anyone seen this blog about being a mum of boys?

As my great grandmother used to say, "people will live down to your expectations"

I teach in girls' school scallops and that 'boys sort it with their fists; girls bear a grudge' thing is trotted out by teachers all the time, with the implication that the boys' way is preferable. Teachers even say it to the students. I despair.

Also, my son doesn't pee all over the bathroom. He pees in the toilet and wipes up after hinself if it goes elsewhere.

*misogynistic

Speaking as "mum of boy", just, URGH at that blog.

The comments about boys giving better hugs because girls are so manipulative is really nasty and misogyntic stuff, and all the worse for being dressed up as light hearted observation. Yeah, girls are all manipulative little bitches from childhood .

On the plus side, I enjoyed the counter blog.

mimipie has it... She's over compensating because she's telling the truth when she says she always wanted daughters. I had a colleague like that - quite a senior school teacher when she had her first child, had always been quite vocal about the preferability of girls - had a son and was very scathing about girls from then on... . For some people, what they have has to be best, rather than acknowledge there is no "best"...

That really is dreadful. Point 11! What the fuck?

The counter blog was very funny.

Her first paragraph is the clue to all the rest of the blog. She is a woman soaked in the gender myth and all her perceptions are seen through this distorting lens.

She actually made me feel very angry with the uncomplicated love bit.
My DDs are middle aged now but I still remember with nostalgic longing how they used to rush to meet me with big hugs when they were little. What a horrible horrible woman.

God help any daughters she might have. She would be trying to turn them into mini Shirley Temples. On the other hand it would serve her bloody well right if she had DDs like mine, who seemed to spend half their lives in A and E after their latest escapades ended in disaster.

And I know she didn't use the word manipulative but that was what she meant. It is such a loaded word. Almost always directed at girls, never boys and has an adult (and again) abusive quality about it. Hate it.

"It's a penis, not a sprinkler system." That made me lol LordCopper .

I agree that paragraph is so unbelievably damaging Briar. I got told by a teacher that boys were 'uncomplicated' because they hit each other to sort out differences whereas girls remember things that happened 6 months later. So clearly violence is preferred to actually thinking about/discussing a problem because what? That might actually require some effort? And did they really believe boys just forget about a problem because their fists fly? I'm pretty certain my partner can remember the bullies he had at school and what they did to him 35yrs later.

That whole paragraph sounds like she is describing an abuser not a child. You know what maybe the girl is reticent in her love because it'll get thrown back at her or has been withdrawn in the past or she knows that she isn't loved quite as much as her brothers.

And point 3 is all about her perceptions, her inner misogyny and nothing about what actually happens.

Yeuch.

this made me laugh out loud from the geekmom response: "let’s get fallacied!"

i have been really quite damaged by my mother's assumption that my behaviour is designed to manipulate

What a hateful, bitchy snide blog. Hate it.

The implication that everything girls do is a manipulation. How effing dare she?

I have a boy and a girl and they are horse playing right now. Neither likes Star Wars. They both love cuddles. Dd (older) is messier than DS. Honestly this has made me so furious.

The Amercians like their innate sexism confirmed. there are a lot of born again Christians there who want women to be in kitchens and half the country believes dinosaurs roamed the planet when Adam built his ark. So you do tend to find more sexism in US articles. They seem to have more sexist men over there too. I have non identical twin boys who are very different from each other and I find articles saying boys do this and girls that utterly wrong from my own experience.

Yes, no. 11 is utterly hateful.

And the one about guns is particular shite. Guns is innate? Yes, I bet before guns existed that 'innate' ability to turn everything into a gun existed. Sheesh.

I'm obviously a failed female as I loved a good stick and had an obsession with stones as a child and adult.

I think some people just feel the need to bollock on and like to pigeon hole stuff.

Boys are boys and girls are girls...nope we are all individuals.

I agree.

Ah, I only saw page 1 and wrote that in response to the comments about the pissed off mums but it works as a reply to you too ocelot!

That article OP posted...full of bullshit but this was the worst:

When your little girl stomps her foot and tells you to leave her alone, your son simply loves you. When your tween daughter is sullen and sulky and hates you, your son simply loves you. When you teenage daughter gives you the silent treatment, your son simply loves you. Their love is solid. Their love is strong and consistent from the start. And it sticks around for the long haul.
Girls can't really love huh. What a hateful thing to write.

I really don't know. Around my way it intersects with ethnicity too and the way in which gangs are seem as a bit cool by young teens. Young black boys are encouraged to be 'tough' 'little men'. I want to move!

I wonder how people like that think. Do they believe that raising their child to act according to gender roles makes their child normal and successful and when their child act in a stereotypical way it is a proof of them being a successful mother?

I would have liked to have read something along the lines of 'you realise all the shit that is associated with masculinity too'. Yesterday I was walking my 4 yr old DS home. He has crying hard because he is just exhausted and emotional at the end of the day (just started school). Two lads walked past and said disapprovingly 'boys don't cry'. WTAF? Took him home gave him a big cuddle and told him that its fine to cry, you don't have to hide it, and can always come for help and comfort. But one day he's going to start listening to those big boys more than his mum.... How fucked up is our whole understanding of gender especially given the depression and suicide rates amongst teen boys who dare not seek help?

I wanted to post the Geekmom response as well.
Giggling and tutus? Bleurgh.

My 3rd boy was a ballet dancer!
Blows that theory right out if the water!!

I walked out of a card shop yesterday with nowt because every single card for children was " for boys" or "for girls". They have genderized kinder eggs now, I just saw on an ad.
Thing is, my kid loves a lot of "boy" stuff, like football and comics, but I notice since starting school that he steadfastly refuses to do or like anything that's "for girls" even if he really does like it. He has been a bookworm for years, loved nothing better than a trip to the bookshop. Just lately he has started saying he's not into reading. Just footy and video games. Ditto playing his recorder. Maybe he is just changing, but he seems awfully self conscious about fitting in to Boy world, maybe because he doesn't really have a dad to speak of (and when he does see him the only thing they talk about is football).
He has a family who don't do much gender stereotyping, and a mum who also likes football and comics, but the pressure from all around , right from starting nursery is immense.
I also notice that anything super girly, like OneD or Frozen, is just utterly sneered at. Girl things are beyond contempt. His friend up the road now only plays with girls, and is picked on by other boys because of it. I'd like to say ds sticks up for him, but I don't know that he would put his head above the parapet like that.
And YY to bad behaviour being approved and condoned as Boy behaviour. The boys at school get away with way too much, because " we have to let them be boys". My teacher friend told me that boys get way more attention from teachers in class than girls. So while i find this stereo typing damaging to boys, i think it's even more damaging to girls, as it sets up the status quo of girls being passive, derided and getting less attention for their work. Hmm.

Makeminea6x

That's because when you become a mother people suddenly love to hold forth on how exactly you should be bringing your child up according to their gender!

And by people, I mean absolutely anyone! The worst has to be years ago - I was on a tube platform trying to keep DS running into the path of a man who was obviously very drunk. I was trying to be polite so instead of saying "keep away from the drunk!" I said "keep away from the edge of the platform!"

At which point drunk guy gave me a lecture on how my son was a boy and I needed to let him be a boy!

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have lectured a father in the same way.

Well if we are talking stereotypes it was dd who did kick boxing and Ds who bakes the best brownies and cupcakes in the world. And?