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

Presumably you’ll parent your son the same you do your daughter, so I doubt he’ll be a nightmare like the one you described.

I have high expectations for my son’s behaviour, as you do for your daughter, and if I do say so myself he’s a delight. Most boys around here are the same and the behaviour you’re describing I’ve only witnessed a few times.

I have 2 boys (white, middle class, born in this decade, in the UK) and agree thats about as privileged as it gets. Hopefully we’re not raising them to be entitled though.

I wouldn’t worry about your new son, just raise him as you are your daughter as it sounds like you’re doing a good job.

The OP thinks that the parents think boys are like this.

Her general tone says she thinks boys are like this though. That will probably change when she has her little boy though.

I think if you have one easy child it’s easy to judge others parenting. Some children are harder to parent than others. My sister was a smug mum of one perfectly behaved boy, her next child was a completely different personality. Occasionally she didn’t intervene when she would have with her first, because she was bloody exhausted from parenting her.
Awful to call children little shits.
I do believe girls and boys are different to an extent though obviously not universally. Newborn girls show more gaze synchrony for example than baby boys.

I have 4 sons and none of them are like this, however, I have seen it happen and know what you mean. I’ve seen it too in overly spoiled girls who’s parents treat them like princesses and who will grow in to drama queens when they’re older.

YANBU. I have found people who have similar attitudes towards boys. But it is bad parenting and poor discipline.

I have two boys and they would be disciplined by me and their father for the behaviour you described. They are rough, especially with one another and they do fight with one another. But they are told and shown that it's not acceptable.

Boys and girls are different in certain ways though.
But each child is.
We should try to meet their needs based on them being an individual and not down to their gender or whatever.
I find it strange when people say they parent all their children the same way.

I disagree, I know plenty of little girls who are absolute diva brats.

A lot of boys are let off boisterous behaviour because of gender (I don’t agree with this) but plenty of parents are raising manipulative, entitled little girls too. They are snide in a much quieter way but can produce the most ear piercing tantrums when they want to.

^
This

It's poor parenting. It could be the other way round. In our family my nieces bully our boys. They always have and even they sing along "we are girls, we can hit you and get away with anything, boys can't hit girls haha" and actually do it because they KNOW they will get away with it and their mother and my MIL say nothing to them. When I have tried to be firm and tell them that this is not allowed, they can't call our boys dirty, disgusting etc just because they are boys SIL doesn't tolerate it.

It really infuriates me to be told by vaiour women always that finally having a daughter "you must have this feeling, girls are so different and loving" implying obviously that our boys can't be loving

Or insisting that their daughter was better behaved because "she is a girl" or any stereotype they throw and don't like to be challenged about it.

@3WildOnes

Awful to call children little shits.
This.

At no toddler group have I met a "little shit". I've seen a lot of toddlers, and yeah they do naughty things usually completely oblivious, taking stuff off each other, walking all over each other and little babies, climbing on things they shouldn't, pulling down and throwing things they shouldn't, running about in inappropriate places or inappropriate times. And in the real world everyone just smiles, gently redirects or admonishes them and has a nice chat. On the internet this gets interpreted as terrible parents "letting" their kids run wild and behave like terrible brats.

These kids are 1 and 2 years old. None of them know how to behave properly yet.

Sure at soft play you get older children, kids who actually are old enough to have some control over their impulses. But at a toddler group? What? I've never met a toddler who just sits quietly saying "yes mother dear" and doing what they are told... and if I did I'd be much more worried about them than the ones trying to climb the bookshelves or run-in about tripping over babies.

The op is insinuating that paraents of boys just let them get in with it n drake no excuses for their behaviour. We don’t. My boys have rules, I don’t allow them to go on like mini wrestlers. They have jobs to do in the house, they have respect for each other. I’m certainly not raising them to think they can get away with any old crap.

I really dislike this current wave of thought that most boys will be rapists or sex offenders. It’s so insulting.

These attitudes are usually from women who only have girls. That has been my experience anyway.

yanbu, It's standard unfortunately for the hard of thinking to attribute all vile behaviour to being a boy, lolz hunz! But god forbid you mention male violence or feminism in their hearing because that would be sexist.

All this shit comes from somewhere.

Couldn't read anything in the original post past the word 'naice.'

I really dislike this current wave of thought that most boys will be rapists or sex offenders. It’s so insulting.

No, but almost all rapists and sex offenders will have been little boys.

DO you think that maybe, just maybe, we might want to look in to that statistic a bit and think about why that is?

Now, either, men are just inherently evil and turn in to rapists. OR we are doing something as a society to make them think they are entitled to what they want.

Personally, I think it's the second one. Why do you think it is?

I really dislike this current wave of thought that most boys will be rapists or sex offenders. It’s so insulting.

All boys are potential rapists. Sorry if you don't like that, but it's true.

If you want that to change then do your bit to acknowledge that there is an issue with male violence and toxic masculinity, and challenge rape culture.

I say that as a mother of a boy and only a boy, btw.

Couldn't read anything in the original post past the word 'naice.'

Well then you should probably fuck off MN as it's the most used word here.

Or you could actually engage with an important discussion and not ignore it because you disliked the way soemthing was phrased?

Chrisinthesun

It’s a mumsnet I joke to describe something posh or middle class.

Not sure why you’ve taken offence to it, you obviously haven’t been on mumsnet that long.

HTH

Yanbu op. My sil is like this: treats her one dd as if she is made of cut glass (so much so that I think she has fed a real problem in that her dd is the most timid child I know) and treats her two boys totally differently. Her standard catchphrase is ‘boys will be boys’ with a resigned martyr look to her face. Encourages them both to play rough sports even though one of them has turned around and announced that he hates rugby. But then she doesn’t do a lot to challenge gender stereotypes herself (SAHM, does EVERYTHING for the kids while bil sits on his phone etc). Pisses me off too op.

*injoke

Not in this house or at DS nursery, boys are treated the same as girls. I am forever telling DS to calm down/be quiet/stop slamming things etc and the school parents I see are the same.

I don't tolerate bad behaviour of my son or someone, boy or girl, behaving badly toward las my child - mostly for us it's girls snatching it hitting my sensitive, quiet boy and I don't hesitate to tell them off.

*No, but almost all rapists and sex offenders will have been little boys.

DO you think that maybe, just maybe, we might want to look in to that statistic a bit and think about why that is?*

Only men can be rapists though, so it's always going to be people who have been little boys.

It's not something you can go on statistics, there are women who don't report sexual assault, as I'm sure there will are men who don't either. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

All boys are potential rapists.

Then all humans are potential murders.

I think it’s more how we treat male children, tbh. Despite my best intentions, I know I am more physical with my baby son than I would be a little girl. His Dad definitely was a bit of a sensitive soul who didn’t get much room to express that as a kid. We resolved to make room for our boy to have the opportunity to be sensitive, introspective if that was the way he was. However it doesn’t look like he’s made quite that way, and I can’t help but relate to him with gender identity as part of the mix. He’s a perpetual motion, straight in there kind of baby and I can easily see him being one of ‘those’ noisy toddlers. I do agree with @DieAntword that on the internet it becomes poor parenting when it could just be normal behaviour and parenting irl.

When dd was little I hung around with parents of boys. All first time mums. What I found was that my dd had a lot more energy than them. She’s still high energy now. But as the boys got older they were a lot more physical. Hitting, playing with sticks, light sabers etc. One of the boys went through a stage of trying to hit his mother when he was cross. She parented him as best she could and as with all phases if passed. Had she not done so, yes, he’d probably get more violent.

When I was growing up, my elder brother was horrible to me. Violent, abusive, sexually denigrated me. My mother and father are/we’re misogynists. I was definitely given the message I was inferior to my brother. My brother as a result sees women as inferior and he is still vile and abusive to this day.

Men have a lot more testosterone in their body than women therefore if they are not properly parented as children they are more likely to be violent than women. I do think as a rule women, who are permissive parents tend to discipline girls more than boys.

Then all humans are potential murders.

Yes they are, and the majority of actual murderers are men.

Why do you think more men kill than women do? Could it be something to do with the fact our culture encourages toxic masculinity? Or is it just coincidence?

I don't understand why mums of boys get so defensive about this. It should be the opposite. It's because I love my son that I want to challenge this culture and bring him up to be decent.

Yanbu Op, its happening at dds school.
In her class there is a little girl who isnt badly behaved, she is loud, boisterous and confident. Like a lot of the boys. From reception she has been treated oddly by the teacher. If she is joining in with the boys being loud, she will be told off not the boys. Even dd clocked it years ago and thinks its shit.

I saw it for myself at sports day. The girls were sitting on the grass plaiting hair and waiting. The boys were playing tig and from jump and just being loud.
The teacher told this girl to sit with the other girls and behave herself, that she should be quiet like my dd. Not a fucking word to the boys.
I complained but not much has changed, its shit.

"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."

Do you think just doing that works with all children? It doesn't and that includes girls. Yes people should do there best to stop their children causing problems for others but you sound smug.