DO YOU love and treat all your children in the same way? The New York Times recently published researches done in 2004 which show that even parents treat their prettier children better. Parents are prejudiced too?
While we would never pass judgement on your situation, the researchers seem to be saying that this is true.
In a study concluded in 2004, researchers at the University of Alberta carefully observed how parents treated their children during trips to the supermarket. They found that physical attractiveness made a big difference. The researchers noted if the parents belted their youngsters into the grocery cart seat, how often the parents' attention lapsed and the number of times the children were allowed to engage in potentially dangerous activities like standing up in the shopping cart. They also rated each child's physical attractiveness on a 10-point scale. The researchers made more than 400 observations of child-parent interactions in 14 supermarkets.
The findings, not yet published, were presented at the Warren E. Kalbach Population Conference in Edmonton, Alberta. The report says that when it came to buckling up, pretty and ugly children were treated in starkly different ways, with seat belt use increasing in direct proportion to attractiveness.
Strapped in
When, the research also noted, a woman was in charge, four per cent of the homeliest children were strapped in compared with 13.3 per cent of the most attractive children. The difference was said to be even more acute when fathers led the shopping expedition - in those cases, none of the least attractive children were secured with seat belts, while 12.5 per cent of the prettiest children were. Homely children were also more often out of sight of their parents, and they were more often allowed to wander more than 10 feet away.
Locally, Sharon Johnson of Help for Parents said that how we treat children is more culturally based.
"Culturally we tend to treat children according to who they favour (look like). If we do not like their fathers and they look like fathers we treat them differently. Culturally, we buy into the idea that the lighter the skin the cuter you are. It does affect treatment of children in the home."
Attention
She said that while some parents reported treating all children the same, they notice that others treat their children according to how they look. Strangers gravitate towards the cuter child, the one with the broader smile. "People in general do this and it does create greater self-esteem issues and sibling rivalry." University of Alberta researchers note that the age of parent and child also played a role in how they related.
"Younger adults were more likely to buckle their children into the seat, and younger children were more often buckled in. Older adults, in contrast, were inclined to let children wander out of sight and more likely to allow them to engage in physically dangerous activities."
One very strange finding was that good-looking boys were usually kept in greater proximity to the adults taking care of them than pretty girls were.
The researchers speculated that girls might be considered more competent and better able to act independently than boys of the same age.
Dr. W. Andrew Harrell, executive director of the Population Research Laboratory at the University of Alberta and the leader of the research team, is said to be "seeing an evolutionary reason for the findings". Pretty children, he said, "represent the best genetic legacy, and therefore they get more care."
- Outlook Team
