to think a lot of this “boy mum” stuff is a load of sexist nonsense?

I think this stuff is fascinating because while there shouldn't be a difference by primary there totally seems to be. Lots of people acknowledge that girls seem to mature faster, find reception/y1 easier but why is that? Different tv programmes, different behavioural expectations, different toys? Different behaviours when in a group?

You really see the differences in behaviours for example at parties and often girl only or majority girl parties are just more chill than 50:50.

I quite like it and am proud to be a “boy mum” but only because after having multiple boys I am so sick of hearing “are you going to try for a girl” like having only boys is unfortunate for me.

mine are absolutely mental though 😂 I have four sisters and my parents definitely had it lucky with us! My MIL with multiple boys… not surprised in the slightest. (So I guess they are taking after that side of the family)

@casapenguin Ah yes, then we are talking about slightly different things.

I hadn't made any claim up-thread about nature vs nurture, just that there are differences in average behaviour. It seems we agree on that (though you think differences are small in early childhood and don't mean much -- fair enough).

Maybe she was all out of inspiration for her article, then she saw this thread!

Were you struggling to finish an article @Cookiesandcream1989 ??

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/25/boy-mum-stereotypes-raising-children

I have both girls and boys and I can categorically say that my girls have been more difficult over the years than the boys. You can leave my DS’s in a room together and you won’t even know they’re there, they’re all quiet generally and just get on with things. DD’s are a force to be a reckoned with most of the time and it’s always been this way, particularly DD1 who just has zero chill.

I don't know about scientific evidence re nature/nurture, I couldn't find specific studies about it when I looked. I don't know how a study would work, it would be hard to set up a control. While you can observe aspects of how children are parented how would you stop them being influenced by general society?

It wouldn't be saying that the condition is caused by parenting or that parenting could make some symptoms go away. Masking doesn't mean the condition isn't there, and it doesn't mean it's less problematic for the person with the condition. It just means it's less visible for other people and so there is less likely to be a diagnosis. If they're not causing problems for others and just about coping they're more likely to be left to struggle through education and hopefully come out the other end with their own coping strategies, if those strategies work well enough to pass for NT in day to day life they often don't seek a diagnosis later either so the stats are skewed.

it's an interesting subject :)

Well it’s not nonsense then is it mitogoshigg?
She is one of a “handful of girls”. You said it yourself.

Back to the bell curve point then.

Nonsense, I have girls, one got into all the "boy" scrapes and is now one of only a handful of women in the world that do her job!

My mum, who was in a position to know, always said, "Boys are much easier. Boys will give you a break. Girls are just relentless."

I do think the stuff about teen boys and young men being more prone risk taking is interesting, and it would be very difficult to extract the biological determinants from any social conditioning that’s gone on. But I suppose I don’t think that falls into ‘average behaviour’. Like leaping off a cliff does seem like a male thing to do but also something that a small proportion of men do? And being a young man also makes it more likely, so it’s not necessarily men their whole lives who are more risk takers.

I also think if you narrow it down to something like ‘perception of risk’ rather than ‘personality’ there probably are gendered differences, although I’d argue not in toddlers and young children lol who all seem to have an equal opportunities approach to flinging themselves off things in my limited experience.

This isn’t a coherent argument. Social conditioning happens when adults encourage gendered interests. Boys and girls may or may not behave differently when they are older children/teens (and tbh I think you can still find a wide range of behaviour within a gendered group) but there are many social factors at play. This thread was about young children and the fact that the assumptions toddlers and little kids are ‘innately’ different along gendered lines, which is not something there is a whole lot of evidence for.

generaally, I really don’t know if I would say an ‘average’ girl behaves that differently from an ‘average’ boy. I worked with teenagers for years and boys may be more likely to eg. Shove each other in the corridor in a group, but girls are more annoying on a bus in a group? I’m not sure this *means anything. Interestingly I worked in a girls school for a bit and we had a full range of behaviour from the girls, including being loud, shoving each other, playing football… all the ‘boy stuff’ lol

But where is the scientific evidence that ADHD and Autism present differently in girls purely due to socialisation? Severe autism (e.g very limited ability to communicate and extreme behavioural issues) is more prevalent in boys and can be seen very early. I don’t see that you can mask your way out of that.

There are various genetic theories as to why autism Is more prevalent is males including that a more significant genetic mutation seems to be required in girls to cause autism than in boys or that the range of male abilities is wider than for females I.e more at both extremely high and extremely low ends. Our understanding of the causes of autism isn’t complete but the genetics and biology of it have been well studied in recent years, including the difference in presentation and prevalence according to sex.

More boys are also diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette’s etc. It’s very unlikely that that is purely “nurture” - this would be saying that boys have these conditions because their parents don’t talk to them or read to them enough or that they (or at least more extreme symptoms) could be prevented by parenting boys more like girls. That’s really unlikely based on what we know about these conditions.

Longapple you missed my point about the bell curve.

Yes girls present differently with ADHD and are better at masking. Which kind of proves the point that girls and boys are different ( generally - see my previous point about the bell curve).

DD never wanted to wear ‘restrictive’ clothes or shoes so even when she wore skirts on the rare occasion she wore shorts underneath so she could climb and jump and play football. She’s only ever worn shoes that she can run in. She prefers clothes with pockets.
DS never had that issue because all his clothes, as with all clothes aimed at boys, were loose, comfortable, devoid of frills, had pockets, hid his underwear and kept his feet warm and dry.

It’s social conditioning - stick a girl in a pretty dress, then shoes to go with it and then she needs a bag to put her bits in… and then she’s told to keep it clean or neat and tidy…

It’s sexist bullshit. I have a girl and a boy and if I had written down their interests, likes, personalities on a piece of paper without telling you which was which, many people would say the girl is into ‘boy’ things and the boy into ‘girl’ things.
It’a all rubbish for the most part.

Me and my sister once put a seesaw on the roof of a garage and made it so one of us would each be over the edge at some point, it was fun and it was stupid.
My dad was into extreme sports and taught us them safely, he also taught them to my brother who came along many years later than us girls.

Children are how you raise them.
Girls are taught from birth how to be good and quiet and lovely, whereas boys are allowed more freedom and this is down to societal conditioning.
If you want your boys to be more quiet and sweet then teach them to be so where it is appropriate, and similarly with girls.

You receive what you give.
Children will all just be children if you allow it.

So i agree with you, this whole boy mum girl mum bullshit is absolute bullshit.

you made a few typos, I fixed it for you:
"But generally boys some children are more physical and tiring to parent. So if a boy mum wants to let off some steam about the difficulties of being a boy mum leave her alone."

The issues you listed are largely or even entirely social conditioning.

Young boys are dressed in clothes that are looser and allow more freedom of movement and tough grippy shoes. Girls are put in frilly dresses, short shorts, pastel colours that get ruined by mud and shoes with open tops that let mud and pebbles in. Boys are also encouraged more to be physically active, as someone mentioned in an earlier post, the documentary a few years ago where you saw babies being handed toys aimed at the gender they were dressed as. So the kids dressed like girls being encouraged to play with a doll and the ones dressed as boys construction type toys. This was experienced early years staff too who shouldn't have been swayed by the pink and blue areas in the toy shop.

I don't think there are fewer girls with ADHD, autism, other sen. They are more effective at masking and it presents differently in them so causes less issues for others and so is much less likely to be detected, especially in primary school. Whether their ability to mask better is nature or nurture I don't know, I suspect it's mostly that they've been "taught" how they are meant to behave. Boys are taught to be more physical so when they erupt it's a more physical reaction, girls are taught to play quietly so they keep the stress to themselves until they reach breaking point.
'oh no, don't get muddy, you'll spoil your pretty dress'
'oh you can tell I'm a boy mum, we are always at the park and have so many sticks'
grr

It’s called a bell curve. I think all of this whatabouterry could be explained by a bell curve 90 % of the time.

Yes some girls can be physical. Yes the differences in sex are less prominant the younger they are. Toddles all want to put them selves in physical danger.

But generally boys are more physical and tiring to parent. So if a boy mum wants to let off some steam about the difficulties of being a boy mum leave her alone.

Boys struggle in the school system more often than girls and there is a lot more sen provision needed for boys. A lot more on the adhd spectrum. Yes bell curve again. There are girls with adhd too.

I have two boys and a girl by the way. Girls is extremely physical and sporty and always upside down btw but I don’t constant phone calls from school about her latest injury like I do my boys.

Exactly this. There is so much sneering about little girls from "boymums" it's disgusting.

Why is a PP who believes people want girls 'vile' and a mum who openly admitted to struggling to only have girls 'lovely'? Seems to suggest that disappointment in having girls is acceptable but a preference for them is not. Personally I think PP and your neighbour are wrong. But at least PP is talking on an anonymous forum and isnt being negative about the sex of her own children. She is merely projecting. She isn't openly telling her neighbours that she'd rather have had sons.

I have 1 DS and 1 DD, now older teens / early 20s. DS was in general harder when under 8 as was so active and always on the go. DD was in general harder as a teen because of friend issues and getting so emotional about everything. They are both lovely kids and probably fairly typical, but to an extent i can sympathise with the whole mum boy thing (though i hate the phrase) as on average i think boys are harder to parent when very young. and yes, i do get it that many girls like to play like boys, but on average.....