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?

In terms of digit ratio, mine are typical of their gender, but different behaviourally, there are so many dimensions and I imagine if I picked out another set of traits I would prove that my boy is a typical boy and my girls are typical girls (e.g. Finger length, ds still has daytime nap but girls dropped theirs much earlier, ds likes blue, but at 3 the girls both liked pink (now they prefer blue), dd1 especially is a drama queen etc). That is why I think it is a mixture, my children are so multi-dimensional that I don't think you could simplify it down into 'that's the girls and this is the boy'.

A number of studies have shown a correlation between the 2D:4D digit ratio and various physical and behavioral traits. There is a lot of evidence to prove that prenatal testosterone behaviour is a strong influence on how typically 'male' or 'female' someone behaves.

But proportionally; more males than females will exhibit typically masculine traits - because higher levels of testosterone made them develop into males in utero and males have much higher levels of testosterone than females anyway.

Interestingly in terms of gender difference; the accounts of M- F and F-M transexuals is really interesting in how their feelings / behaviours changed after receiving either female or male hormones as part of changing gender and maintaining this

Oh yes, I'm not questionning the evidence, I've read it before (which is why I know my dc's finger lengths!), but I think that children are so multi dimensional and things such as testosterone kick in at different stages, (and the 2 and 3yr old probably haven't had the surge yet - so they may get worse!) that it is too much to say based on one afternoon of behaviour that all boys ARE different to all girls in that situation. I am quite prepared for ds transforming as his testosterone takes over, and likewise the girls becoming PMT monsters - well can probably never be prepared for that. I just don't agree that boys can't sit nicely and do craft at the age of 3 and girls of 5 can't charge around all afternoon. I accept that my children may not be typical of their gender in some respects, but on other aspects they are, which I guess overall leads me to think that at this young age mine are children rather than boys and girls.

YABU some girls don't stop all day, leaping around the furniture and shouting and running off e.g. mine. No interest at all in dolls - we've bought several. Just about at age 7 might sit down and do some colouring. But not at 4/5. She has friends who are boys who have a much better attention span and are on the whole quieter and generally more manageable. I think it's more to do with personality myself.

Problem is saying there are differences is one thing, ascribing those differences to biology is a little bit daft. As I said earlier, there are too many variables.

As far as I know, no study has tested the differences between male and female with all variables removed. Because to do so you would have to remove all external stimuli.

As edam pointed out there have been tests done on how people treat children differently depending on what gender they appear to be.

As for F-M and M-F gender differences after changing hormones. The hormone changes tend not to be the only variable. Their appearance also changes and therefore responses to them change too.

Yes, boys will tend towards more masculine behaviour, and girls towards feminine, but is it because of their biology? Unlikely.

My ds is perfectly capable of sitting quietly and painting; however it takes something that really interests him to do so (he is 3).

I think male and female interests in childhood are quite different. Which is why toy stores market different products at different genders.

I have deliberately tried to 'unculterise' my ds. I have dressed him (on occasion) in girl's outfits which could just about be unisex and pink is his favourite colour. He has a pink dolls house in his room, a toy kitchen, toy buggy and dolls.

But if he plays with them he plays 'dollies and dinosaurs' in the dolls house and turfs out the doll to load his buggy up with rocks in the garden. And his favourite thing is trains and Thomas Tank Engine - despite me not showing him any gender oriented programmes before two years old.

And, anecdotally amongst my friends with ds's - sons seem to be far more interested in vehicles and trains than their daughters. And even the way they play with them tends to differ - in males they tend to scrutinise a vehicle more closely paying more attention to the different revolving parts. A typical stance of a boy playing with a toy car / train I have noticed is that the boy lies down head on the floor with one arm outstretched moving the vehicle - in order to pay greater attention to the wheels.

If your experience doesn't encompass extensive contact with children who've been raised totally isolated from wider society in every way, then it's not really relevant, surely? "Nurture" in this context means a lot more than the influence of parents or even close family (not to mention that even parents who strive to avoid reinforcing gender stereotypes seldom succeed completely).

I'm very aware of a whole host of cultural gender expectations and pressures on my children. I'm sure there are many more that I don't consciously notice. And I'm positive that though I aim for gender-neutral parenting I must be screwing that up all the time. I couldn't possibly venture to say based on my experience what they'd be like in isolation from all that nurture, because my experience only encompasses them in that context. I do know that the science says that there is no (or virtually no) difference apart from genitals at birth and no difference in hormonal levels in early childhood, so it's hard to see a mechanism other than nurture for imposing gender-specific behaviour in preschoolers.

I think that one thing that becomes quite obvious when you are a parent of more than one child (of whatever gender) is how important "nature" is, and how little you are able to influence their character and likes and dislikes with your parenting.

I have two boys - one likes craft activities, the other never has, one likes football the other has no interest, one like building/engineering toys, the other one is more into role play games etc....

I don't think any amount of nurture on my part could have switched these preferences.

Across the population where there ate trends in difference between girls and boys, similarly I think it would be strange to conclude that it is all down to nurture. More likely a bit of both I.e. kids showing some natural tendency and then this being encouraged/amplified by culture.

But this doesn't mean that girls and boys are completely different - just slightly different.

Boys and girls are treated differently. Even as babies.

I don't treat them differently. I had 2 brothers- we were not treated differently by my parents.

It is very easy to trot out 'people treat them differently' - a friend of mine had a DD and a DS fifteen months apart and she was determined to make no difference and yet she got a huge difference.

I think oftentimes girls are different from boys in some ways, yes. But I think there are a lot of children who don't "fit" neatly into those categories, and we need to be careful about stereotyping too much.

I have 2 DD, DD1 girly girl.

DD2 if you write it all down, behavior and likes wise as well as her insistence she's a boy and her refusal to wear girl clothes, she would tick all the boy boxes.

Only 18months age difference, brought up exactly the same.

A child is a child, not a gender.

I agree with OP, but I also know it is the "fashion" to say that there is no difference between the genders.

I have worked with children of primary school age in different countries, I would say there are some marked differences.

I also think girls mature a bit quicker, emotionally, and that boys of primary school age are on the whole a bit more sensitive, and the girls a bit more independent.

But I know, on MN we have to pretend there is absolutely no difference between boys and girls. I am not sure why, as I would never say one gender is "better".

"It is very easy to trot out 'people treat them differently' - a friend of mine had a DD and a DS fifteen months apart and she was determined to make no difference and yet she got a huge difference. "

I think culture is very insidious. I am convinced that I treat my children the same as we were treated in Sweden- until I go home and see all the subtle differences that have crept into my child-rearing because I am surrounded by British parents and British children and subconsciously adjust to that. All sorts of little things that seem to me perfectly natural and an adaptation to what children need and children are like- until I go home and my brothers and SILs look at me strangely.

I do agree with Chandon, though, that there are certainly differences in things like relative age of maturing; but that was hardly a surprise, we knew girls enter the growth spurt earlier and hit puberty earlier.

It's things like whether they need to run around like puppies or not that have me doubtful. In my country of origin, the relatively sedentary life of most British little girls, and the fact that they are rarely provided with clothing that allows them to roll in the mud for hours in November, would be seen as verging on neglect. So perceptions of what girls need are clearly very different.

Well me and my sister were treated the same, not only by parents but also by wider society. We are totally different. No big deal, we're just different kids. If one of us was a boy though, people would be immediately proclaiming that "See, boys and girls are just different! It's nature!"

Just because behaviours between the sexes overlap, maybe even a lot, doesn't mean behavioural differences exist on average between the sexes.

We're much happier talking about physical differences: clearly men are taller than women (you'll still find some women taller than some men i.e. overlap). When it comes to behaviour there appears to be some agenda to deny all differences between the sexes. If we admit this, somehow that must mean we have to accept that all women do child care, all men go out and earn the bread etc. IMO a fallacious argument.

People have said to me about DD1 (in front of DD1, even) "How long do you think she's going to be a tomboy?". No one's ever said that about DS. None of DS's nursery friends gave him pink sparkly stuff as birthday presents. No one has ever assumed that the right conversation icebreaker with DD1 is to ask her about football. DS has never arrived anywhere for the first thing people say to him to be to tell him how nice he looks; it happens to the DDs all the time. I'm not sure where these people who are "determined to make no difference" are raising their children but unless it's in a cave underground I guarantee you that there is a difference.

"I don't treat them differently. I had 2 brothers- we were not treated differently by my parents."

So your DC never meet other people? They never ever get exposed to the different ways boys and girls are represented in the media?

Even if you don't treat them differently, the rest of the world will.

And you do treat them differently...

There is a difference in the way that boys and girls generally play; however i hate the fact that it is viewed negatively. That is what makes it tiring; other people just assuming energy=naughty.
IME the worst offenders are mothers of girls. I went to a park with a friend who started a conversation with another mother of girls about how they could never have coped with boys and weren't they lucky to have girls as mine were climbing and jumping etc. I was stood there, with my three boys charging around next to us.

Plus, there are threads on here from mothers of boys about how much energy they use, and how exhausting they can be; i think we should celebrate their differences and use them; not in a good/bad way but in a recognising what they need way.

Notactually again...you met one unreasonable Mother...I have girls and HATE it when people say "Oh little girls are sly" which they do. And it's usually Mothers of BOYS who say that.

I've seen it said before on Mumsnet that that children are brought up in a far more equal way in Northern Europe than the UK. I wonder which country they are referring to? In Sweden for instance if this is true it is not making society more equal. The number of female managing directors is only eight out of 269. Women still do most of the child rearing and housework.
Personally I believe that male and female brains are different from soon after conception but that of course nurture also can exaggerate the differences. How do you change that though when it is part of our culture?
I also think we all agree that children are individuals and their talents should be encouraged whether they conform to social norms or not. The most talented sports person in my family is female. She is a very talented footballer and we have always encouraged her.

I have 3 boys of vastly differing ages who are all creative and artistic with long attention spans, play instruments, enjoy reading etc. the oldest two are now getting into meditation.

The only little girl I know closely is a fiery little thing, always charging about squealing and demanding attention. I could easily "draw some conclusions" about that. But I don't.