To wonder why some people think girls are more troublesome to bring up than boys?

[FirstOfHerName]

My cousin is pregnant with her second child. Her oldest is a 4yo boy. She's just found out that baby no 2 is a girl and said her DP is disappointed as he was hoping for another boy so he could play football with his sons, and also because girls are more of a hassle to raise. In fact, they're both in agreement on this latter point.

They have every right to have a preference for the sex of their child of course, everyone has, but AIBU to think the whole "girls are more trouble" attitude is stupid and sexist?Kids are kids!

My MIL (usually the loveliest of women) said something silly like that: that she was so glad only to have had boys because they weren't bitchy like girls. Can't say I've ever noticed it myself: when it comes to making unkind remarks about others, boys and girls seem about on the same level to me: it's just that the word bitchiness is only used when girls do it.

I'm always told the opposite when people comment on the fact that that I will have two dd's. It is ridiculous. Gender stereotyping at its worst, either way. Your kids are yours, you love them and raise them. Sometimes it is magical and sometimes it's hard. That's it really.

Hopefully this won't become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No, of course this is bollocks. Each child is an individual - some are easier than others. I've got a DD, I can't think of any way in which she's a hassle which could be attributed to her sex. Except maybe the tendency for her hair to block the shower drain, boys aren't generally allowed to have long hair.

And obviously, girls can play football too.

Sorry but what a wanker he sounds.

Why can't he play football with his daughter ffs!?

My DH does.

Girls and boys are equally troublesome. In different ways.

I think it's because society feels that girls need to be protected... and controlled... in a way that boys do not.
So they are fearful of their lovely sweet little girl becoming opinionated [mouthy] and defiant [uncontrollable] whereas in a boy they might just see this as an annoying right of passage... becoming a man with a strong sense of self whereas a woman needs to learn to fit in and look after others in order to be acceptable.
Then throw in policing of girls sexuality and ridiculous comments about fathers sitting with shotguns when their daughters start dating...

My 2 sisters who have both boys and girls say boys are easier! And so do the majority of others I know who have both sexes say the same.

I can't comment as I have 4 girls

I agree SeaWitchly, the whole fathers with shotguns thing is ridiculous and just removes agency from girls. And if you teach them from a young age that someone else is in charge of them, wouldn't that open them up to being more easily manipulated or controlled once in a relationship?

I might add that my cousins DP is a head teacher. I'd be concerned that he's propagating those ideas in his school

But what makes the boys "easier" barb?

Well to be fair I was a hell of a lot more trouble than my brother was

People are probably commenting on their own personal experience, but they really should say that it's their experience and not just state it as if it's a fact!

I have a 2 year old DS and 34 weeks pregnant with DD. I've heard and seen different things about boys and girls as babies/toddlers....my DS wouldn't sit still as a baby, I could never just have a coffee while he sat quietly in the buggy or go out for long walks with the buggy but friends with girls seemed to not have this problem. But now as toddlers my DS is pretty easy and their girls are very stubborn! I'm sure there's stories the other way around. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an easy baby and toddler

Mother of 2 boys and 1 girl and I can honestly say the boys were easier they tend to amuse themselves very imaginative when playing and could play happily on their own with just a stick for hours where as DD constantly wants to do everything with me and she certainly knows her own mind! I don't think it's a bad thing at all and I've heard many people say boys are easier.

As a mum of 3 boys and a friend to a mum of 3 girls we have each had areas of our child rearing that have proved more difficult to us.

I felt that I spent the first 10 years of my life run ragged after lively and noisy beings but then as teens they calmed down into lovely young men with cuddles for their mum. Whereas my friend's daughters were lovely cute little girls playing nicely with colouring and crafts etc turned into mouthy pouty stompy teen girls with Attitude.

I am sure when they become adults again she will have that option of daughters who are friends where as the potential MIL it would appear that in MN world I am destined to be a mad psycho biatch from hell!

*disclaimer - no stereotyping intended

In my experience girls are more difficult only in that the friendship issues are sometimes really hard.
Girls seem to fall out so often and can then be totally vile to each other. It was really hard going for my dd.

Surely it depends on their personality, not their sex? When my son was born I had many people say boys are more trouble etc or that I'd have my hands full. It just goes to show that sexism is very much alive and well.

well the father is being a bit ridiculous assuming that because he has a boy he'll automatically want to play football. I know some boys who have absolutely no interest in football whatsoever.

I have two boys and can honestly say one is harder work than the other, but that's solely down to his personality (v stubborn pre-schooler!) rather than the fact he's a boy.

A friend of mine is pregnant and desperately hoping for a girl, so she can go shopping and do girly stuff with her. I haven't burst her bubble by telling her she may not have a "girly" girl. She may have a daughter who (like me) has no interest in shopping and getting my nails done.

That sort of thinking will pretty much set you up for a lifetime of disappointment, when your kids don't turn out the way you've already decided they will.

Because people are idiots and forget that children are all different

I don't think boys or girls are any easier than the other. I can't speak from experience of girls because I only have 3 boys but I think it's more to do with a childs personality rather than gender. Some children are laid back willing to entertain themselves where as others are highly strung super demanding and not willing to entertain themselves.
Also this whole you need a boy to play football or a girl to go shopping with not always the case some girls love football and some boys love shopping. It's all about the old fashioned attitudes of some people.

It goes back, as someone says, to the fear of an illicit pregnancy. The need to control wanton young women from their carnal desires. Fathers, I think still tend to want to protect and pander to girls (suspect it's an evolutionary instinct rather than personality failing).
Four girls, two boys. Equal joy and angst from both genders but in different ways. No doubt boys and girls are different but neither is harder to raise overall - it just seems like it at the time.

I've had 3 boys and one girl. The boys were a walk in the park. Dd isn't, and that's putting it mildly.

Personally, from the point of view of difficulty, I was slightly relieved to have a girl. So many boys appear to have a daredevil death wish in their teens. I couldn't begin to list all the stupid risks my brothers took just out of energy and silliness, not badness. My mother always said that boys are little divils (in an affectionate way) and that you couldn't have enough eyes to watch them. My mother in law says the same! I suppose you accept it as true to some extent when you look around, young lads get up to all sorts.

If my daughter got pregnant in her teens it wouldn't be the end of the world. We'd help her do whatever she wanted even if it meant raising the baby with her. To me, that seems like a situation that we would cope with.

I don't have any personal experience for comparison as I only have one DD, but the 'bitchy' comment a PP made reminded me: I have had two separate conversations with other mothers recently where they've described their toddler daughters as "diva-ish" because they have tantrums. Because male toddlers don't...?

I can only speak anecdotally from the experience of three familes I know which all have a mixture of girls and boys, and all the parents say that the girls are proving more challenging to bring up as they enter their teen years - that the arguments, anger, defiance are markedly more than they experience from their sons. In two cases, the girl is the younger, so these parents have been through a smooth rite of passage with their teenage boys (both of whom are now in the sixth form) and are now on some kind of terrifying rollercoaster with their girls!

But as I say, that is just my experience of three families. I don't think I can extrapolate from that to say that all girls are more troublesome!

However, I would add that knowing the families as I do, their finding girls more troublesome has nothing to do with the parents having outdated expectations of how girls should behave or the fears of "illicit" pregnancy. I don't think my friend would want her son to lie about where he was going and who he was with any more than she wants her daughter to do it. But the daughter is the one who does do it, not the son...

The only stereotype I've heard from people saying there's a difference is boys wreck your house, girls wreck your head!

My DD is definitely 'harder work' than DS.

This has absolutely nothing to do with her sex and everything to do with the fact that she's feisty, stubborn and strong-willed compared to DS's rather more laid back attitude to virtually everything.

Large extended family here, and ime it is so much about personalities. One of my brothers was very physically cautious and worried about getting hurt, another was more of a daredevil; I, the only girl, was somewhere in between.

Ds is like me in his general attitude- reacts very little outwardly but is sensitive to criticism and with a tendency to brood; dd is far more direct and open in her communications- reminds me of dh's family.

Both had some friendship issues when they were younger, but I don't think dd's friends were any more vile than ds's: it's just that when boys do it, their parents don't talk of bitchiness or call them "a little madam".

Dd was physically aggressive and completely full-on as a young child but turned into a very reasonable teenager; ds was very gentle and quiet as a child, but with a tendency to stroppiness and over-sensitivity in his early teens.