Running Head WOMEN MAKE BETTER

Women make better parents than men

Women make better parents than men

The view that women are better parents than men has shown itself to be true throughout history. This is not to say that men are not of importance in child- rearing indeed, they are most necessary if children are to appreciate fully the roles of both sexes. But women have proven themselves superior parents as a result of their conditioning, their less aggressive natures and their generally better communication skills.From the time they are little girls, females learn about nurturing. First with dolls and later perhaps with younger brothers and sisters, girls are given the role of carer. Girls see their mothers in the same roles and so it is natural that they identify this as a female activity. Boys, in contrast, learn competitive roles far removed from what it means to nurture. While boys may dream of adventures, girls' conditioning means they tend to see the future in terms of raising families.Girls also appear to be less aggressive than boys. In adulthood, it is men, not women, who prove to be the aggressors in crime and in war. Obviously, in raising children, a more patient, gentle manner is preferable to a more aggressive one. Although there certainly exist gentle men and aggressive women, by and large, females are less likely to resort to violence in attempting to solve problems.Finally, women tend to be better communicators than men. This is shown is intelligence tests, where females, on average, do better in verbal communication than males. Of course, communication is of utmost importance in rearing children, as children tend to learn from and adopt the communication styles of their parents.Thus, while it is all very well to suggest a greater role for men in raising children, let us not forget that women are generally better suited to the parenting role(Palm, 1995).

The answer, from an evolutionary psychological perspective, is that Heather instinctively knew, as do most of us, that children are more important to their mothers than to their fathers, and, as a result, their loss would be more devastating to their mothers than to their fathers. It is not difficult to find abundant evidence for the fact that mothers are more dedicated to their children than fathers. For example, when married couples with children get divorced, chances are that the children stay with the mother, not the father, especially if they are young. According to the 1992 March/April Current Population Survey in the United States, conducted by the US Census Bureau on a nationally representative sample, 86% of custodial parents are mothers. Further, many of the noncustodial fathers who have agreed to pay child support, either voluntarily or via court order, default on their commitment and become “deadbeat dads." The first national survey of the receipt of child support, conducted in 1978, reveals that less than half (49%) of women awarded child support actually received the full amount due to them, and more than a ...