Amanda's stuffed animal is named "Baaa." She named it herself when she was about 9 months old and baa was one of the few sounds she could make. I encouraged this name, since the name that was on the tag, "Fluffles," was clearly not something I would call anything, much less a poor defenseless stuffed animal.
Plus, you can sing, "Baa Baa Baa, Baaa Baa the Lamb" (to the tune of Barbara Ann).
We got two lambs, since this it is generally a good idea to get a potential replacement for anything that is irreplaceable. Recently Amanda found both of them, and she has taken to carrying both of them around and sleeping with both of them. One was called "Baa" and the other is "Baa's mother."
Michael suggested that we call the second one "Maa." Amanda has never heard of calling one's mother Ma, so she immediately associated it with the kids TV show Arthur when Yo Yo Ma and Joshua Redman guest star. She started calling the second lamb "Mr. Ma," just like on the TV show. I wonder if he would be interested in knowing that Amanda's stuffed animal is named after him? It is appropriate: When she was younger, the classical music station was "Amanda's Music" and the kids singing songs was "Eleanor's Music".
Developmentally speaking, it is very interesting what Amanda thinks about gender. Apparently being Baa's mother is not an impediment to being called "Mr." Unfortunately, the conversation was too confusing to be related here, but at the end I asked her if I was a girl. She looked at me and smiled and said, "Nooooo," just like she does when I ask any ridiculous question. "You're a mama." I guess that answers that.
Plus, you can sing, "Baa Baa Baa, Baaa Baa the Lamb" (to the tune of Barbara Ann).
We got two lambs, since this it is generally a good idea to get a potential replacement for anything that is irreplaceable. Recently Amanda found both of them, and she has taken to carrying both of them around and sleeping with both of them. One was called "Baa" and the other is "Baa's mother."
Michael suggested that we call the second one "Maa." Amanda has never heard of calling one's mother Ma, so she immediately associated it with the kids TV show Arthur when Yo Yo Ma and Joshua Redman guest star. She started calling the second lamb "Mr. Ma," just like on the TV show. I wonder if he would be interested in knowing that Amanda's stuffed animal is named after him? It is appropriate: When she was younger, the classical music station was "Amanda's Music" and the kids singing songs was "Eleanor's Music".
Developmentally speaking, it is very interesting what Amanda thinks about gender. Apparently being Baa's mother is not an impediment to being called "Mr." Unfortunately, the conversation was too confusing to be related here, but at the end I asked her if I was a girl. She looked at me and smiled and said, "Nooooo," just like she does when I ask any ridiculous question. "You're a mama." I guess that answers that.
Comments
I believe that children initially use words as operators (to cause things to happen) and as labels (to identify items such as parents or sibs or toys), and do not generalize to categories until they've had enough experiences in which classification is salient; the extent to which this parallels acquisition of cognitive neural substrate, I have no idea. (Steph? are you there?)
For adults, words are rich with associations; some of these are general to the culture, others unique to the person. When smart little kids use mature-sounding words and phrases, these bring to the adults who are listening many associations. The adults generally fail to understand the great gulf between adult richness of language meaning and the (as yet) impoverished associations of the child.
I have over and over again seen parents have conversations with young children in which the child uses 'adult' language and the adult responds at the language level instead of the child level, and they shortly run aground - or the adult turns away, imagining itself to have been "understood".
When this conversation has involved expectations for the child's behavior, woe betide the child, who may then be accused of lying when the frustrated adult says, "I told you!" and the child says, "You did not!"
As I type, this brings back some distressing memories. I wish I could be confident that I never did this, but the obverse is most likely true.
I don't remember the details, but one place we can see kids making classifications is when they call any 4 legged animal a dog, overgeneralizing. I think classifying starts remarkably early, although it isn't reliable for much later (our 3 year old neighbor called the next door dogs "bears").
Also, from what I remember, gender and race are harder to get a grip on than other concepts (dogs vs. cats, for example).
A friend told me a story about her 4 year old using some adult phrase of impending doom (something like, "the fat is in the fire now!" although that wasn't it) The parent asked if the child knew what that meant. "No, but you do!" Being patient and amused rather than in a rush and controlling helps, but it is not always possible for imperfect people.
It is not a bad assumption to help with language and allows for fastmapping, which eases language acquisition. In one study to show fast mapping researchers entered a preschool and introduced a new color (pea green, I think) that they were calling "chromium". The way they did this was to have a red and pea green crayon out, and then say to one child (just one) when others were watching, "please pass me the chromium crayon - not the red one, the chromium one." The child passed the pea green crayon over, and a week later all the kids were using this novel word to describe the crayon.
Gender is fun too. Initially kids can label their own gender (around 2 or 3) but don't know that it is stable over time (they might be a girl now, but plan to be a Daddy when they grow up, or on their next birthday). Then (3-4) they know that gender is stable, but don't realize yet that it is independent of outward appearance (I asked Anders at this age what would happen if Daddy put on a dress or I cut my hair short and he was quite convinced that we would switch genders; I tried to explain, but it is really hard to change the worldview of a preschoooler before he is ready). Then finally they learn that gender is constant - you can't change it at your will.
So if you want to try with Amanda (and videotape for my class =) ) you should ask her:
1) Is Eleanor a boy or a girl?
2) At her next birthday will she be a boy or a girl?
3) If Eleanor cut her hair short like Daddy's, would she be a boy or a girl?
Incidentally, my students wanted me to ask Anders about the gender identity of pirates. Anders was convinced that Captain Hook was a boy and that he would stay that way. When I asked what would happen if Hook wore a dress, he told me, "Mom, Captain Hook wouldn't do that - he doesn't own a dress."
Have to admit that I never paid as much attention to the research on categorization. I do know that kids can categorize men and women from just their shadows walking across a room at a pretty early age.
FNDP