You’ve heard it. We all have.
Boys and girls are drastically different in their wiring.
As mommies, we see it daily.
But something I didn’t realize until today {when I popped open my November 2009 Parents magazine – yes, I’m way behind – for a much anticipated moment of mommy-is-on-the-loo-leave-me-alone-for-just-2-minutes reading} is this:
Little girls tend to produce more oxytocin, the human-bonding hormone that is released when mothers breastfeed, and seratonin, a “feel-good” hormone.
This helps explain why they can spend hours role-playing; cooking gourmet plastic peas and lovingly feeding their stuffed animals. This also explains why we often hear our daughter explaining to her baby dolls, “I’m Mary, you’re Dofiss {read: Joseph}, and this {here hedgehog} is baby Jesus”.
And we simply adore the way she sweetly kisses and strokes her baby brother’s hair, running to his aide at the slightest hint of upset.
“Hugging and nurturing are bonding activities, and when girls play that way, it activates the pleasure center in the brain,” says Adie Goldberg (coauthor of It’s a Baby Girl!”).
Well that just makes sense, doesn’t it?
I so often forget about the world beneath the surface…the chemistry, the psychology, the internal anatomy and wiring of our children’s bodies and personalities.
God is just flipping brilliant and I love that I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around how uniquely and intricately He has created us…man and woman…stunningly different in form and thought, even before birth.
{If I could understand it all, He wouldn’t be that big, would He?}
Now when I pause in my daughter’s doorway and catch a glimpse of her playing mommy to her many babies {fuzzy ones and all}, not only will my heart be warmed by her blossoming maternal instincts, but my mind will once again be awe-struck at the brilliance of our big God.
