grandparents not understanding boys if they themselves only had girls

[suzywong]

IYSWIM

my parents had me and my sister and while my dad is OK my mum seems out to paint my older ds1 as a kid we have to keep an on re his violent behaviour (bashes little brother occasionally in tussle for toys, once threw a toy at his mate when it was home time for everyton, whacked my mum when she tried to break up a sibling tussle, likes to shout GO AWAY _ you know the usual just turned 4 stuff)

Anyway ... it's really getting on my tits, and I wondered if anyone else had this, parents fearing for boy's future because they just aren't used to boys

bit of a pointless thread really , just wanted to offload I guess

[curtains]

Hi suzywong, I've got this from a different angle. My mummy friend mostly all have girls and just can't understand my boys behavour, Also in my family my ds's are the first boys (I have 4 neices) and everyone says "they don't sit down, do they"!

[Clayhead]

Exactly the same happens to a friend of mine, she has two boys, her parents had her and her sister. They are really amazed at the boys' behaviour (and they are very well behaved little boys!!) and make out that they are little hooligans just for a bit of running round! They are family friends and my mum finds it really annoying and has tried to talk to her friend (boys' grandma) about it but to no avail.

I don't think she has found a way of dealing with it other than to ignore it so, sorry, I'm not much help...

[Marina]

Oh yes. It's so marked now with my aged ps...since dd arrived they are all over her. And it is not like she is excessively cute - like a Panzer tank in bloomers at times, especially lately .
But my parents just don't get ds, and as boys go he is positively Fauntleroyesque
Offload away suzy. Your ds sounds entirely typical for a four year old boy...or a nearly two year old girl as I am finding out.

[Enid]

lol panzer/bloomers

[Marina]

She was skulking in the Home Corner yesterday throwing plastic saucepans at her little friends and pinching anyone who got past the flak
Off to consult Toddler Taming, which we barely needed for ds...

[stitch]

i think it depends on whether they had younger brothers or not.
my parents had us four sisters so mom does get upset when my boys are wrestling, doing something dangerous etc, but because she had younger brothers, its not quite sobad. or maybe its cox im just so glad to have them around, i dont get stressed.

[Marina]

Ah, but do you see your parents often for short periods because they live close by, stitch, or (like mine and especially like suzy ) do they live far away and have to see their grandchildren in concentrated and sometimes emotionally charged "bursts"?

[marthamoo]

I go to a Mums n' Tots group where there is a hard core granny contingent all of whom had daughters and now look after their granddaughters - not a boy amongst them. They obviously see boys as some alien race of social deviants they must protect their precious pink-clad charges from.

Part of me thinks it's funny, part of me wants to kill them.

[lunavix]

My mum was one of two girls and didn't have a father around. She then had two girls, and my dad was hopeless.

My sister has a girl and a boy, and I have a boy, and she doesn't relate to the boys at all - no idea what to do with them. Having said that, she didn't want kids much less grandkids, so she doesn't do anything with any of us.

I have always noted the 'girl' thing though. At school I could play with who I wanted but she discouraged me playing with boys, and no boy was ever allowed home to play.

[stitch]

my parents live abroad. we see them once a year, twice if were lucky. and yes it is a concentrated period of time. but because i am always on myown otherwise, it is just such a relief to have another adult around. also, maybe they are not so bad. but mom does get really stressed when they are wrestling, or jsut racing round. she is worried they will hurt themselves. where as i just say that if they do, then good, maybe they wont do it again....
i think it dpends on the bigger relationship. mom has never undermined my authority, or whatever. i f i say something, which she disagrees with, she will talk to me about it. not tell the kids it s ok, because she is the boss. iyswim.
all i am saying is that i do get it, but am lucky not to get stressed about it.

[docket]

Totally. My mum always used to go on about how much better girls were than boys and how she was sooo glad she had girls not boys because boys were much harder / more violent etc. Now she has 5 grandsons and no grandaughters, she is trying bless her but her occasional comments still get right up my nose...

[puddle]

My mum had girls and luckily she freely admits that she knew nothing aboyt boys until my nephew arrived 13 years ago. I also now have ds who is 5. Ds isn't (yet) a very 'boy-y' boy and I have noticed she likes to dwell fondly on how 'sensitive' he can be.
Marina your post made me laugh - your dd and mine sound very similar! My ds never had a tantrum until 3.5 (and then has only had a few in his life). DD drums her heels for England and has been doing for the last year (she's 2.5).

[psychomum5]

If this is somewhere to offload about parents and in-laws please may I???

I get driven mad by my in-laws......totally!!!

They had two sons.....obviously one being my husband.

When his brothers wife was expecting their first, all the way thro the pregnancy my in-laws commented constantly on how much they would like a grandaughter because they had no daughters.
A grandaughter was born and all were happy.
Then came two grandsons and interest waned

I did things 'properly'...I had three girls an oh they were spoilt and loved. I also now have two sons and yes, they are loved, but whenever I ask if they can have the children for us anytime they will say "well, we'll have the girls but can you see if the boys godparents will have them?"
'why, I say?'
"well, we've done boys, don't want to do them again".......!!!!!!

Can you imagine how badly I feel for my sons when they say this. As yet, they don't seem to notice, they love going to their godmum (both have the same), and so consider it a treat, also as they are having a break from their sisters, but it breaks my heart.
I know my boys are hard work physically, they are much more active than the girls, and they do drive me nuts at times, but for the grandparents to discriminate in this way makes me fume. Just because they weren't blessed with daughters doesn't surely give them the right to do this. It's not my boys fault, yet that is how I am feeling....or even that it is my fault for not having had just girls!

On the other foot.....all the way thro my pregnancy with DD3, every single time I spoke to any of MY family about the impending new arrival, each of them would say.. "well, I just hope it's a boy for *** sake!"

Imagine how I felt when I had a girl??? I had to apologise to everyone for 'failing'!!

I now don't talk to anyone in my family anymore because their comments about certain things just made me cry so much.

[puddle]

As an aside, my dp had a terrible relationship with his grandmother who was vile to him (not to his two sisters). It also ruined her relationship with her daughter (DP's Mum). MIL has told me that she thought it was because her Mum was could never do what she wanted in her own life because she had to stay at home and care for her younger brothers. So she took it out on DP because he reminded her of her brothers. Very sad.

[frogs]

We've had similar with ds (my extended family is very girl-dominated), but oddly have also had the reverse. When ds was 2 or 3 he went through quite a shy clingy phase where he would want to sit quietly on my lap for long periods. We then promptly got all the "Oh, he's going to be a bit of a Mummy's boy" routine. Even now, though he's very much a boy's boy he is very interested in clothes and always comments on what people are wearing, even noticing different shades of nail varnish! My mum tries to bite her tongue, but I can tell she's worried he's going to turn into Julian Clary. And this despite the fact that he can run, shout and karate-kick with the best of them.

Other people's expectations -- sod 'em.

[suzywong]

lots of interesting posts

well my folks have left now, mum very keen to point out how good and what a pleasure ds1 was to be around.....today. She also said I am doing the right things in terms of discipline and she was really very nice about him, so grumble over.

Like those of you who live far away from the grandparents, I find the short concerntrated bursts very emotionally draining all round actually, very very draining