Studied the relation among children’s ability to apply gender labels, their tendency to emit sex-typed behavior, and their parents’ attitudes and reactions toward sex-typed behaviors. 22 boys and 26 girls were observed at home with their parents when the children were 18 mo old, before any of them had passed the gender-labeling task, and at 27 mo, when half had passed (early labelers) and half had not (late labelers). At 18 mo, there were no differences in the Ss’ sex-typed behavior, but parents of future early labelers gave more positive and negative responses to sex-typed toy play. By 27 mo, early labelers showed more traditional sex-typed behavior than late labelers; parents of early and late labelers no longer differed in their responses. At age 4 yrs, when given an inventory of sex stereotyping, early labelers scored higher on sex role discrimination; there were no differences on sex role preference scores.