AIBU to challenge the stereotype that teenage girls are harder than teenage boys?

[Chocguzel]

When my girls were small everyone would tell me how teenage girls are nightmares and while female toddlers might be calmer you get payback in the teens whereas boys are much easier as teens.

I now have girls who are 19, 17 and 14 and a boy who is also 14.

my girls have all been fine as teenagers, they have stayed close to me, opened up about their lives, studied hard, had good friends. I’ve had moments of worry about their mental health and arguments about whether they can go out as late as they wish etc but on the whole I’ve not found them being teens hard.

My son at 14 has really clammed up. He was a lovely chatty and sweet little boy but now I find it impossible to connect with him. He never opens up about his life like the girls did so it’s hard to know what’s going on. He wants to listen to play football or listen to headphones 24/7 and not really engage with people off the football pitch. If I push it then he sits with us but is withdrawn and moody. He sometimes makes really dumb choices when out with friends and seems to have none of the common sense his sisters had to stay out of trouble. I really want to connect with him but it’s so hard. I’ve spoken to many friends with teen boys and he doesn’t seem unusual.

AIBU to suggest teen girls get a bad rap and teen boys are the challenging ones?

I have a teen ds and a teen dd...they both can be challenging but overall I agree with you op.

I think it's a myth that boys are more straightforward.

Doesn’t the show adolescence basically challenge this stereotype? Teenage boys are just as challenging and often the adults around them just don’t get them.

YABVU for making it a competition. Every child is different.

Yes, it’s sexist BS. I think in the past it’s been easier to neglect teenage boys and assume
everything is ok with them. Now there is greater discussion of difficulties they’re facing in society, so maybe that will change.

OP isn’t making a competition. Society is. I have toddler girls and have already had this comment made to me, several times. My cousin has toddler boys and never has. It’s ridiculous.

OP I agree with you. My son has really clammed up and and won’t allow any help with his MH issues. Everything would be so much easier if I knew what was going on. My daughter isn’t a huge talker but I get enough from her. Being in the dark is really hard.

100%. I have had more sleepless nights worrying about my DS than my DD who is an absolute breeze in comparison.

I hear the exact same from my friends with sons.

People say this because historically teen boys have been allowed to do whatever they please, making them easy. Teen girls were not, and had to be moulded. This was harder.

Nowadays more modern parents are treating both teen boys and girls the same, and finding not much difference I imagine.

I only have 1 teen DD, who is amazing and we have a brilliant relationship.

I absolutely hate the negativity towards teenage girls on here.

One OP may say their DD is having friendship issues and the replies are stuff like 'teenage girls can be bitches', 'teenage girls are horrible' etc.,

In fact, horrible people are just horrible people, regardless of sex.

I think with teens a lot of it is about communication. If they dont communicate with you it’s concerning and worrying as you can’t help and assume the worst. At least if you are told things you know what you are dealing with.

I can’t agree with this more.

I agree with you OP. Some teens are a nightmare - both boys and girls - but there's definitely a perception in society that teenage girls are worse, and that's not true IME. I have three teens, two boys and a girl, and DS2 is the hardest (although tbh all mine are pretty great).

My sister has two teenagers, a son and a daughter and my niece, who is 16, is brilliant. She’s so friendly and polite and has a great relationship with my sister. She doesn’t cause any trouble whatsoever.

Her son on the other hand just spends all his time in his room, only appearing at mealtime and never comes down to say hello when people are visiting etc. I don’t think that makes him ‘naughty’ though, just maybe a bit rude.

However, my husband is a secondary school teacher and by the time we reached the point of TTC he’d been a teacher for almost 15 years and had worked in three different schools. He told me that he really, really hoped we’d have sons because based on his experience of teenagers, girls were so much more hard work compared to the boys.

He said the teenage boys he’d come across were loud with their mates and liked to show-off in front of them but were otherwise well behaved, whereas he said teenage girls were rude to the teachers, they acted mean and nasty to each other and were always arguing (screaming) in the corridors, more disruptive in class and just generally caused more trouble and acted more defiantly towards staff.

With him being a teacher, he obviously has a lot of teacher friends and although some disagree and say they’ve found the opposite to be true, others will say they’ve come to the same conclusion about girls.

I only know one teenage girl (my niece) and I only know her in the context of being in her home, I have no idea what she’s like at school although hand on heart I can’t imagine her being anything but lovely. I know I’m biased though 😬 Her friends have always come across as nice and polite girls too though.

Our eldest starts secondary school this September so maybe I’ll get more of an insight into teenage behaviour then.

We have more trouble at my large high school with 12-14 year old boys (fighting, highly emotional, crying, screaming, throwing things, sending nasty social media messages, running away overnight, taking the piss out of the ones with ‘rubbish’ backpacks/coats/trainers) than with girls. A lot of the girls are heavily into a sport/dance/gymnastics and the ones that aren’t are fairly quiet. We do have a few who have had a lot of adverse childhood experiences and exhibit challenging behaviour but it’s more extreme cheekiness/emotionally all over the place type behaviour). I find a lot of the girls are very serious about their hobby and focused on that whereas boys seem to be harder to get focused and serious about something until they’re about 15/16. That’s in general though and just a general trend

I think that there are a lot of negative stereotypes on here about teenage girls as most of us are women and remember our teenage years and some really nasty girls, therefore perpetuating the stereotype.

This.

I have teen boys and don’t have the issues you describe. They’re both chatty, polite and affectionate. What does that prove? Nothing.

Kids are individuals - can we stop with the boy vs girl thing 🙄.

Yes this, i treat and think of teenagers as individuals but I don't think any bad behaviour should be excused away 'teenagers are just like that' bad behaviour of boys or girls should not be tolerated

Absolutely.

There are good kids and there are challenging kids, regardless of being boys or girls. I don’t think one group is definitively worse than the other purely because of their sex.

Stereotypes do need challenging though as they are always going to be quite harmful, but to do that you have to find the root of the stereotype and unpick it.

There are so many factors in a child’s life and upbringing that will shape their character and behavioural traits, and their sex is probably one of the least determining factors.

It's an old stereotype. It's because as others have said, boys were allowed so much more freedom. Girls were more monitored because of the chance of pregnancy/acting in a way that was not deemed as "proper".

There is also the fact that boys tend to have a group of friends whilst girls mainly have a "best friend" so any fall outs were magnified and not mitigated/managed by the group.

It’s an absolute myth! Based in misogyny - out of all of our friends the boys have definitely caused no problems for them than girls.
it really does depend on the child.
as a society we allow boys to get away with a aLOT while labelling and judging girls behaviour more.

MORE problems!

What I notice as a mum of boys is just so much negativity about boys. Basically right from finding out in pregnancy, mums of girls do the head tilt and sympathetic face.. The smug mum of girls thing is very real.

I think the teen girls are harder than boys thing is a desperate attempt to find something nice to say about boys because a lot of women just really don't have much they can think of.

99% of all gender disappointment threads on here are women being sad about having boys.

I have a teenage DD who is a dream but I was a horrible teenager myself 😂

my DD has a mixed group of friends and the boys seem more level headed than the girls. I feel very lucky that she’s grown up with lads who are genuinely respectful and kind, because this will form what she sees as normal male behaviour.

My teacher friends always comment on the meanness/harshness of some teenage girls but I also think it's mainly women who say "teenage girls are hard", isn't is because teenage girls often clash with their mums?