to not like it when people say 'typical boy'

[bejeezus]

AIBU to be becoming increasing irritable, when people say?.

?oh, typical boy!?
?he?s such a boy?
?boy behaviour?
?boys are so different to girls?

It is usually provoked by some unwelcome/less than good ?something?, that said boy is doing

Is it not a bit of a cop-out? Or are boys really different to girls? I appreciate that hormones must play a part?

But I don?t like it

I probably don?t like it because I have dds; one is cuddly and compliant, the other is a lithe mass of energy and activity. She never stops moving (at approx. 100mph) and she never stops chatting

And where does that leave her/us? And other high energy girls?.

It seems to give a spectrum a little like this;

Quiet Boy > Typical Boy > Typical Girl > Naughty/difficult/high maintenance Girl?

I know that all these ?typical boy behaviours? are not necessarily naughty/difficult/high maintenance?.but that is certainly when the phrase is uttered

Yanbu but I have been known to say my son is such a boy when he refuses to get himself dressed, wipe his bum or otherwise wants mummy to look after him. He is 4. I guess I equate that laziness with male behaviour.

Oh, good questions, kim147

Okay, the hard line I'd say is how a man treats women. DH has taught DS very firmly that he is to speak to me respectfully because I am a woman and his mother. DH, my Dad and my FIL would never raise their voice to a woman. Whereas my mother and I can scream at each other if we fall out! and if DH and his Dad fall out they can shout at each other. But DH would never, ever raise his voice to his Mum or to me - I think that's part of being a male role model.

DH will often leave for work with 'Look after your mum for me while I'm out' - which means helping me around the house, being kind to me. DS has also learnt particular skills that seem to be passed down from father to son - fishing, hunting, foraging etc. I guess if we had a DD who wanted to learn she'd learn too - but in the case of our DS he is learning something that has been handed down the male line for as long as anyone can remember. My sisters and I could never be arsed with all that though, so she'd have to learn from my Dad or my DFIL.

What I was taught about being female is what I'd want to teach my DD. The hard lines were - that if you're a woman you have to vote, because our grandmothers died for it. I don't drum that into DS so much. My mum never let a day go by without trotting the suffragettes out. I was taught that if you're a woman there are books that you should have read (I will not be inflicting Virginia Woolf on my DS. But I guess she'd be necessary for a DD. Just as well we don't have one!). Baking for random people. That's something that the men in our family wouldn't think of doing, but the women are forever baking or cooking for someone who's having a bad time. DH cooks just as much as I do, but he doesn't bake for randoms, just for the family. I was taught that financial independence is more important for women, that I should ensure I was never trapped by finances into staying in a relationship - so that I couldn't give up my career. (I did take a career break when I had DS. My parents had a blue fit.). I do think there was probably more emphasis on my appearance because of my being female, which I guess could be seen as negative. Just 'oh, aren't you beautiful' a lot. I didn't find it limiting though.

OP, thanks for starting this. And YANBU. This gets my goat too big time. I work in a scientific environment, so I know a bit about the need for large samples, replication and bias and I get quite agitated when parents who have at one of each gender proclaim that boys and girls are indeed different, despite equal parenting, based on their observation of their own offspring, a total sample of two.
I also find that some of them, when I start explaining about conditioning and socialisation, they look at me and label me as a "feminist" and change the subject...
I have two dds, very different, and I wouldn't know which one is more like a "typical girl". One is bouncy and restless, sociable and likes the occasional princess stuff, the other likes to play with dolls and is able to focus on building structures for a very long time. To me they are children and behave as such.
I also dislike the inference that being a tomboy is better than being a girly girl. This is just another example of gender discrimination and the ascribing of value to activities that are perceived as inherentely male.
I do wish people would stop feeling the need to comment on children behaviour (or indeed people) within a gender frame. But I can't see it happening when all the marketing of toys, activities, etc reinforces all these atypical stereotypes. Everyone is an individual.

It's quite a responsibility to tell a young child to 'look after your mum'. What if you have an accident - slip and break your wrist? It's quite likely your DS might feel responsible as he should have been looking after you, because you are a woman and can't look after yourself. Your take on it is quite different to mine - I wouldn't see helping you round the house, being kind to you etc as 'looking after you', i would see it the child behaving him/herself.

Pirate I see your point.

The point I am making is that ime some people don't like children who exhibit lots of physical behaviour and ime most (not all) of the children who are exhibiting the most physical behaviour are young boys.

Hence at times mothers of young boys may label certain behaviours being exhibited as at least in part due to gender in order to indicate that it is not due to poor parenting iykwim.

This does not include rudeness, laziness, wanton destructiveness, etc. or some of the other genuinely negative behaviours mentioned. I am just talking about the bouncing off the walls energy that more young boys than young girls I have met have displayed.

BecStar - A lot of what you have just given as examples of 'being a man' are things I fight against a lot in raising my daughters. I would hate DH to tell any child (male or female actually, but it does seem prevalent amongst boys) to 'look after me for him'. Yes, we mutually support each other, but he doesn't 'look after me' and he certainly doesn't need a male child to do it on his behalf when he is out. I constantly have to pull up DD1, who seems to have absorbed the idea that somehow telling daddy about bad behaviour at the end of the day is worse than being pulled up on it by me during the day - I assume this is from the 'be good for your mum' stuff that goes on.

I also find the idea that who you can shout at is segregated on gender lines really weird TBH. Either it is not nice to shout - or more realistically it is something which isn't very nice but happens sometimes when people are very cross and they should apologise afterwards.

Any why isn't it important for your son to read Virginia Woolf and be bored senseless about the suffragettes? Genuine question - why is that less relevant to his life, living in a society peopled approximately 50% by women than it would be for a daughter?

I don't think so Zimbah He doesn't believe that my DH stops me from falling over (as DS frequently sees me fall over, I'm hopelessly clumsy ). He doesn't blame DH when I fall over any more than he would blame himself. He really isn't prone to guilt and has very strong boundaries. He's well aware that it's my own responsibility when I fall over and his own responsibility when he falls over.

But he knows that if I said 'DH grab that washing for me so I can hang it up' my DH would do that - and that is the role DS is filling when DH goes out. Not stopping me from falling over. No force on earth can do that it seems!

Hmm.. That's interesting youlllaugh. My friends who are single mums have said that they really miss that 'backstop' - the person who is told about the bad behaviour at the end of the day.

My DS also particularly doesn't like me to tell DH about his bad behaviour but I actually believe that this is because he knows that I only tell DH about behaviour which I think needs a combined parenting strategy, not every little thing. So if I tell DH, it's serious. Hence when DS says 'You aren't going to tell Dad about this Mum are you?' I take it as him asking 'Is this a serious thing I've done or just one of those things you tell me off for then forget about two minutes later?'.

How depressing to read Becstarsky . If any member of my family ever said to my son to "look after mummy" they would get very short shrift and possibly I would even raise my voice to a member of the opposite sex (shock horror, unforgivable). How deeply offensive and misogynistic. Fortunately for my son and I my family are rather more enlightened and less 1950's Doris Day movie than that

Virginia Woolf was a brilliant author. My partner enjoyed Mrs Dalloway as much as I had hoped he would. Men need to learn about 20th Century modernist literature as much as girls. Or perhaps they should just be reading James Joyce as he is male? I don't understand this attitude.

I am concerned that my son is learning stereotypes outside the home but I and my partner make sure that we deal with any "pink is for girls/lego is for boys" nonsense that he may repeat to us.

Treat people as individuals with their own characters, traits and intelligence and perhaps we can all move past this ridiculous genderisation.

oh, and just solve world hunger too please MN

OP - YANBU

becstarsky, it is strange that your DH is 'allowed' to shout at his own father yet your son is not 'allowed' to shout at you because you are a woman and a mother. Why does your FIL's role as a father deserve less respect?

Oh and youlllaugh - genuinely amazed about not understanding shouting on gender lines. If you saw a man shouting at a woman, or a woman shouting at a woman - you'd see that as the same thing? Shouting is not necessarily a bad thing in my book - although name-calling and abuse is of course.

My sister shouted at me only yesterday. (Admittedly the shout did begin with 'ARE YOU DEAF BECSTAR???' (I was being selectively deaf at the time!)) But if a man ever dared shout at me I would never speak to him or have anything to do with him again. I worked for a man once who said proudly that he'd made every woman in the office cry at least once. Nasty bully. Not that women can't be bullies too of course. He didn't make me cry but he did make me look for a better job!

BecStar - Are you sure your DS is sophisticated enough to understand the idea of 'combined parenting strategy'? How old is he? My 3 year old certainly isn't. She has absorbed the idea at a much more simplistic level - that something you 'tell daddy' is worse than something mummy tells her off for. I have intentionally started saying 'We are going to need to talk about this again at bedtime' - which includes the nights when DH is out, allowing for DH's input in serious issues, but hopefully reducing the gender bias. As they get older, and I am more often the one who is out, I will also be getting DH to redress the balance by explaining that I will need to know about things.

Waspie - I too am a total bore on pink/blue. I pulled up a friend's daughter (very politely) at playgroup last week when she told another friend's son that he couldn't have the ball because it was pink and the boy one was in the other corner.

BecStar - And in turn I am genuinely amazed you see it as different. My brother and I had screaming rows right up until we left home (both strong personalities ) and I would be appalled to think that he somehow had to hold himself back because I was a girl. As it happens, we should have both held back and learned to get along, but that has nothing to do with gender.

Yes, I would see a man shouting at a woman as the same thing as a woman shouting at a woman. The only time I would see it as different would be if one party appeared to be fearful for their physical safety, or being a victim of abuse (regardless of what gender that party). If it was an argument between two equal parties, no I see no difference whatsoever.

I think a man shouting at a woman could potentially be perceived as more threatening, because men are almost always physically stronger than women and there is often a size difference. But it would depend on the intent behind it. A taller woman shouting at a smaller woman would probably be equally threatening.

stop re your post at 14:29

But, that inherently implies that these parents thinks that the 'behaviour' of boisterous girls, is down to bad parenting

becstar just picking up on one of your points; I am working class, so if I were raising boys; I would equally instill the importance of their right to vote, as I will with my dds. As that was also a hard fought battle

If I was mysteriously raising white, middle class boys; I think I would still male sure they understand how important the vote is, in the context of not taking their white, MC male privelege for granted

An ex friend of mine once said that DS was quite "soft and girly" because he has two mums and he pushed a buggy everywhere. He was two at the time. He goes to martial arts, climbs everything in site...has a LOT of energy to burn. But he still pushes dds pink buggy around and neither we, nor he, care. Dd has always loved pink. If its not pink she won't wear it....but in every other respect, she has as much energy as DS, she gets muddier than him, climbs higher than him, despite being only 3. They are only typical of themselves, no one else, and certainly are not being restricted by stereotyping to a gender role.

stopthecavalry by poor behaviour, I don't mean being active. All kids capable of being active need to be active. I mean hurling stuff at cars, or even playing chicken with them, climbing on people's walls, digging holes in the road... and never being called on it unless another, non-related adult has words.

Oh yes youlllaughI'm afraid he understands the concept only too well . He's six and the veteran of many a 'family strategy meeting', the poor little over parented blighter!

It seems I am very different. Interesting. I'll bear all this in mind - never occurred to me.

But I won't inflict Virginia Woolf on DS. I want him to have a happy childhood

Bec, does (or will) your DD ever get told to 'look after your mum for me'?

I think giving Virginia Woolf to your daughters and not your boys seriously reinforces the idea that girls stuff is ok for girls but not ok for boys. Which leads onto women's issues not being taken very seriously.

Basically I don't think we need to inflict Virginia Woolf on anyone. So bloody dull.

I was only able to have one child.

It's this "boys will be boys" and "typical male" bullshit that makes society so excepting of men who, for instance, can't cook or clean, act like pigs around women etc because they're being stereotypical men. It's awful, truly awful that someone's genitals are used as a reason for any behaviour good or bad.

I'm due DS3 and the amount of pity and sympathy I have had over having another boy is shocking because my sons are seen as "typical boys" already, regardless of the fact that they are as individual as people come and I actually know a few girls far more active and boisterous than one of them.
It makes me so angry.

BecStar - that's a slightly different rationale for not giving your DS Virginia Woolf, and one I can totally agree with . Maybe an older child can differentiate in terms of 'we'll need to tell daddy', I can see that. My DD certainly can't yet, which is is it makes me sad that she see it as more important if daddy will find out.

'Boys will be boys.' I can't stand that either. Or referring to a baby/young child as 'good' when what is actually meant is that they're easy to look after. Grr.

All the time I get 'are you going to try for a girl then'. No I'm not.