The Male Brain

I'm reading a very interesting book entitled "The Wonder of Boys" by Michael Gurian. You can probably guess that its a parenting book to give me more insight into how I should treat the two boys. The very first chapter is dedicated to describing the differences in the male and female brain and how this affects behavior and so parenting styles for sons and daughters.

I've read the whole chapter. Its full of interesting facts and I now have more 'excuses' for the way my sons behave. BUT. The one point that stands out the most from this chapter is related to the grown male in my life and not the baby ones.

"Overall, brain research has shown how the female brain is at work in more sections than the male just about all the time.....To use an analogy: the male brain turns on, like a machine, to do its task, then turns off; the female brain is always on."

The male brain has an On/Off switch and I guess sometimes its a little sticky and stays on the 'Off'. Well that answers a lot of questions for me!

This On/Off mechanism is also supposedly the reason why males are not as good at multitasking. Males are very task-oriented, but its one task at a time.

Richard is definitely a one-task-at-a-time man. On the other hand, I am very pedantic about efficiency and I almost think of the various tasks in my days in the form of a Gantt chart.

Something else that will answer many people's questions is this little paragraph:

"Boys and men take in less sensory or "proximal" data than girls and women. They smell less, taste less, get less soothing and input from tactile information, hear less and see less."

Hear less AND see less !!

So that's why he can't find things in the pantry and doesn't respond when I tell him where it is! I keep talking to Richard about what I've been calling "peripheral hearing" and it looks like he has had a valid reason all along for not having any!

At least now I have an answer to my question "Why can't you do like I do?". The next step is accepting it :) I should just think more like a male and just look for the end result. After all, its not my aim to parent my husband.