why is it hard to like other people’s boy children

[Halfmunch]

I am a mother to girls, and have no brothers and I admit I don’t have much experience of raising or being around boys. The boys in my life I can find them overwhelming, frustrating and to be honest, self centred and lazy.

However, I am wondering if this is related to how people parent the boys, and a patriarchal society rather than the boys - as in it’s not their fault, they were not born this way. Is this something other parents have noticed, like Little Prince Syndrome?

My husband has a 12yo son and even after 5 years I struggle to bond with him. I have 2 x 9yo nephews and I also struggle with them. All 3 kids have different parents.

The boys are all overbearing in conversations - yell and talk over everyone else and already at their age ?!? mansplain and refuse to accept explanations or answers, challenging everything, ie. They all seem to ‘know better’ when a female answers a question and all have very singular topics they are only interested in, not interested in other people really. Step son is obsessed with football, so everything you do has to centre around that, and if it doesn’t, he’s completely disinterested in anything else and just mopes about.

I notice the boys all seem to opt out of clearing up, after a meal finished they will return to either talking about their chosen topic without noticing everyone else is clearing up, or go do their own activity, and have to be asked/reminded to do even minor tasks such as take a plate to the kitchen. I often watch them at family parties and while everyone else is pitching in, they have wandered off kicking a ball around quietly and when asked to help ‘oh I didn’t realise…’ however if it’s something slightly dangerous, they will barge in and get in your way even if you don’t want them to help they feel entitled to ‘help’ like SS demanding to be allowed to ‘light the BBQ’ unsupervised

They are nice boys, but I often read posts on here about people’s useless husbands, and think hmm well, there seems to be an awful lot of these males around… and it probably starts young!

My DH often feels frustrated as he’s very much an equal partner with a female, and believes in equality. He feel like he’s always nagging his son to try to get him to learn about life but many females seem to enable this! DH’s mum acts like SS is made of china, and my mum is the same with my nephew.

Is there a way we can tackle this as society?

But… your DH was a boy child once.

Yawn.

Sounds like you don’t like boys very much OP 😂
I wonder if you might have a bit of a closed minded view and are always looking for the worst in people. You probably need to sort your mindset out seeing as you have a stepson, and it’s probably very obvious to him how you feel. Always best to ask how you can influence a situation rather than offensively writing off an entire sex.

They don’t sound like nice boys tbh. My son is very challenging at the moment but he is interesting to talk to. He likes science so I talk to him about that kind of thing. (But he does mainly grunt at me at the moment!)

Nope. They're easy to like.

I wonder what they think about you ?

I also now am feeling annoyed at myself for replying to such a basic goady post.

There is one common denominator here, and its not "boys".

Same here.

I think this is a you thing. I find boys quite charming, energetic, sometimes thoughtful, often loud and irritating but so what. They are people. Many girls are the same, some you like, others you find a bit wearing! You sound like the reverse of a chauvinist, labelling all people belonging to a single gender as having negative traits merely by virtue of their gender.

Wow.

I find girl children are whiny brats.

Is that OK? No its not. I find children annoying based on their behaviour. HTH

Yes, if you don’t get on with any of them I would say the issue is you.

Boys are easy to love. Love my son

Also Netflix is really cheap if you are bored!

This sounds like something you need to tackle as it is a 'you' problem, not a 'society' one

If I started a thread about all the whiny, whingy, self-centred, brattish girls I’ve come across, and how my ds are much more straightforward, nicer, more pleasant human beings to be around, I wonder how that would be received?
I know the op is being deliberately goady, but nevertheless, I feel moved to comment in case someone reads it and actually agrees!

I think there are quite a few children who are annoying and hard to like. Boys and girls.
They are mini people. And like adults they vary tremendously regardless of sex.

So glad there’s a report button for these goady fuckers

I particularly like the last sentence:
"Is there anyway we can tackle this as a society?"

@Halfmunch You should meet my DS2- def not a "typical" boy; sweet, kind, sensitive and funny. All parents love him. Nothing to do with parenting (except that he's very polite perhaps) but it's his personality. DS1 is polite as well but in other aspects what you would expect of a boy : plenty of energy, running around, loud. He's kind but a handful.

What a ridiculous post! I’ve never struggled to like a child just because they’re a boy.
Maybe what you’re saying is parents can sometimes let boys get away with more unacceptable behaviour than they would with girls - I do know one boy like this to be fair.
It’s not all boys though, it’s bad parenting in some cases!