We currently have a couple of threads going on about gender-specific issues (males and females), and I have a theory about communication styles that I think might be gender-based, but am not sure and would love to get the hive mind’s experiences and thoughts.
Select as many as apply to you and your family, including if you have more than one child. Please share in the comments if you’ve noticed changes over time or any patterns you’ve noticed, etc.
After you take the poll you’ll be able to see the results.
Essentially, there are three choices:
I barely get any info/details about the kid’s day and what I do get is prompted by questions from me.
Kid’s not effusive but shares some details about their day unprompted.
Kid gives me the low down of everything going on around them during their day.
And for each choice you can select male, female, or nonbinary.
How would you describe the communications from your child?
Male Kid: I barely get any info/details about his day and what I do get is prompted by questions from me.
Female Kid: I barely get any info/details about her day and what I do get is prompted by questions from me.
Nonbinary Kid: I barely get any info/details about their day and what I do get is prompted by questions from me.
Male Kid: Kid’s not effusive but shares some details about his day unprompted.
Female Kid: Kid’s not effusive but shares some details about her day unprompted.
Nonbinary Kid: Kid’s not effusive but shares some details about their day unprompted.
Male Kid: Kid gives me the low down of everything going on around him during his day.
Female Kid: Kid gives me the low down of everything going on around her during her day.
Nonbinary Kid: Kid gives me the low down of everything going on around them during their day.
This is very much age related. My answer about each one of my kids would have been very different, depending upon their age. These days I hear a lot from each of them, whenever they can call me (sometimes daily, at least weekly). It wasn’t necessarily like that when they were teenagers. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
Yes, communication style can definitely change over a kid’s lifetime, which is why it’s great we have the comments here!
I only have one kid (a son) and even back in preschool I remember being envious of how much information some parents would get from their kid. Their kids would talk about which kids were getting along (or notably not getting along), or if there had been a sub, or if they’d done a special activity, or were going to be doing a special activity. And I’d get…nothing. Conversations looked a lot like this:
Q. What was your favorite part of the day?
A. I don’t know.
Q. What did you do at recess?
A. Play.
Q. What did you play?
A. I don’t remember.
Q. Who did you play with?
A. Names a couple of kids
As the kid’s gotten older, the pattern has pretty much remained. When I’ve talked to parents at school events, it seems like a lot of the parents of males have had similar experiences. In contrast, a lot of the parents of females have gotten a lot of information and detail. There have been a couple of exceptions, but usually it’s a gender moving from one end of the continuum to the middle category…not effusive but will share info unprompted.
My adult nephews range from being in the tooth-pulling to get info category to being in the non-effusive but will share unprompted category. But my sample size is still pretty limited in the general scope of things (though when I was in the classroom, as a general rule the girls would tell me a lot more info about their lives than the boys would). All of which is why I am looking forward to hearing more about others’ experience!
This reminds me of a bit of my family. I was probably in one of the earliest college cohorts that got email addresses, and so my mother and I would send multiple emails throughout the day M-F (usually around breakfast, lunch, and before dinner, as my mom didn’t have a home email address). These generally weren’t long messages, but messages nonetheless. (And they were free! Unlike long distance calls, which we only did weekly.)
My uncle, who had 3 sons, the youngest of which was a year older than me was amazed. He was like, “What do y’all have to talk about that often?” I guess we were one of the examples that uphold the stereotype.
Older son is not terribly communicative on a day-to-day or even weekly basis, but he’s always been that way.
Younger son always has shared freely with me, sometimes oversharing. But I’m excited right now because he has been much less communicative in the past month since he started dating a new woman. This feels like it could be turn into something serious so I am DELIGHTED to hear from him less.
I have two daughters (ages 21 and 18). The older one doesn’t blow her nose without telling me (I’m exaggerating slightly, but she is a big communicator) and the younger one shares almost nothing.
I have three daughters and they each fall into one of your categories! And they recognize this about themselves – D2 tells us everything, D3 is a mystery, D1 is in the middle.
I rarely hear from my oldest (g 27) unless she had a problem or question, she’s never been a big phone talker.
Next (b25) is the same, although in person he TALKS.
(g23) calls or FaceTimes a few times a week, texts almost daily.
(g21) calls of FaceTimes about every other day, texts almost daily.
(b21) is the only one who lives here full time, he’s probably the least talkative (he will spend time in his room even if his siblings are here), he’s getting better but sometimes he just grunts.
H is closest to our 27 and 25 year old, mostly because our daughter is a musician (they’ve played together), and she’s a cpa, our son is in finance, H is a financial advisor. Our younger daughters are chatty, and will call when walking and driving, or cooking. H and our youngest son bond over soccer. He and I tend to butt heads, but it’s improving (we both have a temper, the three in the middle have never even talked back.
Two of our daughters over share, thank goodness my husband grew up with two older sisters! They have also shared incidents that are too new to be sharing with parents.
I have two daughters and a son. The girls are very communicative and we text a lot throughout the day. My son texts sporadically during the week, but then we have a longer call on the weekend where he shares more about his life.
I picked the middle of the road for both my boys. That seems to fit. They tell us a lot, but I’m sure not everything. At least once a day we get a text about something. It’s usually part of a group text. I just got one from younger S bemoaning his first car tax bill. (Welcome to adulthood!) Often, it’s sports talk or weird random news. Or pictures about fun things they are doing.
But in elementary school, younger S held nothing back. Every day he would take 30 minutes to describe to me exactly what happened in his 20 minute recess. I got the blow by blow of each play on whatever game they were playing that day. And not just what happened, but what he was thinking when each person made their move, and how he would anticipate what they would do next. I had to work very hard not to let the eyes glaze over.
I also think both kids, especially in high school, liked to tell me about all of the bad and scary things that happened to get a rise out of me. I finally had to institute a new rule - only GOOD news at the dinner table.
D was always more communicative, but she is that way with everyone so it’s hard to say. Interestingly as he has gotten older S communicates more with H than with me. I’m OK with that.
I guess we were one of the examples that uphold the stereotype.