13yo has had no interaction with opposite sex

[MissChristmasChild]

I am the youngest of 3 siblings. We are all married and my siblings have children. Brother has 2 girls, aged 14 and 6. Bro and SIL are very opinionated and I don’t see them often. Sister and BIL have two boys, aged 4 and 18 month old. BIL is relaxed and I see them often.

We have all gathered for the annual pre-Christmas do at my parents.

Today at lunch, my brother complained our sister’s boys are too noisy, badly behaved. Thinking he was overreacting, I made remark about how my brother must have seen the same behaviour in his daughters’ male friends or his own mates’ sons.

My 14 yo niece replied that she has no male friends, and never has. She has been in a single sex school since she was 4 and all her school friends only have sisters. My brother has a group of friends they regularly meet up with who only have daughters. The girls’ extra activities (drama, music swimming) have been mainly with their school friends so few boys there. Neighbours have boys but my brother doesn’t like any of the parents / kids so they don’t interact. They see the odd friend with boys younger than her once every few months or so, but for her whole life, my 14yo niece has never had any meaningful interactions with boys her own age.

I am taken aback. I’m all for single sex education, but how will so little contact with peers from the opposite sex prepare her for the real world where males exist? She is shy and a little awkward, but wants to go to university and wants a big career.

I didn’t reply but my face has clearly given something away as brother is hounding me to share what is bothering me. How do I tell him the truth without coming across as a know it all? Sorry if the above comes across a bit confusing or judgy. Am
I unreasonable to have concerns?

Not that unusual, my dp had sisters but went to single sex boarding school so the first time he mixed with females not related to him was at university!

I was in the same situation growing up - no brothers, no cousins ( of either sex) , went to all-girls schools throughout my education. I can't say it had a negative effect on my relationships with men later on . I met men at uni and work and got along fine with them, had boyfriends in the usual way . My lack of male interaction as a child did me no harm.

It just sounds circumstantial rather than they've deliberately gone out of their way to keep them away from boys. Most of our friends, and all cousins/siblings have girls as well, so there are not many boys in our circle. Our nearest secondary schools are single sex.

I'm really uncomfortable with the line that girls need to 'get used' to boys. It sounds a lot like wanting to socially condition them to put up with being dominated, spoken over and sexually harassed. Because if everyone is being respectful there would be nothing to get used to, would there?

And if the boys were not behaving well, they were not behaving well. There are no 'innate' boisterous behaviours from boys, it's all social conditioning. They don't get a let for different behaviour or held to different standards because they are boys (and only you will actually know how they were behaving).

I was the same at that age and was fine. Went on to meet my first boyfriend at 15/16

my daughter is 13 and goes to a all girls school. All my cousins that are same age as her are all girls. I’m genuinely not concerned

‘Big careers’ are full of clever girls from all girls schools.

The part of my all girls’ schooling that didn’t prepare me for the real world wasn’t the lack of male friends, it was that I lived in a world in which women had authority and power.

I’m so happy to live in a country where the last single sex schools were banned in the 50’s . I’m a mother of 2 boys and they’re both very sensitive, quiet and academic. I don’t think any girl needs to be “protected” from my boys… you are so much feeding the stereotypes… especially the “boys are only after one thing”- remark. It’s also really ok for girls to want to have sex you know.

I think you're worrying over nothing tbh. Plenty of kids go to single-sex schools from a young age. And I promise you, if they're interested, or even just a little bit curious, they'll engineer situations to meet the opposite sex.

14 is still a kid really, especially if she's been very sheltered.

As that Sound of Music song goes, "Just wait... I'll wait... a year... or two..."

I was like this to 16 and went coed for 6th form. No issues at all, most of my friends from that era are blokes. Meant I never thought about my appearance or whether I was ‘too clever’ unlike a fair few of my uni friends who were coed at 14…