About 'girls' parties and 'boys' parties?

[LahLahsbigband]

My DS is six, and in his first year at school. There have been lots of birthday parties throughout the year, including his. I asked who he played with and we got together a mixed group of boys and girls for his party and it went very well.

As is to be expected, friendships have been very fluid over the year, but by and large it's a lovely group of kids and they all play together pretty nicely. On Friday one little girl, who I know my son plays with quite a lot, was handing out pink invitations to all the girls (in front of everyone) and said "its not for boys, it's a girls party". AIBU to be annoyed at this stupid boys versus girls thing, at this young age?

OK, his mother can invite whoever she wants and no one is owed an invitation - fine. I don't feel that it's necessary to ask a whole class (there are 24 in the class), and my son isn't put out about not going - this sort of thing tends to wash over him and quite frankly I am glad I don't have to schlep to yet ANOTHER party on my weekend with a gift.

It's just this stupid "boys"/"girls" apartheid that grinds my gears. They're SIX. My sons have been brought up with friends of both genders and sure, they may be areas where their interests don't overlap but every kid likes a party, and when he's been to very typically 'girly' parties (eg with a fairy princess entertainer) he still got into it and had fun, just as I imagine a little girl would enjoy running about at a "sports" party designed for little football fans (just an example of an all "boys" party we were invited to this year). I just think it's so sad at this age, and really annoys me when parents encourage it. Why not just invite the friends that you play with, whatever gender they are?

[NancyJones]

So you know some girls who wouldn't like climbing so you assume girls don't like climbing. High ropes and climbing isn't even remotely a stereotypical 'boys' activity. I could almost concede I've seen some of that with teenagers but not with children under 11.

Do you have daughters? I ask that genuinely because you don't sound like you know girls at all. The girls I know, including my own, love anything like that.

Ds1's class residential last year was a 4day stint at an outdoor activity centre. All the class, girls and boys, looked forward to it all year. They had high ropes, zip wires, climbing walls, raft building etc. I didn't hear any tales of girls not wanting to take part. And lots of go-karting parties here from both boys and girls.

[BackforGood]

Yackity - mine do / did.
I have 1 ds and 2 dds, and can honestly say they all have (and had when they were the age of OP's dc) friends who are both boys and girls.

But then I've never done this "boys can't" or "girls can't" thing.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

No, I don't have daughters, but I mentioned the tree climbing activity while we were planning it to other parents, in a gentle sounding out, trying to work out whether 6/7 year olds were too young for it, and got 'oh I don't think X would like that' from the mums of girls that I knew well enough to chat to, yet the mums of the boys were all 'ooh, brilliant, how fab'.

You seem quite bothered about me not giving the girls a chance, but what of their OWN parents?! As I said, not ONE of these girls have had a party or a family activity involving tree climbing, go-karting, or even bowling. The children were predominantly only children, and the few that had siblings generally had siblings of their own gender, so I guess it had been very easy for them to slip into gendered activities with their daughters.

Yet almost all the boys had done something like that at least once with their own families, so I was sure that most of the boys would have the confidence to give it a go.

If there had been girls that had been doing these sort of activities on their own then I would have considered inviting a mixed group. But they didn't..... so I didn't.

[NancyJones]

My experience is that the do often slip into same sex groups from about 8-11 then back to mixed again. The op's DS is 6.

[NancyJones]

I think the point I'm trying to make is that these parents/girls you are talking about are likely an anomaly. On the whole, from my own experience of having 4 children plus 20yrs of teaching experience, girls love climbing and high ropes activities just as much as boys.

If I just had girls I would still take them climbing etc. DH would def still be expecting them to throw and catch rugby and cricket balls too! Rugby's not really my thing. I prefer hockey, as do my older 2 boys actually.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

At our infant school it was very strongly same sex groups, right from the start.

I often help out at the school and I've seen them playing at lunch time - the playground running around/ball games are boy dominated, to the point of NO girls being involved, the sand pit has more boys than girls, but some girls do join in, the play equipment, again more boys than girls, the hop scotch squares are predominantly girls, the skipping ropes are predominantly girls (except at the moment as they've just done skipping as a sport activity), and sitting on a bench, running from group to group, holding arms and chatting, are the girls.

But the boys all have school shoes which are robust, borderline trainers, and brilliant for playing ball games with, and the girls almost all have lovely little shoes that look pretty but aren't the best things for running around in.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

We're a hockey family too, Nancy!

I know it may not be the norm, the school is quite an anomaly for a number of reasons. But.... it's certainly not the only one.

I went to a girls only school, and I was one of those who loved doing all sorts of physical, almost dare devil activities. I was in the minority.

[TheKitchenWitch]

I was looking at some old photos the other day and noticed that my birthday parties throughout primary and junior school were only girls, even though i also played with the boys at school. I'm now 42, so going back quite a bit.
The only boys that ever came round to our house regularly were neighbours' or friends of my parents' kids.

Same for my sister, who is 6 years younger than me. And we were both fairly typical lego-building/tree climbing/orange and brown-wearing kids of the 70s.

It's not a new thing, it's not unusual and I really don't see how it's wrong. It certainly didn't stop either of us from socialising with boys later...

[NancyJones]

That's a shame! It sounds like it must be coming from the parents then. I think if we as parents accept sportiness and 'spunk' as the Americans would say, with boys and expect 'better' from our girls then we do them a massive disservice.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

I think if you have girls its almost essential to get them involved in club sport - then they have a chance to make friends with other girls who are into sports, and you can meet other parents who are encouraging their daughters to be more sporty.

Its sad that it's only the boys who are being taken to a lot of these sports activities.

I love that hockey has as many girls as boys there. I like that my DSs will finally see girls participating in these activities.

I have a god daughter, and her mother has been warned that I'm going to be taking her out and doing all sorts of things with her!

[EustaciaBenson]

I used to work in an outdoor centre and supervosed hundreds if not thousands of children on climbing walls and high ropes etc. There was never a gender divide over who was good at it and who wasnt, feminine girls who liked pink could be better than sporty boys who liked blue. And most of the instructors working there were women who had somehow managed to get over the fact they were women long enough to go climbing! And I was never sporty at school, but climbing is very different to say netball!

[loveandsmiles]

YABU

Sometimes it depends on the individual child. I have DDs who just seem to be very girly and play with girls doing 'girly' things, another DD who has very few girl friends, plays with boys, is in a football team and hates 'girly' activities and a DS who has never played with girls (think having 4 sisters is enough for him)

[Aviator]

YABU
I did this boys party thing once - I wasn't intending to BUT......DS's list included 3 girls and excluded 2boys from his class - I felt that those 2 boys would have felt really left ouT, so I said to DS that we will just make it a boys party. We also had a number restriction. So there might always be a geniune reason that doesn't stem from an intentional gender apartheid.

[Mehitabel6]

OK- it is only my opinion BUT I find all girl parties easier. Generally because girls do not wrestle at every available moment for fun. Not at 8 yrs old.
Boys parties are fine, you just have to be very active tire them out and never have a game where they are out. Always have an activity ready for the first to finish eating, while you wait for the rest. Of course girls are active - and if I had them I would have done climbing parties/swimming parties etc ( pamper parties would be out!) BUT you can have games where they are out, they will sit and chat and take an interest in the game and you don't have to have an activity for the very second the first finishes eating.
It is a phase and does, as someone says, last from about 8-11 yrs.

[Ginormarse]

For my dd's 7th party she had a joint swimming party with a boy in her class. They invited a mixture of boys and girls. Dd is resolutely not interested in glittery, tea party, pamper party type stuff.
She has been disappointed that none of the boys she invited to her party invited her to theirs because they had boys only parties.
She tells me that she mostly plays with boys at breaktime because their games are more fun and she likes running around instead of playing princess games.
I have been gently trying to encourage her to develop friendships with more girls but at the moment she is just not interested.

[Micah]

Boys wrestle and get rowdy because they're allowed to "because they're boys". Girls sit and chat because that is what's expected of them. I saw a family in a restaurant once, the two boys were allowed to get out of their seats any run about to "burn off energy", the girls were given crayons and told to sit nicely, even after asking if they could join in with the boys.

The boys at soft play- you say parents were sat there not intervening. I bet girls behaving like that would have been stopped immediately.

It's parenting and peer expectations, not innate.

Dd was the only girl in her peer group at nursery. She was invited to parties and got on fine. Vice versa for her party. Had they done th "boys only" thing she wouldn't have been to any parties.

[Mehitabel6]

I have never wished to wrestle at any age. I had plenty of opportunity having brothers and my parents never once treated us differently.
They all go to mixed parties at nursery. They continue into infants. It will change in the juniors.

[Mehitabel6]

I explained up thread that my mother was the one who played with boys and wasn't into girly things so it is hardly likely that she would let my brothers wrestle and not me! I never met a girl who wanted to wrestle with me either.
My bugbear in restaurants are parents who let their children get down. I see boys and girls allowed to get down- it is lazy parenting.
My sons have been described all through school as kind and caring- I was very proud of it. This doesn't mean they are in the same wave length- living in an all male household I constantly have to explain how women operate. Now they have girlfriends it is wonderful- you don't have to explain, they follow the thought processes.
My sons have done holiday schemes etc with children they don't know and have managed to not even know their names! It wasn't important, they were having fun. Girls would have known not only their names, their life history likes, dislikes etc. they have fun and chat.
Generally- there are always exceptions.
There are differences- otherwise why would people have preferences? If they want to mould them into their idea of a girl or a boy it won't work! It never does.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

Boys wrestle and get rowdy because they're allowed to "because they're boys".

Do you seriously believe that?

I am on top of all of my DSs behaviour when we go out, but it is CONSTANT. I get through a church service or a dinner and I have people coming up to me saying 'oh they were so well behaved, what lovely boys'. They were only well behaved because I heard next to nothing of the service or the general table conversation because I was constantly intervening. I got absolutely no respite at all. They get bored of the things that the girls are finding interesting.

Rainy days? The mothers of girls were all up for plonking a bunch of craft activities on the table and letting the girls get on with it for the day. The mothers of boys all look in horror at the idea, knowing that it's a recipe for disaster, and will dress the boys up and take them out, whatever the weather. Because they KNOW that if they don't it will be a disaster. I don't exactly FANCY going out in the sodding bad weather just to give my DSs some run around time you know! But I fancy the repercussions of NOT doing it even less.

[Catmint]

Yanbu in principle.

[Mehitabel6]

I think that nurture has very little to do with it and it is 90% down to nature- or near that level.
I have 3 sons who are totally different. I was a lone parent with the first- felt guity because I hate football and would only grudgingly kick a ball around. He loves football - practised and practised and got in a team. My youngest had a father and 2 older brothers who love football. He has never been interested- won't even watch England play.
I have 2 girl cousins - one was all sporty - played exclusively with tne boys, the other was all into dolls and dressing up- same parents - treated the same.
Those of you with young children that you think you can manipulate will be in for some surprises! Just support what you have.

[Tingatingatale]

There are twenty boys in my sons class and another 5 he plays with in the other class as well as six cousins and friends out of school. We tend just to invite the boys as 30 is usually the limit

[duplodon]

Hmm. Mehita you seem to have a very low opinion of boys. Presumably all men who grow up to be artists, scientists, poets, doctors, musicians, architects etc all spent their entire childhoods one step away from being feral, desperate to wrestle and bare their teeth at each other while the girls who grow up to be employed in similar work situations were all chatting amicably over tea and crumpets from three.

[duplodon]

Yackity yackity my sons love superheroes and cars and the like but can and do spend hours doing crafts and engaging in domestic play too.

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

Duplodon - mine didn't for a very long time. Now they can sit down and do some colouring in or some puzzle books, but even then not for all that long.

At nursery all the craft refusers were boys. That's not to say all the boys were craft refusers, however.