to think boys really ARE different to girls and it's not just nurture?

[Shovelnotspade]

I went into parenthood armed with a first degree in psychology (combined with philosophy) and the notion that until puberty, little boys and little girls are the same and any differences are simply nurture.

I have 3 boys, 4 including DH's son from his first marriage and to me, they're so different to girls I can't believe it!

My SIL came over with her 5 and 4 year old girls to play with my 3 and 2 year old boys - they live in the US so we don't see them often and hers say nicely and did crafting, played with my old dolls, and decorated biscuits. Mine did not stop shouting and running. At all. I wouldn't change them for the world and am used to having to think of them as having a LOT of energy and a short attention span but SIL looked amazed and offered me lots of largely pointless tips.

I hate generalisations (generally ) but in my experience, at this age, little boys need far more supervision!
AIBU?

Missed a baby there

By the ages you talk about OP, a lot of gender programming would have occurred.

I have boys and girls and have only noticed that my first child, whilst very good a sport is not into any violence such as hitting etc. Though the others all are right little battlers.

Sorry Goth, ... the levels of testosterone can vary massively within women. They can but still men have more. There may be overlap (which I highly doubt in fact) but still be different between the sexes. My DH's sister is 6ft. My Dad is 5ft9. Men are still taller than women however.

Plus, forgot to add. THe idea that testosterone doesn't have much of a role to play in male behaviour should look towards the body builders who abuser testosterone. One of the symptoms of abuse is behaviour change: more violent, shorter tempers, higher sex drives.

Yes more girls than boys like pink sparkly stuff, but why do people claim they are born this way? I really doubt that a baby born on a deserted island would one day wake up and decide that wow, I really like princesses/Spiderman.

Even if you don't push the gender specific toys yourself, there are still grandparents, other people, ads, movies, cartoons, their friends in playgroups etc that tell the kids that girls play with this and boys play with that. It's not so easy for a 3-year old to play with barbies, if all his friends play with guns and tell him barbies are stupid.

I believe they are born that way- you can try telling your DD that she would rather play with construction toys than dolls, but it will only work if that is her preference. Parents are not as important as they think- they can only decide their own preferences and not anyone else's- although many still push it. A 3 year old couldn't care what other DCs play with- the peer pressure kicks in later. I have known 3 yr old boys quite happy to push their dolls pram out and about.
It is personality - DS 1 adored trains and Thomas the Tank Engine books, DS2&3 had no interest. It is much more subtle and complicated than who plays with guns and who plays with dolls and who had physical energy and who doesn't.
I feel sorry for our DCs when people won't admit there are differences- there are differences between men and women- they don't suddenly appear at 18yrs!
If you take identical twin studies you find remarkable similarities between those brought up separately.

If nurture was all important parents would be able to produce the child they want and life would be simple! Luckily DCs have minds of their own and they do their own thing- some have more of a handicap if they have parents who fight the basic personality.

"A 3 year old couldn't care what other DCs play with- the peer pressure kicks in later. I have known 3 yr old boys quite happy to push their dolls pram out and about."

Exactly. It would be difficult to predict a child's toy preferences based on whether male or female child and likewise with behaviour. Pre-puberty differences are more likely to be down to an individual's personality and outside influences. Once puberty is reached/passed then hormones play their part too.

The differences between girls and boys are not as simple as toy preference!

As are the differences between any child, boy or girl.

Nurture (in a nature vs nurture debate) isn't just about what a parent intentionally does. I haven't intentionally had two girls and then a boy, however because I have I feel that ds is probably a different boy than he would be if he had two older brothers. For a start he wouldn't know about ballet and want to do it, or want to be a brownie or rainbow. We are actually fairly traditionally gendered in our house, the girls do ballet + guides, ds doesn't do ballet and does a sport club instead, but it doesn't mean that he given a free choice wouldn't rather have a boogie to music than kick a football about. If instead every week he went to watch brothers play football he might prefer that.

If the original SIL had a boy to add to her two girls, he may well end up quite different to OP's boys, at least at 2 and 3, because he would have far more female role models being a boy in a household than her sons do with 3 brothers and a father.

I'm not saying that it is good to deviate from society norms - ds may well wish that he loved kicking a football more than dancing and maybe when he is at school he will do, but for the moment the dominant influences 8-6 mon-fri are female..

In case anyone thinks we are cruel not sending ds to ballet when he prefers dancing, the sport club is 1 pound, ballet is 6 pounds, simple economics, and he does enjoy the sports.

3bunnies
Your last sentence reminded me of years ago when I had a class of mixed 14-15 year olds teaching them dance to Michael Jackson music in Germany.
There was one lovely blond boy who was so talented, but one day he was very apologetic, and disappointed when he said his football afternoon had been changed to my dance day and I would understand that football was more important to him, so couldn't come to my dance class anymore. He made it clear he would have loved to have done both. Sigh.

'Nurture (in a nature vs nurture debate) isn't just about what a parent intentionally does'

So true. I have one sister and one brother. My parents would absolutely swear down that they treated us all the same and love us all equally. It's total and utter swill to be blunt.

And if you are someone who believes that boys and girls are inherently different, don't you think that might just have some bearing on how you treat your children? If you believe they are inherently different, surely you can't seriously suggest that you parent them the same?

Agree 3bunnies-having an older brother my dd is showing a keen interest in Thomas the tank engine, Lego planes and rockets, these are things that I probably wouldn't have made a particular effort to expose her to from a young age had she been first born.

"'Nurture (in a nature vs nurture debate) isn't just about what a parent intentionally does"

... Indeed, but the experience as a parent of realising how hard it is to intentionally influence your child's characters also makes me sceptical of the idea that children's characters can be so easily influenced unintentionally.

100 years ago, it was conventional to dress boys in pink and girls in blue, pink being a diluted version of the colour red, which was seen as a 'hot', strong, macho colour. Blue was seen as a 'cooler' colour, thus matching the 'weaker' female temperament.

And, I believe, red/pink dye was more expensive then (there's a shock). How ironic though, given the amount of cheap,plastic pink tat aimed at girls today.

It's not hard to see why little girls 'like' pink today. I see it all the time with my DD, people make a big fuss over presenting pink things to girls "look, here's a pink plate for you!", "wow, a lovely pink bike". So of course girls think there is something special and desirable about pink things because grown ups (who should have better things to think about) seem to get so excited about them, thus imbuing them with a certain value.

The most stringent enforcer of gender stereotypes are pre-schoolers themselves. This is NOT to say I believe current societal versions of 'maleness' and 'femaleness' are inherent, it just goes to show what social animals we are, that we can absorb and internalise these messages so effectively by the age of 3 that we can police our peers.

Himalaya - clearly the society you grow up in has a huge influence on your beliefs about what you can and can't do and where you fit in. There may be very few people apart from your parents and teachers who are overtly trying to teach you this stuff, but the weight of all those constant messages from every adult and child you meet, from TV, magazines, advertising is massive. I forget the stat but by the time a child is seven or eight they've seen an astounding number of adverts - with 90% of toy adverts pushing pink 'girly' stuff at girls and blue 'macho' stuff at boys.

Just look at how troubled people are who don't fit in - gay people who live in evangelical Christian families and communities, for instance. Standing up for who you are can be incredibly painful, and if you've been given constant messages about who you should be from the moment you are born, then it is clearly incredibly difficult to know who you are anyway - being gay is something that stands out, being a natural astro-physicist probably doesn't, if you are a girl who has grown up believing maths is for boys.

Edam - 'clearly the society you grow up in has a huge influence on your beliefs about what you can and can't do and where you fit in' - yes I agree, but I don't think it has so much of an impact on your character (which has very little to do with pink/blue type cultural ideas which come and go).

As i have said, I have two boys. they are very different from each other, but have been subject to broadly the same set of adverts, culture etc....I just don't see culture as being all-powerful. ...as you say gay people grow up in evangelical Christian communities etc...

I am always surprised fucking horrified by friends who issue a kind "Come on, you're a big boy/ Don't be a girl" when boys my son's age cry. He is not yet 2.

"In case anyone thinks we are cruel not sending ds to ballet when he prefers dancing, the sport club is 1 pound, ballet is 6 pounds, simple economics, and he does enjoy the sports. "

This makes me smile, and every now and then there's a post on mn which gives me a warm glow about mums, and this is one of them. There was another the other day about a mother's "moment" of leaning on the boot of the car to take a breath after strapping in toddlers.

Sentimental much but never mind.

"And if you are someone who believes that boys and girls are inherently different, don't you think that might just have some bearing on how you treat your children?"

For me, no. I believe boys and girls are inherently different, and my last son wore a dress most of the time he was at home until the age of four, while my daughter is in the First Eleven football. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

That is absolutely not what I mean when I say that people treat boys and girls differently.

What do you mean then.

Himalaya - well yes, any two individuals will be different from each other, that doesn't negate the cultural impact of gender conditioning. To which we are all subject.