to think a lot of this “boy mum” stuff is a load of sexist nonsense?

[Cookiesandcream1989]

I’m always hearing people (on social media and in real life) talking about being “boy mums”, mostly saying how hard it is to raise boys as they are always being dangerous, loud, disruptive and disobedient, the tacit implication being that girls are quiet, do as they are told and that raising them is easy.

I have two girls, and I am not exaggerating when I say every single posts, video or anecdote of the supposedly “dangerous, madcap antics” “boy mums” have to deal with is something my girls do regularly. I’m thinking mostly of toddler/young children stuff. For example, I saw a video the other day of a child around 18 months trying to climb over a cardboard box and then tumbling off it (soft landing, no danger whatsoever), with a caption saying something like “see, this is what boy mums have to put up with!” and I’m just like… isn’t that just totally normal toddler behaviour for both sexes?? When my girls were that age I felt like they spent every minute of every day trying to climb up everything. My cousin posted one last week of her 3 year old splashing in some mud with a comment about being a “boy mum” and it was just such a massive eye-roll. As if little girl toddlers don’t love splashing around in mud every chance they get, too!

It's mostly just eye-rolling stuff, but it does actually sometimes annoy me, because I sometimes feel like people are assuming parents of girls have some sort of blessed easy life where we’re just sitting around getting our hair brushed, or relaxing while our perfect little angels play dollies, while “boy mums” are actually doing hard work, which is so far from the truth that it annoys me. My girls both come home from school/nursery covered in mud every day, they act like they are allergic to doing as they’re told, they climb, they jump, they playfight – and as far as I’ve seen of other girls, they are totally normal in this regard.

My in-laws especially are big on the whole “boys are loud and dangerous and misbehave and girls are quiet and obedient” thing (to the point where it comes up in conversation every time we see them🙄), and the weird thing is, our nephews on that side actually happen to be naturally very placid, introverted and timid, while it’s our girls who are climbing the walls, being rambunctious and rarely do as they’re told without a struggle. And yet still they go on about how boys are so “naughty” and hard work, and "girls don't misbehave" (verbatim quote from MIL!!!!) which I just find a bit insulting really, because if what they are saying is true, then it stands to reason that either we must have an easy life, or we must just be rubbish parents, because girls are supposed to be “naturally obedient” and yet we still have to put loads of work into getting ours to behave, so how hopeless must we be?

So, what’s the consensus? Is it true that boys are naturally naughtier and harder work, or is it sexist nonsense?

(For the sake of the poll, let’s stick to thinking about little children rather than older kids/teens.)

Longapple you missed my point about the bell curve.

Yes girls present differently with ADHD and are better at masking. Which kind of proves the point that girls and boys are different ( generally - see my previous point about the bell curve).

But where is the scientific evidence that ADHD and Autism present differently in girls purely due to socialisation? Severe autism (e.g very limited ability to communicate and extreme behavioural issues) is more prevalent in boys and can be seen very early. I don’t see that you can mask your way out of that.

There are various genetic theories as to why autism Is more prevalent is males including that a more significant genetic mutation seems to be required in girls to cause autism than in boys or that the range of male abilities is wider than for females I.e more at both extremely high and extremely low ends. Our understanding of the causes of autism isn’t complete but the genetics and biology of it have been well studied in recent years, including the difference in presentation and prevalence according to sex.

More boys are also diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette’s etc. It’s very unlikely that that is purely “nurture” - this would be saying that boys have these conditions because their parents don’t talk to them or read to them enough or that they (or at least more extreme symptoms) could be prevented by parenting boys more like girls. That’s really unlikely based on what we know about these conditions.

This isn’t a coherent argument. Social conditioning happens when adults encourage gendered interests. Boys and girls may or may not behave differently when they are older children/teens (and tbh I think you can still find a wide range of behaviour within a gendered group) but there are many social factors at play. This thread was about young children and the fact that the assumptions toddlers and little kids are ‘innately’ different along gendered lines, which is not something there is a whole lot of evidence for.

generaally, I really don’t know if I would say an ‘average’ girl behaves that differently from an ‘average’ boy. I worked with teenagers for years and boys may be more likely to eg. Shove each other in the corridor in a group, but girls are more annoying on a bus in a group? I’m not sure this *means anything. Interestingly I worked in a girls school for a bit and we had a full range of behaviour from the girls, including being loud, shoving each other, playing football… all the ‘boy stuff’ lol

I do think the stuff about teen boys and young men being more prone risk taking is interesting, and it would be very difficult to extract the biological determinants from any social conditioning that’s gone on. But I suppose I don’t think that falls into ‘average behaviour’. Like leaping off a cliff does seem like a male thing to do but also something that a small proportion of men do? And being a young man also makes it more likely, so it’s not necessarily men their whole lives who are more risk takers.

I also think if you narrow it down to something like ‘perception of risk’ rather than ‘personality’ there probably are gendered differences, although I’d argue not in toddlers and young children lol who all seem to have an equal opportunities approach to flinging themselves off things in my limited experience.

My mum, who was in a position to know, always said, "Boys are much easier. Boys will give you a break. Girls are just relentless."

Nonsense, I have girls, one got into all the "boy" scrapes and is now one of only a handful of women in the world that do her job!

Well it’s not nonsense then is it mitogoshigg?
She is one of a “handful of girls”. You said it yourself.

Back to the bell curve point then.

I don't know about scientific evidence re nature/nurture, I couldn't find specific studies about it when I looked. I don't know how a study would work, it would be hard to set up a control. While you can observe aspects of how children are parented how would you stop them being influenced by general society?

It wouldn't be saying that the condition is caused by parenting or that parenting could make some symptoms go away. Masking doesn't mean the condition isn't there, and it doesn't mean it's less problematic for the person with the condition. It just means it's less visible for other people and so there is less likely to be a diagnosis. If they're not causing problems for others and just about coping they're more likely to be left to struggle through education and hopefully come out the other end with their own coping strategies, if those strategies work well enough to pass for NT in day to day life they often don't seek a diagnosis later either so the stats are skewed.

it's an interesting subject :)

I have both girls and boys and I can categorically say that my girls have been more difficult over the years than the boys. You can leave my DS’s in a room together and you won’t even know they’re there, they’re all quiet generally and just get on with things. DD’s are a force to be a reckoned with most of the time and it’s always been this way, particularly DD1 who just has zero chill.

Were you struggling to finish an article @Cookiesandcream1989 ??

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/25/boy-mum-stereotypes-raising-children

😂😂Aaahaha I just saw that article about 20 minutes ago! I promise you I am not Rhiannon Lucy Coslett 😂

Maybe she was all out of inspiration for her article, then she saw this thread!

That's certainly what I am going to tell myself 😂 You're welcome Rhiannon 😁

@casapenguin Ah yes, then we are talking about slightly different things.

I hadn't made any claim up-thread about nature vs nurture, just that there are differences in average behaviour. It seems we agree on that (though you think differences are small in early childhood and don't mean much -- fair enough).

I quite like it and am proud to be a “boy mum” but only because after having multiple boys I am so sick of hearing “are you going to try for a girl” like having only boys is unfortunate for me.

mine are absolutely mental though 😂 I have four sisters and my parents definitely had it lucky with us! My MIL with multiple boys… not surprised in the slightest. (So I guess they are taking after that side of the family)

I think this stuff is fascinating because while there shouldn't be a difference by primary there totally seems to be. Lots of people acknowledge that girls seem to mature faster, find reception/y1 easier but why is that? Different tv programmes, different behavioural expectations, different toys? Different behaviours when in a group?

You really see the differences in behaviours for example at parties and often girl only or majority girl parties are just more chill than 50:50.