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?

Disagree. Not 24 hours ago a delicate little perfect girl flower yanked my 4 year old out of his soft play corner, hurting him, because she "only wanted girls in there". My little boy is full of kindness and fiercely clever and curious about the world. I'm sure lots of little girls are too and lots are annoying, whiny and never clean up after themselves. Your post is 🤮

Having had wonderful now professional young sons I naturally feel more protective of boys & it has continued now I have a much loved & adored grandaughter. Please don't ask,it's just the way I've always felt & still do at family gatherings etc

How often does your DH have your SS OP?

Patriarchal attitudes do get passed down via parenting but they also exist and can be picked up beyond parents - I personally found primary schools shocking for gender sterotypes and enforcing them.

But I don't think it's fair to blame individual boys for wider societal issues - or to blame mothers for ones who do turn bad.

Frankly it sounds like you have quite a few family members you don't actually like - fair enough - but then you are finding fault with their parenting or them and then balming wider and longer standing societal issues on those people.

We've raised a polite well manner boy who just turned 19- who teachers and group leaders all comment on and say that - frankly I think that the bare minimum to expect - but it's not a lone feat most of his mates and DDs mates who are male are lovely to be round.

Exactly!

Not all men…but way too many! If anyone missed this CNN article have a read - an online ‘academy’ received 62 million views in one month...

www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-assault-online-vis-intl/index.html

Interesting thread!

I think a lot of people are posting individual experiences with one or two kids, which is missing the point about the wider, population trends.

I think from a very young age, boys are socialised into being loud, rude and aggressive. Of course, some boys don't have a temperament that lends itself towards that, but parenting the behaviours that result from this kind of expectation (eg from other children at nursery) is hard work and frustrating.

To give my own anecdata, my nearly 4yo is full of rude names, particularly for me not DH, and deliberately does stuff badly so that you do it for him (personal care, tidying, cleaning). And yes it is deliberate. And parenting that hundreds of times a week is so draining.

When my oldest ds was a newly walking toddler I thought the three-year olds at playgroup were absolute thugs. Clearly feral, badly parented and just nasty. Obviously looking back I can see how ludicrous that was, I was just feeling very protective of my child. I hadn't ever had a three-year old then, and couldn't see them as anything other than overgrown and dangerous.

I feel like there's a bit of similar bias going on here because you can see the danger in men (as can I), but it's not balanced out by you also seeing boys as actual children who started out as babies, because as you say yourself you've so little experience of them and none of your own. In reality boys are both potential adult men being socialised into patriarchal attitudes, who could later be dangerous, and children with their own three-dimensional personalities and vulnerabilities.

Any parent can look at their own child through rose-tinted glasses and see them as doing no wrong (see also: parents of mean girls who don't believe that their daughter can possibly be a bully). Yes, a man brought up that way can be more physically dangerous to others than a girl brought up that way (although bullying can drive other girls to suicidality). But why do you think some of the posters above do things like talk about consent with their sons? Because they know the patriarchal society we're all living with, and they try to push back against that. You've never been in conversations with mothers of boys who worry about all this stuff so you seem to have decided they don't exist, but they do.

Because you’ve got no sons? That was in the original post.

This is ridiculous. I have both genders, and I have both neices and nephews, they all have different personalities because they are individuals! They are all unique characters and I love them all. For what its worth, I know little boys who are quiet, thoughtful and very kind and little girls who are much more boisterous. I adore my sisters daughters but she would tell you herself, they really were extremely difficult as teenagers and her son was always relatively easy. Some kids are parented badly and its irrelevant if they are boys or girls. 🤷‍♀️

I don’t have to ask. It’s clear. It’s misogyny. Plenty of women fall foul of this. You’re a misogynist even if your intentions are not bad

Absolutely support and encourage parents talking to their kids about consent, would be quite insane not to want that but they aren’t my target audience, are they? If some parents are self aware, plenty are not and the outrageous behaviour of boy mums on this thread is a great example of where this starts at home

Yes so please elaborate how that would equate jealousy? I am interested

A) I think you are seriously underestimating the damage that girls and women do because it's not generally physical.
B) I feel like a lot of this is the rose tinted glasses of having older children who are seemingly pretty compliant. I have a son and daughter who are very close in age. Both frequently interrupt (and have to be reminded not to), both sometimes don't listen, both have to be reminded that they are expected to help.
C) I do think societal expectations of girls and boys are very different and we should do what we can to counter those. That doesn't seem to be the focus of your OP, but I'm glad you've pivoted from a rather unpleasant rant to a more reasonable argument.

@Everydayimhuffling please elaborate on the impact of girls/women on society that is comparable to violence against women. I’m interested

me too. As someone who works with victims of VAWG I’m very interested

My two boy cousins (now grown up) were the most polite, well mannered boys and have grown into hard-working, kind men who have long-term partners and are honestly the type of men you dream would dream of your daughter being with. They were parented beautifully by my Aunty.
My friends little boy is a lovely, gentle lad.
The same friends little girl is a horror! 😂

You’re brave op. People don’t like the truth and get defensive.

I think the problem is, many mums, especially those still in the throws of school-age kids don’t see clearly their own entrenchment in patriarchy enough to call it out in their sons.

Many are shackled to men who leave them to do most of the domestic heavy lifting and they write it off with “my DH works long hours”. Or it doesn’t even enter their heads that they don’t need to feel responsible for it all. Their mothers did it, their grandmothers did it, all their schoolmates’ mums did it. ‘It’s normal!’ Normal for men to sit back and let women scivvy and serve.

If women don’t even see misogny and patriarchal values in their own lives, how are they going to see it (and correct it) in their domineering, pushy, arrogant, energetic boys?

This is always the rhetoric, people are “defensive” because they don’t agree with someone?

Are we not allowed to defend our sons, brothers, husbands?

I mean come on!

According to my FIL a "typical boy" is one who plays football, doesn't read books or draw, enjoys rough and tumble and has generally poor manners. Sadly my son is none of those things and is therefore "never going to be a real man" in his eyes. Thankfully none of us give a toss what he thinks so we'll continue as we are.

Why, though, is it always left to women/mothers to sort out these men/boys?

Blame men for this, not women.

MN never do anything. They love them for the clicks.

For what it’s worth it’s not boys. It’s parenting. Those boys don’t sound well behaved. That’s not boys. That’s how they’ve been brought up. I know lovely boys and annoying ones. I know lovely girls and some annoying ones.

OP sounds like she just doesn’t like boys and her girls are angels 😇

Sorry but how old are your girls? Are you having a laugh if you think all girls are predisposed to assisting with clearing up? That's sexist in itself!

What about the mothers who won’t hear a word said against their sons, even though they are lazy or criminal?

My son too - well brought up, polite, kind and civilised.

You'll notice I put 'typical boy' in quotation marks....so just checking that the irony came across. I found the stereotyping of the genders among parents, teachers and health professionals in the late 90s very irritating! I hope it's changed now.

And my daughter wasn't a 'typical girl', either.

I also complained to my children's primary school when, returning from the summer holidays, we found that the Head had made over the children's loos: boys' loos painted with a football mural and the girls' Barbie-themed and pink.