Boys/girls, or either what has your experience been?

[23weeksand2days]

Sorry, I really couldn’t come up with a better title right now.
What I’d like to know is what you’re expperience has been with having girls/boys, or either gender really. How are girls different to boys in your experience?
Is having one easier than the other?
Are there any big differences?
It’s just that I’m a first time mum to be, and up until my 20 week scan I was so sure that we’d be having a girl.
It’s how I’d always imagined things even before getting pregnant, so when I found out we were having a boy I was really quite shocked, unreasonably I know, but I know I’m not the first or last parent to have felt this way.
The initial shock and disappointment lasted about three days and then thankfully wore off, but I still hope that I can have a girl one day too.
If I’m fortunate enough to be blessed with another child I’ll obviously love it no matter the gender, the same way that I love this little one, but I just think having a little girl some day would be lovely too.

I have one of each, primary age. They are completely unique and their sex is just one small part of them. They are so so different as people but both so loving and bring a lot of joy (and hard work in the toddler years!)

No, my comment doesn't make it sound like that at all, if you read it in context of the post I quoted and what they were responding to.

Congratulations on your pregnancy. You will love him so much you wont want to change a hair on his head - promise xx

I have two girls and a boy. DS was pretty easy but think he just has a laid back personality, then I had DD1 and I thought ‘what the fuck have I done’ because she’s so wild, then I had DD2 and she’s been the same as DS so I don’t know if there’s any pattern between boys and girls.

My life was/is consumed with sport with DS so I thought it would be different with DD’s - it’s not, DD1 wants to be just like her brother and plays football too. She does like sitting with me whilst I get ready which is quite nice and kind of what I envisioned when I had a daughter but then 3 minutes later she’s knee deep in mud. DD2 is only one so she hasn’t developed hobbies or interests yet but it’ll be interesting to see what she goes for. DS was a mummy’s boy and DD1 is a daddy’s girl, but DD2 likes us equally it seems. I didn’t have a preference between whether I had a girl or a boy with any of them.

Of course not every mother of girls is like that.

In my entire life however, in RL and in every single post on MN i've read - for those women who are desperate to have girls, this is always the reason. They want a mini-me, they want someone to shop and go to spas with and mould into their bff. It's icky and an extremely unhealthy approach imo.

It’s not a given that teen girls will be a nightmare - I do wish people would stop saying this!

I have 2 dds, very different personalities, now grown up, but neither was a difficult teen!

I don’t think any of us know what we’re doing. They are so, so much more than ‘a boy’ or ‘a girl.’

Here are some of the things I’ve done with my boy (he is five.)

We’ve been to farms. We’ve done off roading. Clip and climb. Painting. Theatre visits. Read books - lots of books. Watched TV; current favourites are Hot Wheels (boring) he also likes MoJo and Spidey (banging theme tune) gone for walks, gone on pony rides, played rugby, swimming lessons, toddler groups when he was a toddler, played outside, been to museums.

Dd is two and … we’ve been to farms and theatre visits, done a bit of tentative painting, watched TV (loves Hey Duggee and Bear Hunt) read books (bear hunt again and Scarecrows Wedding) gone for walks, gone on a pony ride (she was scared, maybe next year!) toddler ballet, swimming lessons, toddler groups, played outside, museums.

DD loves jigsaw puzzles and I don’t remember ds being as interested - ds loves being outside, dd likes it to a point.

They have one massive thing in common; they’re mine. That’s all I need.

I haven’t read much of the thread so don’t know if I’m bucking the trend here! But before having children I assumed there was no real gender difference, stereotypes were bought about by nurture rather than nature. After having three (2 boys, 1 girl), and working part time in a school for a while, and hanging out with 22 nieces and nephews plus all my kids friends…I think there is.

Im going to caveat what I’m about to write by saying that of course there are many boys and girls that buck these trends. But IME:

Generally, the boys are more physically active, they play rougher, in the early years they are into things like hot wheels, dinosaurs, construction vehicles. Their behaviour is more impulsive, they get into physical altercations at school more often. In the infant school playground they are mostly playing “it”, climbing on the a-frame, digging and making muddy watery things in the mud kitchen, playing on the ride ons. In the junior school playground a huge number of them play football, those that don’t play with the basketball hoop or play “it” or act out Minecraft/other video game or YouTube make believe scenarios. The sports clubs I’ve seen where boys far outnumber girls are mountain biking, football, tennis, basketball. As they enter tween years the boys show more interest in computer games than the girls.

Generally, the girls are more socially aware from a younger age. They can be as high spirited and noisy as the boys but they behave like this when it is more appropriate than the boys if that makes sense? In the playground, the girl groups in infant school climb on the trim trail and try to do gymnastics tricks on it (hanging upside down, cartwheels). They play houses in the a-frame - usually it is a ratio of about 1:4 boys to girls playing a house game where the boy is the dad/baby/dog and the girls lead the game. They play with the sand and water tables, the ride on toys and the hula hoops. They play more pretend, imaginary games involving animals. While my daughter had a v limited interest in dolls she was def in the minority in her class. In the Junior school playground, the girls hang out in groups chatting much more than the boys. They play truth or dare. They use the inside lunch time book club and choir, clubs more. The altercations they have with each other are emotional rather than physical (name calling, leaving one of them out, changing “best friends”). The clubs where girls outnumber boys are dance club, pottery club, netball, art club. Our school has a girls football club but it has 1/3 of the participants that the boys club has. While the boy cousins would game together for hours if you let them, the girl cousins use screens a bit but will break off to do art projects together or build dens.

Both the boys and girls equally: Use the lunchtime mindful club (Lego and puzzles); go to swimming club; go to Girl Guides or Boy Scouts; play with ride on toys; play hide and seek; are interested in animals (bugs, slugs, cute things like pets, capybaras, axolotyls); are into stuffies; play on the trampoline; can be stubborn and determined; have good senses of humour; know funny/rude playground songs; eat all the snacks; are kind and encouraging to younger children; play with siblings; fight with siblings

I have a DS who is 20 now and like you while pregnant I just imagined myself with a little girl, but honestly my DS has been a dream, just said a lovely nature, never given me a minutes trouble, genuinely an absolute joy. I was unable to conceive again but while trying I would have preferred another boy due to how great DS was!

I have one of each and I have both grandsons and granddaughters. They are all individual.people
Its impossible to say anything about the characteristics of each sex based on personal experience. They are each just being themselves

Thanks again everyone ❤️ and once again, nobody’s opinion is nonsense, we just see things differently and that’s ok.

To be fair, I went off the rails as a teen but I do think its one of the most annoying parts of being pregnant, that everyone seems to want to gleefully say "just you wait until they do x/y/z bad thing", like you aren't aware that parenting can be hard!
I like to say "just you want until the first smile, first time they unpromptedly cuddle you, first time they tell you about their day". There's so much joy among the challenges.

Personality makes more difference than sex - until they’re older anyway.
I have two girls who are very different.
I don’t think young children should be parented differently just based on sex, parent your individual child.
Having too many expectations about what your child is going to be like is never a good idea.

However I think the stereotype of girls being more mature generally is true, you can see that when they all start school. It doesn’t even out until 16 at least.

Boys also usually are more “rough and tumble” than girls and play slightly differently- more physical running around/playfighting for example, but also that varies a lot from child to child. My eldest DD for example really needed a lot of physical activity or she went stir crazy.

Ha! I know that now, that I’ve gone through it, but at the time I found it really daunting and scary. It only eased when I let go of any preconceived notions of what a girl should be (I was in trouble a lot as a kid for not girling right and even wished I was a boy for a while) and let her be a kid. As a result we/she ended up doing ALL the things as long as she showed an interest and enjoyed them. She’s a bit of a chameleon, fitting in with different groups as her experiences and interests are/were so wide.

My only gripe is that she hates reading.

Some things just aren't a matter of opinion though. Stereotypes about what girls are like and what boys are like are unhelpful generalisations. Believing them to be facts is simply wrong. I'm not necessarily saying you believe them to be facts, OP, but if someone did, their opinion would indeed be nonsense. Not all opinions are equally valid, however 'kind' it seems to claim that. Some definitely are nonsense.

I had one of each. No difference.

Mine are very different personalities. My dd is bossy and direct and bouncing off the walls and definitely more challenging. My ds is the much easier of the two, chill, loves to tinker and build stuff, sensitive and affectionate. They are both wonderful in their own ways, but ds definitely causes me less stress.

I have two girls who are totally different to each other and a boy who is very much like my gentlest daughter.

Whilst there are usually stereotypes for good reason, there are no guarantees.

I have two of each sex, ages 21-14. I think you can have all the ideas and dreams of what having a child of a particularly sex is like. You may get a child who can comply with that, and you may very well not. I find it a mix of what expectations are put on a kid and their own personality and how they react to experiences.

IME neither sex is easier, every child has their issues that as a parent you're there to help them through and co-regulate those emotions. My oldest has been the hardest for me most of the time, he's been through a lot with his disability and more, but I think that's in no small part because he is the oldest so in some ways is the guinea pig.

My DS1 and DD2 have very similar blunt personalities, and this has been noted on since DD2 was a toddler. DD1 and DS2 have very similar sensitive soul personalities. None of my kids like sports and all of them love video games, though which kinds they like varies by child. How much any of that is influenced by their sex, I can't say, clearly the video game part is largely social.

I can say that having a girl who started shaving her head at 10, hit puberty and started hating everything girly, very much prefers working with pigs in the mud than discuss her feelings (and typically discusses them via grunts and other sound effects) alongside a girl who will merrily wear prom-style dresses in every day life and happily picks up more from charity shops, self regulates by having private dancing time, discusses her feelings at great length and it's literally in her medical notes that she has a sing-song voice -- just because a child is a girl doesn't mean anything about what kind of kid they're going to be or how they'll be on the other side of childhood, even with similar childhoods.

Same with sons. My sons have never been the loud, rough, messy kids people say boys are. Even though DS2 will talk more than DS1, they're both the quiet type who when little were the ones curled up in a chair with a book/toy and a blanket. They did enjoy the park and enjoy going out, but I rarely had any issues getting them home, that's where they preferred to be. I hear people who want sons for sporting reasons - I remember that being on my older brother, he was the quiet maths nerd and it sucked for him to have that pressure on him. My sons would have hated that as well, but - outside of school - they never had that expectation on them.

While I understand people have their ideas and dreams, and that's very natural, personally, I find it frustrating when people entirely blame an issue with a child on their sex. It's one thing to blame being rambunctious on being a boy even though there are clearly quiet boys, that's likely at least in part an innate part of the child, it's another when it's entirely a social thing. I have colleagues go on and on about being glad they only had 1 girl because of how expensive they are because of all the beauty products they want or similar, when it's actually that they not only allow, but encourage and put their girl in an environment where those expenses are encouraged and celebrated. They'd rather blame the kid's sex and treat it as out of their hands than just own up that that's how they chose to raise the child.

It’s funny thats your view as I often find it turns into a gender disappointment thread. Both are awesome and as long as the are healthy it should t matter at all.

I have a boy and twin girls. It's their personalities that make them different, not what they have or don't have between their legs.

I have one of each. I have more in common with DS then DD. I sometimes wonder how DD is mine as we are so different. If I'd wanted a mini-me I would've been very disappointed.

I have one of each sex. No teenage tantrums or dramas from either of them. No rough and tumble stuff from DS. No beauty obsessions or whatever from DD.

My boy is anxious, sensitive, artistic, good at maths, music and lego, into ordering things like Pokemon cards. He is quiet and a homebody. He loves reading. He hates sport.

My girls are both louder and more sporty. One is musical, one is not. They love imaginative play, gymnastics, being outside. They take more risks. One loves reading and hates TV.

It might be more to do with who is older. All my kids love art and craft, swimming, cuddles and chats. My girls are not into hair or make up, or clothes or pop music. But neither am I. My boy is not into football or gaming, but again, neither am I.

I have two boys 14 and 12 and a daughter aged 11.
My DSs were always calmer when younger and DD was always a hurricane. Big emotions, big tantrums and big energy.
She was the typical girl after boys, she’d roll in the mud whilst wearing a tutu 😅
They are all the best of friends and love each other endlessly.
I dread to think the day anyone breaks her brothers hearts because she would go full on Harley Quinn on them