Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion STEM interest and dads

So, DD was in a camp for gifted students with STEM interests over Spring Break. Both the dropoff and pickup times were well within the normal 8-5 workday. And DD and I both made an interesting observation - nearly every parent at pickup/dropoff was male. I've never seen that in any other context.

So, what we have here are gifted children with a keen interest in STEM, so much so that they gave up part of their vacations, and potential evidence of a very involved dad in nearly every case (even if they didn't have to make special work arrangements like I did, they at least took the time to make the drive twice a day). Given that women were (and still are, to a lesser degree) actively discouraged from pursuing STEM careers in previous generations, this would seem to make sense - gifted children with involved dads would be more likely to be exposed to and be excited by STEM, since they're more likely to get that from their fathers.

I'm interested to hear your anecdata in support or refutation.

Dropping off DD13 at math camp last summer were Engineer Dad, Chemist Mom, and Mechanical Engineering Major older sister. So I don't know what to make of that.

Yeah, I am female, have a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering (and a JD), and dropped DS9 off at engineering camp last summer. I did not notice that there were more dads than typical there. It's possible that you were the one who experienced the aberration.

I didn't drop a daughter at any camp this break. My observation is that girls are overly encouraged to be in STEM occupations. Even The Big Bang Theory had an episode with the guys going to a middle school encouraging STEM jobs for girls. Our school District, and I'm sure others do the same, have a GEMS Saturday every year. As to guys dropping off kids I might have to agree with it being an aberration

Could you kindly qualify what it means for girls to be "overly encouraged" to be in STEM occupations?

My family history (extended, FOO, and nuclear) is counter to many STEM stereotypes regarding women, with many male and female adult role models for STEM going back several generations, so any anecdata I might present would likely be outlier data anyway, but I will offer this tidy little review of the research, which notes, among other things, that maternal stereotypes/views on women in STEM are more of a factor than paternal views:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2372732214549471

That's interesting, aeh.

This study came to a different conclusion, specifically about math - the more proto-human the father's attitudes were, the more their daughters were turned off from math: http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/5895-how-dads-influence-their-daughters-interest-in-math

I think by "overly encouraged" turns into telling girls what they should do. If I tried to encourage by daughter into a STEM career it will have the opposite effect. Sometimes saying nothing is better

I share aquinas' confusion, nicoledad, and your recent response hasn't cleared it up. Certainly nobody is forcing my DD's interests in STEM, but with enough of the usual social pressures, it wouldn't be hard to force her out.

We're talking about interesting, good-paying jobs, and in an economy where automation is forcing a lot of other people out of work, being in the business of automation seems like a pretty smart bet. There are more jobs than we have qualified people to fill them, so there's a labor supply crisis. And we know that women are self-selecting out of these careers in shocking numbers, so it seems pretty obvious where we could go to alleviate that shortage.

In short - why should we not be encouraging both boys and girls (and boys are already getting TONS of encouragement) to consider these careers?

To my daughter having GEMS suggests there is something wrong. Data means nothing to her. I disagree but she in a way is going to be what she wants to be.

In regards to boys she doesn't see the encouragement for example of boys being encouraged into non traditional male jobs.