I’m always hearing people (on social media and in real life) talking about being “boy mums”, mostly saying how hard it is to raise boys as they are always being dangerous, loud, disruptive and disobedient, the tacit implication being that girls are quiet, do as they are told and that raising them is easy.
I have two girls, and I am not exaggerating when I say every single posts, video or anecdote of the supposedly “dangerous, madcap antics” “boy mums” have to deal with is something my girls do regularly. I’m thinking mostly of toddler/young children stuff. For example, I saw a video the other day of a child around 18 months trying to climb over a cardboard box and then tumbling off it (soft landing, no danger whatsoever), with a caption saying something like “see, this is what boy mums have to put up with!” and I’m just like… isn’t that just totally normal toddler behaviour for both sexes?? When my girls were that age I felt like they spent every minute of every day trying to climb up everything. My cousin posted one last week of her 3 year old splashing in some mud with a comment about being a “boy mum” and it was just such a massive eye-roll. As if little girl toddlers don’t love splashing around in mud every chance they get, too!
It's mostly just eye-rolling stuff, but it does actually sometimes annoy me, because I sometimes feel like people are assuming parents of girls have some sort of blessed easy life where we’re just sitting around getting our hair brushed, or relaxing while our perfect little angels play dollies, while “boy mums” are actually doing hard work, which is so far from the truth that it annoys me. My girls both come home from school/nursery covered in mud every day, they act like they are allergic to doing as they’re told, they climb, they jump, they playfight – and as far as I’ve seen of other girls, they are totally normal in this regard.
My in-laws especially are big on the whole “boys are loud and dangerous and misbehave and girls are quiet and obedient” thing (to the point where it comes up in conversation every time we see them🙄), and the weird thing is, our nephews on that side actually happen to be naturally very placid, introverted and timid, while it’s our girls who are climbing the walls, being rambunctious and rarely do as they’re told without a struggle. And yet still they go on about how boys are so “naughty” and hard work, and "girls don't misbehave" (verbatim quote from MIL!!!!) which I just find a bit insulting really, because if what they are saying is true, then it stands to reason that either we must have an easy life, or we must just be rubbish parents, because girls are supposed to be “naturally obedient” and yet we still have to put loads of work into getting ours to behave, so how hopeless must we be?
So, what’s the consensus? Is it true that boys are naturally naughtier and harder work, or is it sexist nonsense?
(For the sake of the poll, let’s stick to thinking about little children rather than older kids/teens.)