Research on the acquisition of sex roles in the United States has indicated a tendency for parents to treat girls less harshly than boys and for fathers to treat girls with more special warmth than they do boys. Eighteen children and their parents were interviewed and observed in Oslo, Norway, as part of a longitudinal study of parental influence on child development. Parents were selected before the child was born, and data were gathered until the child was 6 years of age. The data from this study were looked at in terms of providing information on differential treatment of boys and girls by parents. It was found that mothers treated sons with more warmth and permissiveness than they did daughters. This finding was confounded by whether the child was the first or second child and the factor that the more maladjusted families happened to have the girls. This latter factor, especially, may explain the finding of better treatment of boys than girls by the mothers. A second sample of families from a different study in Norway tended to duplicate the Oslo findings. It is unclear, but doubtful, that the conflicting results in the United States and Norway are indicative of real national differences in attitudes toward and the child rearing of boys and girls. (WD)