When we first learned we were pregnant with a boy we were surprised and a little bewildered. We have two sisters and grew up in a very girl-dominant neighborhood. What do little boys do we wondered? The idea of raising a boy seemed harder than raising a girl, but is it?
Parenting magazine asks this question in their June '08 issue and takes a look at the question in different areas: discipline, communication, physical safety, self-esteem and school.
The article, by Paula Spencer, checks in with therapists, psychologists, doctors and authors. "The bottom line? On balance, the general consensus seems to be that boys are more of a handful early on, and girls more challenging beginning in the preteen years."
You can read the article in the issue of Parenting currently on newstands or at this link. We think family therapist Michael Gurian sums it up best: "Boys and girls are each harder in different ways."
What do you think? Does it just depend on the individual kid or have you found one gender more difficult than the other?
(Photo by Veer via Parenting.)
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Comments (8)
When I was growing up, I did not enjoy the tremendous societal pressure on girls to look a certain way, to fit ever-changing standards, to be valued for beauty, thinness, etc. Yuck. Hasn't it been shown by researchers that the majority of eating disorders occurs among girls and women? The obsession with "thin" is really disheartening, and I'm one of the naturally thin ones. If I had to raise a girl, I'd be more worried.
funny the author begins with being bewildered about having a boy since there are almost no boys in the family....
THAT'S ME! Very few men in my family.... many women! I'm depending heavily on my husband to teach me everything about boys....
I have three young boys (4,2,& 4months) and enjoy sleeping in on Saturday.... :)
As an only child, who's first child was a girl, I wanted our second baby to be a girl. I am very glad that I did not get our wish! Our son is actually much easier than our daughter was at the same age...
Take all of these "expert" articles with a grain of salt. First off, each child is a unique individual from birth -- you get who you get.
Secondly, they seem to assume passive girls and active boys. Well, our daughter has always been active, leading the boys when she got older.
Yes, she loves to play with dolls, but she also taught all the boys to slide down the bannisters at school, and tried to colour the outside walls. She's a handful now, and we are quaking in our shoes as to what will happen when she's a preteen (she's had a steady "boyfriend" since age 4, so she is already opening our eyes...).
Our son, while very active (at 18 mos. he climbs in a jiff, and dances on tabletops) and equally stubborn (that seem to be a genetic thing), is more mellow. He is not as fussy about his clothes, and is less... relentless... than our daughter. He makes jokes, and tries to spend his days laughing and giggling. And he's a lot easier to put to bed.
My OB's office manager told me that boys are easier in her experience, and I have to say she was right, at least from what I can see with our friends, and in our own case. But it is a load of fun to have at least one of each to compare...
Yes, that's why everyone should have one of each.
I have laugh at my dear friend who had a girl first and then her little boy came along.
At 18 months, I enjoyed her phone call in which she declared supreme knowledge that boys really are dumber than girls.
"He climbs up on the coffee, launches himself to go flying off - smacks his head and cries - then climbs back up on the coffee table to do it again!!! My daughter would NEVER do something like that!"
Now that he's 7, she announces during a phone conversation, "Do you want to know what he's doing RIGHT NOW? He and his little friend are throwing glass bottles at a tree! There's glass every where! How can they think that's a good idea?!?!?"
I have an older brother so my response is... yeah he's a boy. Then I realized that she grew up with one sister and no cousins! She had no idea what to expect!
Poor thing!
I love my son and hope that our second child will also be a boy. I find nothing scarier than a teenage girl! Been there, done that and would have nothing positive to share with my own teenage daughter about it all.
two boys here. both rambunctious; both thoughtful; both like machines; both love books and reading; both like running; both like doing crafts. Both have had both parents available to them throughout their young lives. At least 50/50. It shows. They know that caring and nurturing are not just 'female' traits; and they also know that running around and being crazy and rambunctious are not just 'male' traits.
Easier than girls? I have no idea. But I'd wager that each child - male, female, whatever - has her/his easy points and her/his difficult points. It's exceedingly difficult to generalize on sex=based traits based on personal experience (and the experiences of friends and colleagues). Are they hardwired? Yes, some differences are hardwired; but research also suggests that the differences between individuals of the same sex can often be greater than the differences between sexes.
There's a huge amount of pressure on girls to look and act a certain way, but now having had boys, there's also a lot of presure on them: we know several people who have told us they need to 'toughen up' their boys and 'teach them to fight'. This is frightening. No wonder there are aggression issues if that's how we raise our kids!
What's with the recent trend of all the AT sites focusing on binary gender?
And to answer the question: Raise your kids in a family and community where gender and sex aren't a big deal, and it's equally "hard" to raise a boy, a girl, a both, a neither, a some of each.