To think that the way people treat male toddlers....

[Yellowcrocodile]

Is what leads to male entitlement in society?

Name changed for this as potentially identifying.

So I have a 2 year old DD and am currently pregnant with a boy.

Spent the morning at a playgroup in a naice area. I’ve come home feeling furious by the behaviour of some of the children and their parents. Basically there were a few boys 3+ who absolutely ran riot, screaming, running, shouting, snatching and hitting, and generally causing chaos. Their parents just smiled indulgently, and made comments like ‘boys have so much more energy’. None of them told their children off, apologised to anyone or acknowledged that their children were badly misbehaving.

It’s like this every fucking week. My daughter has her naughty moments too, snatches, tantrums etc, but as soon as she starts I tell her off (calmly), explain why she can’t do xyz, and say we are leaving if she carries on. She generally responds and behaves herself, and I’m very embarrassed if she doesn’t, as I have high expectations of her. Almost all of the other girls and half of the boys are the same, not perfect little angels but parented appropriatley and respond to boundaries.

It’s making me worried that when I have my son:
a. He’ll be a horrible little shit
b. I’m turn into one of the terrible parents who attribute his poor behaviour to ‘being boisterous’ or ‘naturally having more energy’

These children are never told off, and their sense of entitlement is growing by the day. This is probably hormones talking, but I can completely see how some men end up not doing any housework, feeling entitled to the best of everything, and go around raping and murdering people, as they are told from an early age that any behaviour is fine as they ‘have more energy’ and they just aren’t held to normal standards of behaviour.

Also, they all seem to be call very boring middle class names like william, Samuel and Benjamin, don’t know what that’s about? The children with names that would raise a mumsnet eyebrow are much better behaved.

So, AIBU to blame toxic masculinity and male entitlement on the tolerance we have for poor behaviour from boys in childhood?!

Or are hormones making me crazy...

I’m determined not to treat my son any differently to my daughter for both of their sakes, but feel really sad about the society they will both be growing up in

The paradigm isn't that children are a blank canvas, its that children are a slightly textured canvas with slightly different properties for boys and girls (ON AVERAGE - you'll find many girls canvases indistinguishable from boy canvases and vice versa) and then you paint all over that subtle difference in canvas with pure pink glittery shit on one and a pure blue monster truck themes on the other.

The fact people then stand back and attribute the difference in the final artworks to the subtle canvas difference, rather than the massively different use of materials/colours just shows how mad people are.

The fact people then stand back and attribute the difference in the final artworks to the subtle canvas difference, rather than the massively different use of materials/colours just shows how mad people are.

If it was so simple you'd surely except boys to be a lot more similar to stereotypical boyness and girls to stereotypical girlness than is actually the case, but adult variation seems to be just a "slightly textured canvas" too. If innate personality was overwhelmed by social molding wouldn't you expect much less variation by adulthood?

This is why you should never label a child.
A child who is constantly labelled will eventually live up to their label.
They are all children.

As an example of just how much a small difference in brain physiology is unlikely to lead to massive differences by gender I present the man with 90% of his brain missing.

He was living a perfectly normal life, with a below average but normal range IQ. But with only 10% of a normal brain.

If not having 90% of your brain doesn't make a huge difference to how you live your life, then which is more plausible? That tiny physiological (average) differences can be the cause of colour preference by gender, or that constantly dressing girls in pink and boys in not-pink, might be the primary influence on them to think they prefer pink or not?

But adults are much more rigorously policed into performing gender than very small children....

Some male toddlers are allowed long hair and to wear princess outfits on dress up day at school...

Men really aren't...at least not without deciding they are really women....

I think people also forget how young kids are when the societal pressure completes its work on them. My DD was 3 when she told me girls can't be engineers. Kids have learned they need to be what society expects of them, not what they want to be, by aged 3...and then this is cemented in stone when they go to primary school and none of the girls have crew cuts and none of the boys choose to wear a school uniform dress.

That tiny physiological (average) differences can be the cause of colour preference by gender, or that constantly dressing girls in pink and boys in not-pink, might be the primary influence on them to think they prefer pink or not?

Thing is preferring pink is actually easier to influence than actual personality traits. I said I liked pink aged 6 on the playground, not because I did, but because I wanted to fit in. My actual favourite colour was "pinpoints of light on a black background" (I remember thinking that). But my personality isn't something I could change to "fit in" - even if I tried (tried to read the babysitter club books in year 6 instead of the sci-fi fantasy I preferred) I just felt like it was pointless and I couldn't keep up the charade.

The second and third generation of feminists have now raised their families. So we'll be seeing the difference soon?

My boringly middle-class DS1 has never been one of ‘those’ boys. Nor is my DS2. But I put that down to me not allowing them to get away with bad behaviour, rather than their gender. I see plenty of poor behaviour by girls which is not dealt with by parents. I think you need to not make assumptions about how a child behave based on gender - that’s how we end up with stereotypes.

YABU.

I've noticed that my DS gets treated differently by other parents/strangers than my DD did at the same age (2.5). She was cooed over and told she she was cute. People eye him with suspicion and any boisterous behaviour is frowned at. I think toddler boys are unfairly ALL labelled as noisy, snatching, entitled little princes.

hmm I guess it depends on what you think of as 'personality'.

In my work I'm constantly requested to sell myself as a leader. I find it hard to the point of making me want to quit sometimes. My male colleagues find it varying levels of tricky, but none of them have the pathological issue that I and almost all my female colleagues have.

My male colleagues can all easily simply say 'I am the best in this area' and I really really can't.

So is it in my personality to be modest and in their personality to be boastful?

It certainly isn't in my innate personality (if that even really exists). I was a confident leader, very able to tell people my skills and an accurate estimate of my ability...right up until around 13/14.

But now I really can't.

So did my innate personality change? That would defy the definition of innate. So life or peer pressure changed me.....

It could be the health crisis I underwent around that age, it could just be years of being bullied for being a know it all.

There was a boy in my year who also got labelled a swot. It is telling that people used to think of us as being similar in ability, but actually he didn't get anywhere near my grades, and also that he got respect for being smart, while I was just despised for it.

So its tough when I hear my male colleagues dismissing the idea that requiring people to sell themselves in this way in interviews may be contributing unreasonably to the gender bias, and they tell me, well everyone should just be able to do this. Because I think they can't have any idea what its like to go against 18 years of negative reinforcement every time you said you were capable or competent.

Where does the BS about boys having more energy come from? That's pretty toxic. Just because they may expend their energy in different ways doesn't mean boys have more of it, and it doesn't mean a little boy who prefers quiet play is odd.

@M3lon but does your experience really apply to society as a whole? my husband cannot stand all the sell yourself stuff at work, and he's terrible at it, he's just accepted he'll never progress in his career because he doesn't like bragging and its required now. I on the other hand think I'm probably cleverer and more competent than I really am. I don't think its a gendered thing at all...

M3lon - you sound so self-obsessed...

I agree with u on most of this! However! My boy is called Samuel - it is not a boring name thanks and where I live it tends to be more a working class boys name. So please don't stereotype him by his name. I will not allow my boy to be let off with things simply because he is a boy! I hate when people say 'boys will be boys', Eugh, turns me!

die do you understand that none of this applies to individuals right?

They know that girls get rated worse than boys on average by giving the same information to teachers with either a girls name at the top or a boys and seeing the difference.

This doesn't mean that the best child at maths in a given class isn't going to be a girl....just that all the girls are on average being seen as slightly worse than they really are.

'Leadership' has been proven to be a stereotypically male favouring concept.

I'm happy for you that you aren't individually affected by that, but that doesn't change a thing.

The point of my story was to point out that innate personality is a bollocks concept.

Proven by the fact that almost everyone could point to an element of their personaility that has changed over time.

I would find myself correcting the words to ‘children have so much energy’

No reason to gender the behaviour!! Kiddies have energy, can use that energy to send them on a positive discovery journey instead of mayhem and chaos...

Although I’d be the first to admit that sometimes I just give up and left them so run and shout (in private - garden etc, or an appropriate public place - field etc)

I am pretty sure my daughter could get in just as much trouble as my eldest son, be as lovely and raucous etc! My middle was the calm quiet one (a boy btw - not that it matters, they are themselves - regardless of gender) :)

I disagree. I have boys and a girl and the boys are completely different to each other. One is a complete nightmare and doesn’t listen to anyone no matter what we or the teachers try but he isn’t violent just hyper and the other is as good as gold and really easy. My DD can be both depending on her mood. I always discipline them but some children are more hyperactive/energetic than others and only age and consistency will help.

From a new Mum who has just named her second son William (whose first is very well behaved and has been bitten and pushed by girls before), perhaps you ought to check your own behaviour ... I don’t see why you feel the need to deem perfectly lovely names as ‘boring’ (do I secrecy a rude sense of entitlement)?!

acidentalbride certainly. I'm obsessed with the way in which women are disadvantaged in male dominated spheres of endeavour. Its become a part of my day job. Self analysis as a member of the group is an important part of working out how to counter it and fix things for the future.

I'm really good at it

I have a 16 month old boy and he doesn't do any of those things - if he did he'd be told off.

Telling off doesn't work with most toddlers!

I think it's pretty sad that running and shouting at a playgroup are seen as bad. Hitting/biting yes, but running and shouting are normal and healthy.

You were talking about individuals though, you and your workmates. I countered your anecdote with another one, if you want to present data instead I'll respond to that.

Proven by the fact that almost everyone could point to an element of their personaility that has changed over time.

Change doesn't mean not innate. Walking is innate but we don't start out doing it.

die go here and type in leadership...its based on research.

gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/

OP - the main problem I have with your post is that you don't exactly describe how these boys were misbehaving. What exactly were they doing? Were they just running around being loud? This is what playgroups are for. Or were they hurting or being mean to other children?

I do find that most boys have more energy than girls and tend to play in different ways. This is not to say that there are no girls who are different or boys who are different. There are also many child psychologists who claim that boys need more physical rough play for their development. We are biologically different - I don't think there is any harm in recognising it, quite the contrary. The most important thing is to recognise that not all boys or girls have to be the same and they are individuals first and foremost. This is nothing to do with bad or good behaviour though. Tolerating bad behaviour is a different topic - I really feel that you are mixing some issues here...