that only a mother of solely young female children would have reacted like this?

[OrmRenewed]

On holiday DD went for a hack at a stables. DH had taken the boys to the beach while she had her ride and they came back about 15 mins before she finished. I had a chat with one of the women who ran the place while I was waiting - she had a 6yr old DD. Just before DD was due to get back to the stables she went out into the yard. She came back a few seconds later, aghast, to say in a voice of horror 'there are two boys outside playing with plastic swords....!' DH said ' er yes, those'll be mine' and went out to remove them. She looked a bit uncertain and said 'Well, it's just the horses... you know...?'

AIBU to think that only a mother of girls only would have reacted like that? Anyone else would have felt the need to have finished the sentence with some further explanation, such as '..and they have poked each other's eyes out' or 'they have severed limbs' or even 'they have started a riot amongst the ponies'?

maybe she was just worried about the horses being spooked?

Well that's what she said but there were no horses there.

YANBU
Boys chill you out

Well, can I just say, as the mother of two girls, that I doubt there's much boys could get up to that couldn't equally be carried out by my dd, and we're not all prissy petticoat-gatherers, you know...

Oh in that case yanbu.
my mum is just the same with my ds.

YABU

It's not terribly sensible to have two boys sword fighting in a yard where horses are likely to be walking through, even if none were present at that specific moment in time.

Your own DD was coming back, how would you have felt if the horse she was on got spooked and threw her off?

I hate this mothers of boys and girls things.

surely horses that are 'service' plodders should be pretty bomb proof anyway?

I doubt a couple of children (boys or girls) playing sword fights would upset the horses.

The woman could have worded it better

"Would you mind asking the boys to stop as it might spook the horses?" would have been a far better way to approach it.

I don't get what her problem was
Swords?
Spooking horses?
or 2 children who she didn't know who they belonged to playing in her yard?

Can I just C&P what SmellyPirate said please?

So presumably she was expecting some horses to appear back in the yard (given that you were waiting for your daughter ? ) ? YABU. Small children playing boisterous games + horses = recipe for disaster. Nothing to do with boys/girls/aliens.

They were very sensible child-friendly beasts. The sort that would raise a weary eyebrow at a volcanic eruption

And the nasty scary boys were well away from where the horses were going to be. In an area with picnic tables and chairs.

I'm with you on this Orm - I know too many mothers of girls (or SMOGs as my sister laughingly - har har - calls herself) who truly believe that boys are unpleasant, noisy, smelly creatures who just take the look off the place and generally get in the way.

well I've got this of the little terrors (boys that is ) myself and I'd probably only have got as far as she did........while I considered how to finish the sentence without potentially pissing someone off........and therefore end up pissing them off anyhow because they felt I should have addded something on the end

flippin 'eck Maisie - do I know you in RL - you have just described my brood down to a T

As long as there were not near the horses then YANBU.

But hey, I am the mother of boys so spend vast periods of time in sword fights. DS1 even managed to get DS2's little pudgy fist around the hilt of a light sabre the other day. DS2 is 5 months old.

To be fair my elder DS is often noisy and smelly, but not usually unpleasant.

Horses can spook at things like this, even sensible old plods, so I think yabu and I do have a DS and for that matter and equally or if not more boisterous DD! :)

Well I coined the word 'DeMOB' standing for 'defensive mothers of boys' to describe the occasions that I have felt the need to apologise for my sons simply because of their gender. It's so wearisome. DD just seems to know what to do to please people - the boys do care about what other people think, just enough to stop them having fun. I wish DD could be more like that TBH. I want her to squeeze everything she can out of life.

I do know you in RL MaMo - your boys are horrid, far worse than mine

I used to be bit SMOGish but since had 3 DSs and now I have realised boys are just as nice I just shrug at SMOGs (people who see me with just my youngest 3 think I only have 3 DSs) and feel sorry for them as they don't know what they are 'missing' (not that girls are not great but just that they cannot know what having their own boy is like) ..

Sorry but YABU. As a mother of both a DS and a DD and until recently a horse owner I would have gone apesh*t if my DS or DD had been playing like that in the stable yard. If they have no experience of horses, a polite explanation would suffice, but waving things around and shouting is a really bad idea even with "service plodders" who, although generally sensible do still have feelings and can get scared. If you had a whip shy horse in there (and I have known a few riding school ponies that were badly whip shy) then it would be carnage.
Horses are unpredictable and can be dangerous even without noisy excited kids of either sex thrown in there. And for the record, my DD is more excitable, noisy and aggressive than my DS by a long chalk.

Quite agree jelly, my boys are wonderful. My DD is bloody marvellous too - I love them all so much. But I know that they seem to behave differently. I hate to admit it but they do.