys led researchers to explore this further with young rhesus monkeys. Because monkeys are not gender socialized as to which toys are masculine or feminine, they made good subjects for this study. Researchers gave the young male and female monkeys a choice between a wheeled vehicle, the "masculine" toy, and a plush doll figure, the "feminine" toy. The males almost exclusively spent time playing with the wheeled toy. But the females played equal amounts of time with the
doll and the wheeled toy
. The scientists concluded that gender-specific toy preferences have roots in the male brain circuitry in both boys and male monkeys. And there is further evidence that this toy preference has its origins in fetal brain development. In human girls, a prenatal exposure to high testosterone, due to a disorder called CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia), has been found to influence later toy preferences. By the time these CAH girls are three or four, they prefer boy-typical
toys more than other girls
do.

Scientists believe that boys' toys reflect their preference for using big
muscle groups when they play
. A related preference for action shows up even in art class. Researchers found that elementary-school boys preferred to draw action scenes
like car and plane crashes
. Nearly all their drawings captured a dynamic movement, and they used only a few colors. The girls in the study drew people, pets, flowers, and trees and used many more colors than the boys did.

David not only liked drawing action scenes and playing with boy toys, but by the age of five, his favorite board game was Chutes and Ladders. He would do anything to win, including cheat. He'd slyly move his marker the wrong number of spaces so he could climb up a ladder or avoid having to slide down a chute. And he was devastated when he lost. Jessica said, "Every time Craig and David play this game, they end up fighting." I could relate. When my son was in kindergarten, we had to remove all the win-lose board games and put them in the closet for a while. Victory is critically important to boys because, for them, play's real purpose
is to determine social ranking
. At an early age, the male brain is raring for play-fighting, defending turf, and competing. Losing is unacceptable. To a young male brain, the victory cry is everything.

"Aarghhh!" David shouted as he charged forward, thrusting and jabbing his new laser sword at Craig. Not to be outdone, Craig snatched the sword out of David's hands and took off running with it. But he made it only a few yards before David caught up and grabbed the back of his mud-caked shirt. Within seconds they were on the ground wrestling for possession of the sword. To someone not familiar with the ways of young boys, this would look like a fight. But David and Craig were having a blast.

Boys wrestle and pummel each other with gusto, competing for toys and trying to overpower each other. They play this way up to six times more than girls do, a reality that Jessica now found highly entertaining, although she hadn't always
seen the humor in it
. Boys discover their place in the world by pushing all of their body's physical limits, so it's not just fighting but also being able to fart or burp the loudest or the longest that gives a boy bragging rights. Jessica said, "I'll never understand why David and Craig think farting on each other is so funny. But they think it's hilarious, and Paul laughs as hard as
they
do."

For David and Craig, every day was filled with a series of serious physical contests. How fast can you run? How high can you climb? How far can you jump? A boy's success or failure in sports and other contests can make or
break his sense of self
. Even though Jessica could appreciate that males are naturally driven to test their physical abilities, she still worried that David would get hurt. But Paul--who grew up with three brothers--knew that the bumps and bruises were a normal part of boyhood.

During the juvenile pause, boys imitate their dads, uncles, and older male cousins, and they're particularly intrigued with the men who stand out as alpha males. Go to the zoo and watch the primates, and you'll see the most powerful male sitting by himself chewing grass and the little guys running up and attacking him from behind. The little guys are playing at things they'll be required to do in their future. When the alpha male has had enough, he'll shoo away the juveniles. Undaunted, they will continue to wrestle with each other, literally tumbling across the ground. This rough-and-tumble play is also observed in groups of human boys everywhere.

By the time boys are in first grade, they get a brain high when they show their strength and aggression. Using physical force together with insults is even better. As child researcher Eleanor Maccoby says, "These boys are just trying to
have their kind of fun
." This way of playing gives their brain a massive feel-good reward in the
form of a dopamine rush
. The neurochemical dopamine is addictively rewarding--the brain likes it and wants more--so boys are always seeking the thrill of the next high. That's why they love scary movies, haunted houses, and daring each other to take risks. Boys don't necessarily want to get hurt, but they usually think the excitement is worth it. Jessica said, "I'm just happy to get through a day without putting ice or Band-Aids on somebody."

By grade school, the play styles of boys and girls in groups have diverged,
and children self-impose sex segregation
. Observational studies found that, worldwide, boys on playgrounds wrestle, roughhouse, and
mock-fight frequently; girls do not
. In addition to their different play styles, boys and girls may also dislike playing together because, as research shows, by the time boys are in first grade, they're no longer paying much attention to girls or listening to what they say. A study of boys in a first-grade classroom in Oregon found that boys paid the most attention first and foremost to what other boys said. The teachers placed second, and the girls placed a distant third--
if they placed at all
. As a matter of fact, ignoring girls altogether was the most common. David and most of the other boys in his first-grade class had already sworn off playing with girls, and their female classmates were just fine with that. They didn't like playing with the boys either.