to not understand how anyone can think that girls are harder work than boys

[beclev24]

I know all kids are individuals/ there are easy and difficult kids of both genders etc etc. But I've seen various threads on here about how girls are much harder work than boys, and I can't get my head round it at all.

I have 3 boys. It can be like dealing with a pack of wild animals. They are exhausting to parent (lovely and sweet and gorgeous as well of course, just very hard work.) . Tonight we went to a friend's house who has three girls of similar ages. They were so restrained and quiet and cooperative, while mine needed constant policing to stop them from bouncing off the walls. It seems to be similar wherever we go- that it is a constant struggle to get them to behave, whereas for my friends with girls it seems to happen way more naturally. The stereotype is that boys are harder work physically and girls are more complex emotionally, but my boys are also hard work emotionally! lots of tantrums/ big feelings/ complicated wants and needs/ friendship issues etc.

AIBU? Or just a bad parent?

It's confirmation bias, isn't it? Got a very physically active child who needs to be kept busy or he's a pain? Oh that's because he's a boy, you see. Got a child who's a bit prone to drama which is hugely exacerbated by what happens at school? Yeah, that's just because she's a girl.

No. In the office marking BSc coursework. Very boring.

At least you've stopped talking about mice though, so every cloud ...

My mum's always telling me i was a nightmare compared to my brother as a baby. I was an easy teen though never got up to anything. Boring really. I have 3 sons 2 are lovely easy going. One is hard work

Bizarre- interesting.

Do you have anything more recent that 2012? Were those studies followed up at all? With the the “female brain” stuff that is current these days i’d be suprised if there wasn’t a fair bit of work in that area?

@bizarreFoods

I'm getting up and will be busy, but from a first look, you'll need better references rhat those.

My dd is intense, when she was younger it was like she wanted to be inside my experience with me. I felt as if she wanted more of me than actually existed of me.
My dd comes in for a cuddle, then moves away again. I have to tell him to brush his teeth 28 times though.
I know which I find easier.

Quartz - i'm not not basing it on what i see, i'm basing what i said on what i have. I am comparing my boys to my girl. So i know what she is like behind the scenes - but of course she is only 18mo. So only time will tell.

She is also very physical - like the boys and will join in the family wrestle on the floor. Climbs into the sports direct bag and get swung around etc. She is not timid and she is big and very robust. But she does have an awareness of safety and she does seem to genuinely care what other people think and will sense check with me to see if things are okay. My boys don't give a shit about anything. They are also unpunishable! If i say no to her she stops and gets upset if she thinks i'm annoyed, if i said no to the boys at this age they just punched me in the face and carried on. The only real difference I suppose is that she cares what others think at a much earlier age.

My boys are very complex and emotional too. I can't imagine DD being any more so than them. But we will see.

We have 3 boys (aged 6, 4 and 2) and my BIL and SIL have 2 girls, aged 6 and 2. When we get together, I am always struck by how little "risk" they allow the girls to take.

For example, last time they visited, it was a cold-ish day. My sons asked to go out and play in the garden and I said yes, as long as they put coats on. My SIL hadn't heard me say this and her eldest daughter asked the same, and her response was "No, absolutely not!".

She then relented when she realised our kids were going out, but wrapped her daughter in far more layers than just a coat. We opened the doors, and the boys just tumbled out (without us) as they always do - we have a big garden but can see it all very well from the kitchen, where we were all sat. But SIL insisted BIL went out with niece and stayed close to her at all times. Youngest daughter was allowed out eventually, but not allowed to walk across lawn by herself in case she wobbled over.

Our 2 year old was climbing up and down trampoline ladder by himself, as he always does (trampoline has safety net), but niece of same age not allowed to climb things.

Obviously not a scientific study, as only one family, but it did show me how in this family at least, the girls are being given a clear message that they are not as capable of physical tasks as boys. I find it really disappointing.

I don't dispute that there may be generally some gender differences, but (a) they are just generalisations if so, and (b) unfortunately gender socialisation often has a huge influence, whether people realise it or not.

I have a girl that has always been high energy, and isn’t emotionally manipulative at all. She doesn’t get involved in “girl drama” at all.

All through toddlerhood people would watch her behaviour and lecture me on how active boys were, but they were much simpler and I’s be glad she was a boy in the teenage years.

Reading bizarres links- if what she is saying is true, then he brain developed differently in the womb to give her steretypical “boy” behaviour. So do i expect her to declare she’s a boy sometime soon?

IME, girls are much harder work for their mother in their teens, which is at its peak from 12 - 14, as they try to assert their individuality and dominance; whereas teenage DS was fine with me but trying to assert dominance over DH, his father!

Friendship problems are much greater for teenage DDs, while DS spent his free time at secondary school playing football (as he said it was the way to avoid being bullied)!

I have DT, girl and boy. In my ( limited to my children) experience my boy is much harder than my girl, she is happy to sit and read a book while he wants to be causing mess and destruction

@Newname12

Plenty of studies show the same or similar differences.

This is not especially controversial science.

www.nature.com/articles/mp200979

www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-differences-in-boys-and-girls-how-much-is-inborn/

The brain stuff is so misleading because the differences aren’t huge. Women navigate their way in the car without getting lost and men are more than capable of caring for babies, etc.

It shouldn’t affect how we treat them and it certainly shouldn’t lead to sweeping generalisations. Socialisation is everywhere, from an earlier age, even before birth.

Scientist here. Agree with schrodinger

Also chemical difference between brains? Can you clarify? There may be structural physical differences but chemically a brain’s a brain. It’s also not as straightforward as structure—> function. The idea of some kind of ‘Male brain’ and ‘female brain’ is discredited. Size and density , well we still don’t teally understand what that actually means in terms of ‘being’

I agree with socialisation being a big part of it - I live in a country where gender differences aren’t as pronounced as the UK and I see less of the differences I see when I go back to the UK.

An example with physical play: here you send your kids to school in practical kit - snowsuits, waterproofs, hardwearing shoes that can take puddles and muck and climbing. If you sent a child in in a dress and ballet pumps the teachers would be taking you aside for a word. If you persisted and they had no outdoor kit social would be called.
In the uk I see small female children dressed in clothes they can’t play in. Impractical shoes, dresses etc. Even robes (for primary kids ffs.) Pink froth. Impractical stuff.
Socialise a boy for a year in practical shoes and an adventure playground and a girl in shoes and a dress she can’t climb in and see what happens.

I think it’s a mix of nature and nurture. The girls I know in this country are MUCH more physically active and ‘boisterous’ than the ones I know back in the UK. There may be physical differences (it’s very hard to actually research this because you can’t ever take out the influences of society) but nurture amplified them .

Are any theories about how sex influences the development of theory of mind ?

The biggest difference and frustration I found when dealing with DS compared to my nieces was how they dealt with instructions e.g if I told ds not to do something he would moan and complain but ultimately do what he was told. My nieces (from different families) would agree sweetly straight away and then go off and do exactly what they were told not to ! The same girls seemed to be so much more fiercely independent from a much younger age with a sense of confidence that led them into trouble.

I have three ds’s, all young adults now;18-22 years old.

As babies, toddlers, young boys and older they have always been calm and placid. I let them have guns for play, swords and light sabers, they didn’t become aggressive or angry as a result. They all loved pushing a buggy with a baby , my one stand out memory is ds2 ( aged about 3) dressed up as a soldier with a baby strapped to his chest in a make do sling and carrying a potty.

They’ve grown up to be really lovely, kind young men, I’m very proud of all of them.

Luck of the draw I think, they were born that way.

Also chemical difference between brains? Can you clarify?

I was referring to neurochemicals such as seretonin, oxytocin etc. Not only the amounts but the way they're processed differently by the two sexes.

"There may be structural physical differences"

may?

"The idea of some kind of ‘Male brain’ and ‘female brain’ is discredited."

There are clear differences between male and female brains.

Thats really interesting about the clothes and adventure playgrounds. I wonder if we'd have been unconsciously different if we'd had dd first (probably). At the moment she wears the boys dinosaur waterproofs and goes in the streams and up trees with the boys. Everyone laughs and says how 'tough' she is going to be and how unafraid she is as if this is unusual. But for us this is normal. My mum frets that she has no prams or dollies, but she loves the lego and fire engines etc.

Does anyone here, like me have older boys and a younger girl. I have two teen DSs and a 7yo DD....she has been socialised around boys and boy toys since day one and imo it shows. It became very obvious when she started school. She takes no prisoners, is very assertive and so far doesn't do friendship drama.

My daughter is crazy she would be the one you have to run after and restrain 🙈

I can only talk about my own DCs, and this may be a personality thing (poss based on mine and DHs personalities), but DD is more outwardly 'measured' and DS is the same regardless of situation.
DD has always had glowing school reports for being well behaved and quiet. At home she can be quite the opposite! She (like me!) can be an absolute joy or a moody stroppy mess, depending on what side of the bed she's got out of. Now she's in secondary school, her mood can make or break an evening!
DS has always been hard work in the traditional sense. He is EXACTLY the same in EVERY situation -so he doesnt always listen/do what he's told at home AND at school, he struggles to sit still at home AND at school. BUT you know where you are with him and generally its all very low level and manageable (DH finds it harder than me, as he is more annoyed by cheekiness than by emotional torture!)

I love them both hugely, but I find I am more often drained and upset by DDs behaviour, than with DS. Btw, I've highlighted their negatives above -they also have lots of positives such as kindness, politeness, thoughtfulness, loving etc.

I was referring to neurochemicals such as seretonin, oxytocin etc. Not only the amounts but the way they're processed differently by the two sexes.

How is that? Serotonin- we don’t even understand what it really does to be honest. We’ve got a reasonable slightly crap theory but as you can see from antidepressant research, the idea that increased or decreased levels = specific output just isn’t true. We need to be really careful about drawing pop theory conclusions from physical stuff or fMRI.

There are structural differences- but nobody knows what that actually means in terms of our ‘being.’ It’s not like say the musculature of a Male where you can look at the mechanics and quantify and say ‘this person is x% stronger, has x% higher VOmax etc.’
So women have smaller on average and denser brains - but what that actually means we don’t know. So much of the brain is uncharted territory. We don’t have a clue.

The research does not support pink brain blue brain in the sense it’s often used (women are better/worse at xxx etc.)

Are there physical differences? Yeah on average I think there probably are. Is socialisation a massive influence? I have no doubt whatsoever on that - I can see it in the difference between where I live now and the uk.

The plural of anecdote is not data" is a well-known stock phrase - have you really never encountered it before, stripey ?

Why, thank you. Still doesn't clarfy who the 'many people' (and the facts they are referring to) are on this thread though does it. Nor make the phrase plain English.

Not sure I'd agree it was 'well know' phrase, do you have any data to back up that claim. 😂.

Anyway no matter. It's lost it humour to me now. Monentary amusement.

Oh well, I thought male brains were supposed to be becoming more feminised, anyway, because of all the oestrogen and anti-androgens floating about in our water...

I've no idea whether it's down to biology or socialisation but I have certainly had different types of dramas with my daughter than with my two sons - and other mums seem to have experienced the same.

There's a lot more relationship based drama with my daughter - from about 7 or 8 it's been "i'm not playing with you, if you play with Jane you're not my friend, you're not my BEST friend" along with fallings out, massive involved Chinese Whispers stories which carry on over several weeks at school, huffiness, not talking to each other.

With the boys I had none of that, none of the passive aggressive nonsense. Boys appear not to indulge in the excluding people from the group or getting involved in who is friends with who. My two have never really been bothered who there is to play with in the playground as long as there's someone. There is however more knocking lumps out of each other.

Not harder, but certainly different.