To think boys aren’t necessarily ‘harder work’ than girls?

[Cinnabomb]

Wondering what wider opinion on this is. I have a toddler DD who, like all toddlers, has her moments, but I guess generally is pretty good apart from a few idiosyncrasies eg fussy eating. She is however extremely active, never sits still and into climbing etc, so definitely not the stereotypical “quiet sit on your lap” type little girl. We also had a horrendous start and she was a very difficult newborn so I feel we deserve our relatively easy time now, ……and she’s not even 2 yet so plenty of time for her to turn into a horror 😬

All of my friends that have boys of a similar age are adamant that boys are ‘harder’ to parent, eg more boisterous, less compliant and more full on. A lot are quite physical with other children eg pushy/ bundling and again they often say that boys will just be boys. Most either just have the one child, a DS, or multiple boys but no girls so I don’t think it’s really a fair comparison.

so what does MN think? Are girls ‘easier’ as young children? Surely it’s child/ personality dependant? I’m also 20 weeks pregnant with a boy so interested!

My friends with boys had a tougher time than me with girls. Anecdotal of course.

I would say that all the toddler boys I have ever met (even my shy quiet and in other ways “feminine” son) have LOVED sticks. Does anyone on this thread have a son that didn’t?

I can assure you I never encouraged this in my child (nor did I discourage it but when we had a bonfire sized pile in the garden I started to suggest we left them in the woods).

We have shown our boys all different types of hobbies (dancing, theatre, sport) and film genres. They both hated dancing and loved football/cricket. They much prefer action films etc. This doesn't mean they like it because they are boys but it also isn't because society has shaped them.

I find it really sad that the assumption is if boys like 'boyish' stuff it must be because it has been pushed on them, same for girls.

The conditioning of children starts as soon as they're born. Look at this toy experiment. Swap the clothes and people start treating the babies differently....

This is so true. I went to pick the kids up once and they were all waiting patiently in line to be collected. ' The girls are much quieter as usual ' said a teacher. I couldn't see or hear any difference and said so. She told me it was 'only banter' rather huffily . It's as if they need boys and girls to conform to stereotypes? You'd wonder how these unconscious biases play out in the classroom.

My daughter was easier in many ways as less prone to tantrums. However, my son was not one of those 'boisterous destructive' kids. I have witnessed so many parents simply absolve themselves from parenting by simply standing back and shrugging 'boys will be boys'. The boys who I know who are hard work, boisterous, physical etc have parents who simply stand by and watch or don't even watch. The boys who I know who are kind and gentle have parents who are constantly monitoring and molding their behaviour. Yes boys can be more physically active, but they don't need to be physical or destructive.

Boys are more physical (when young) but as teenagers less bitchy and don't have big falling outs with their friends in my experience

My ds is a teen and never falls our with his friends. Even at primary school he didn't. They had a very occasional physical fight but would forget about it immediately. I also have a dd11. ...she has never ever had a physical fight with her friends but every single day she comes home from school with tales of the latest drama... forensically picking over every thing that they all said and did. It's draining!

I found my two boys easy enough. They've never been particularly boisterous, neither went through a grabby, pushy biting phase. Both had a few tantrums but not off the scale. No friendship issues at school, and neither have given me any concerns as teens. Now 17 and 21.

I work with looked after teenagers. The boys are easier to deal with. They tend to out with their emotions, its quick, tends to be either targeted, or just generally lots of aggression towards each other or the physical environment. Boys seem to be able afterwards to better reflect on their behaviour. Girls are more complex, and what they express in actions and behaviour is often at odds with what they verbally express. You are forever having to analyse. A lot of harmful behaviour is self harming, a lot of it stemming from anger at others. Girls therefore make you feel your own emotions are being manipulated. They are harder to emotionally contain and work effectively with. I'd choose to work with boys every time.

I believe it's completely down to personality and each child is different regardless of sex. I (the girl) was always the "hard work" one as a child whilst my DB was always the easy going, chill, playing quietly by himself type.

My DS is a boisterous, energetic, excited, curious chatterbox that some may call "hard work" but I think it's because he is very similar to me in personality and not because he is a boy.

I think very active children (and possibly a greater proportion of these are boys) can be harder work if they are not given appropriate outlets for their energy. Our education system requires far too much of little children in terms of sitting still and engaging in sedentary activities at too young an age and some children are clearly going to struggle to meet these inappropriate expectations and therefore will be branded 'naughty' and troublesome as a result when a lot of bother could have been saved by starting formal education later.

On the 'boys will be boys' aspect, there are two elements to this. The first is that people have lower expectations of boys than girls. Some 'active' girls who might present the same issues as boys will be socialised out of it at an earlier age since there is an insidious expectation that girls will sit still, not get dirty, play nicely and be kind that doesn't apply to the same degree to boys. Similarly, we do just shrug our shoulders at behaviour in boys that we would not tolerate in girls.

The other element is that girls, even from birth, receive warmer, more responsive and more involved parenting than boys do. If you look at studies, parents engage more and have more interactions with female babies than male babies. So it's perhaps not so surprising that your average girl arrives at school with better language skills and emotional regulation than your average boy. On the other hand, boys are encouraged by parents to take risks, to compete and to engage in activities which promote spatial awareness.

My DD is soooooo much harder than my DS. More headstrong, confident, defiant, independent. All wonderful characters for her to grown in to as an adult, but a nightmare to parent!

DS is louder and more 'obvious' but he's also more compliant, shyer, anxious and loving.

Both are wonderful little humans with very different personalities. I don't think their sex is particularly relative.

It's like a venn diagram though isnt it. Not all boys or girls fit stereotypes.

I would say from my kids and others we know, that a slightly higher percentage of 2-5 year old boys are at the more boisterous end of the spectrum. Plenty of little girls are too, but I would say something like 40-50% of little girls are extremely active, and more like 50-70% of little boys.

Equally there's a very quiet end of the spectrum and I hate hate hate to say this, but I've known relatively few little boys inhabit it. I dont know if that's parenting or genetics. I was so determined my boy would not conform to stereotypes, and encouraged him to do a wide range of activities including calmer stuff like crafts etc, it didnt really work. Whereas my daughter (who is also very active) just gravitated to a lot more of those calmer seated activities.

But if course its personality too. I think any child is more likely to be similar to their own sibling/family member, regardless of sex, than to an unrelated child of the same sex.

I have two boys and two girls, in that order. As toddlers I found my boys trickier, always on the go leaping off things, being destructive,hurting each other in play etc! My girls were easier in terms of conforming to expectations of good behaviour when out in public. As my girls have got older I have found them more difficult, friendship issues mostly. All of my children are now young adults and teens and interestingly Ds 1 and Dd number 3 are really alike. They now all pretty much all cause me the same amount of stress and joy in turn!

Yes. This is true.

My DS is 11 months and I have noticed it tends to be him and other boys at the play groups crawling off and getting up to baby mischief. However, there are also some girls that do that too, while some boys sit quietly with their mums. So I think it’s individual maybe with a skew to boys being more boisterous! I really do have to keep an eye on him as he loves other babies and tries to cuddle them but is very big so often ends up flattening them unless I intervene quickly!
I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s hard work - yes I have to keep a constant eye on him but I’m sure most parents do whether their baby is very active or not. Plus I just love his cheeky little boisterous personality!

I would say that all the toddler boys I have ever met (even my shy quiet and in other ways “feminine” son) have LOVED sticks. Does anyone on this thread have a son that didn’t?

ds2 loved sticks

when he was in year 7 he came home (blazer and tie still intact as always) with a stick that was longer than he was

me… whats that

ds2….a stick

me…well i got that, i should have said, why? What are you going to do with it

ds2…put it in the garden

me…what do you think daddy will do when he sees a stick in the garden

ds2 …😯

in the end we built a stick rack in his bedroom (he is very nearly 19 now and I’ve kept the stick 😀)

In my personal experience I found boys much easier to parent than girls.

My dd has always loved sticks and stones! What a silly generalisation.

I really don't see this boys will be boys attitude that everyone seems to talk about. If anything I think boys are treated way more harshly particularly by teachers. I see parents and teachers constantly trying to stop boys running round and calm them down. It's why so many parents buy their young boys games consoles

YANBU- it’s their personality that drives it, not their biological sex.

I’ve got a friend with a DS who just quietly sits and plays - mine was never like that at the same age! 😂

Depends on the personality but my boys 12 and 14 are a doddle to parent always have been. Its a peaceful house, they're good kids.

I have ten nieces and nephews in total, when they were young the girls hand on heart were the worst, once the boys hit puberty they were a nightmare, the girls were no where near as bad.

Definitely an individual thing. I hate it when people generalise boys and girls like that.

My girl even as a toddler very active, sporty, very independent and knows her own mind (ie not especially compliant). She didn't wrestle or play dinosaurs but she didn't sit and draw either. She is brilliant but a challenge to parent.

My boy is boisterous, enjoys wrestling and running around roaring. Also sits and plays with his toys, play dough or samd quietly, very keen to please and happy to go with the flow with most things i suggest. Easy in the day to day but I worry about him following the crowd as he gets older.

For both the toddler years have been trickiest so far as they know what they want and can't communicate it properly and can't take your eyes off them much. (Not had a teenager yet though!)

Sheer sexism. In my experience, having and having observed children of both sexes, small boys do play somewhat more boisterously than girls, but - newsflash - they're small so it's not that much of a problem. Plus, the variation within both sexes is massive.

Many parents are invested in the notion of their boys being 'naughty', code for 'assertive'. While they prefer girls to be conveniently compliant - especially other people's daughters. Speaking as someone who had 'only' daughters for the first six years of parenthood, I wish I had a pound for every time a parent of boys told me I had it easy. World's most idiotic humblebrag.

Protecting girls from this kind of bullshit is much harder work than anything a prepubescent boy can do. And so far, I find helping my teen daughters make peace with impending womanhood is the hardest part of parenting.

I have 2 boys then a girl with a large age gap and when I only had boys people would say to me ' you're so lucky to have boys: girls are so independent ' and I would wonder why they thought independence was a bad thing. Now I get it!
DD is incredibly strong willed and stubborn and from very early on wanted to do everything herself and would push you away if you tried to help her. These are qualities which will probably be an asset when she's older but make for difficult parenting of a small child.

My boys are very different: DS1 was hard work from day 1. He was very boisterous and physical with no sense of danger at all . I used to joke that I should have a season ticket for A&E. He had no concentration span, broke everything he touched and was constantly filthy. He's 19 now and hasn't changed much except for where he used to have boundless energy, he's now really lazy. It's like he used up all his energy in childhood.

DS2 was an absolute breeze in comparison to both his siblings. He was calm, sensible and thoughtful and always well behaved. He's been very low maintenance and is still pleasant company as a teenager. His only issue is that he can be a bit neurotic. Interestingly my SIL told me that my in laws find him the hardest to deal with because of this but they adore adore my eldest son who I struggled with.

I agree that it's very individual rather than boys being one way and girls another although as a generalisation, young boys are more rowdy than girls but what a parent finds easy will also depend on the parents temperament. I have a low tolerance for noise and mess and I'm not naturally sporty or outdoorsy so I would always struggle with a tree climbing mud monkey whether they were male or female.