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?

What about fathers?

Mate. This whole post is precisely about how it’s not being predisposed but is socialised by parents. In a way it’s not for boys. How has that gone over your head I don’t know!

Read all the OP’s posts and I have come away cringing for @Halfmunch . And feeling immense sympathy for the poor sods who she corners at get togethers to pour this drivel in to their ears. I imagine her teen daughter just 🙄 when mum starts on one of her rants.

Maybe the parents of girls and parents with girls and boys need to stop doing that.

These posts add absolutely nothing to this debate, it’s a very low level intelligence response to just throw meaningless petty insults at me. Which suggests it hits a nerve close to home. if it didn’t, you would have just scrolled past and not given it another thought.

I don’t know what parallel universe anyone is living in but yes, we all probably agree that patents should stop perpetuating this by socialising girls differently to boys. However, teaching life skills such as housework and life admin is valuable, so it should also be taught to boys equally as it is to girls. It’s not though. And the thousands upon thousands of daily posts here about people’s husbands, and the statistics about male behaviour backs this up.

A few of my friends have boys and they're pretty much all brilliant kids. Loads of fun. Hilarious. Bring me lots of joy as does my own.

How do you know that parents aren’t teaching life skills equally to boys as they are girls? Do you have actual evidence to back that up beyond N=3 or is it anecdotal? And, if less is expected of little boys, do you have firm evidence correlating that to mile violence and misogyny?

I have boys, so, obviously, I meet a lot of boys who are not my own. And I frequently find them delightful. I’m genuinely very fond of all of my sons’ friends. Lovely kids.

However, I look at the number of lovely, clever, funny boys I know, and the number of awful men I know. And I can’t square it.

I am afraid it says more about the people you associate with than "boy children" generally.

If the adults you hang out with aren't raising their children properly you will get these type of children.

are you actually open minded to the answer or is this a sarcastic question? It’s hard to tell frankly as no one is open to actually listening.

I already posted a link to the Violence against Women and Girls police website which stated that everyone needs to tackle the issue at a young age. Men who have already offended often continue to offend so it’s too late. We need to raise boys to respect women and be functional members of society, this includes learning basic life skills and not that some jobs are for girls and some are for boys.

I gave examples of what I view as problematic parenting that I have witnessed. Things like allowing boys to continually dominate conversations with only their own topics, learning how to mansplain at a young age, talking over the top of girls, using their strength to dominate a girl to get their own way, parents not expecting them to help with household chores, ‘boys will be boys’ behaviour excuses and different expectations and responsibilities for girls.

The men who are offending or abusing women come from somewhere… where do people think they come from? Another planet? They are being raised all around us. Of course no one likes to think their child or their parenting might be problematic, but denying misogyny is lunacy. It’s NIMBYism

The whole community should work together to prevent violence against women and girls and this includes recognising that we could all do better. I already posted I really do want these boys to grow up into lovely men, and I can try to educate them and help as part of their community.

Misogyny is a huge issue, just the other month Louis Theroux aired a whole documentary on the manosphere.. did you hear about this? Have you heard of Andrew Tate? Young boys and men are being taught online that men are more valuable than women, and how to manipulate women into sex and use them. There is a huge issue with boys watching porn online and expecting girls to re-enact what they have seen.. surely I don’t need to go on?

I wish you’d done a poll

I agree I have this feeling of discomfort

Not everyone is good or bad, no one is that linear.

A 15yo lad who is delightful to someone else’s mum, might not be as delightful to another 15yo girl. I mean, they know their target audience. I don’t mean to crap all over everyone’s delightful children but clearly some boys aren’t being delightful to other girls but where do they come from? Whose kids are they? How did it happen? If we don’t know and don’t look carefully it will never stop and the entire community who enabled it will be to blame.

I think other people's children just get more boring & annoying as you get older.

I loved the baby stage, the school years, most of the teenage years but these days they all just wind me up

I absolutely agree there is a problem with male violence, misogyny and a general patriarchal society.

What I disagree with is though is attributing these problems to parental expectations of boys without any firm evidence of causation, not just correlation. Heck, without any firm evidence there is a true difference between how boys and girls are raised beyond significant anecdote. I suspect the causes of all the problems we agree on are extremely multifaceted and it cheapens it to use your N=3 example to draw wide ranging conclusions. I suspect, if there is a significant difference in how little girls vs little boys are viewed and treated by their parents, this is a symptom of the wider issues, not a cause.

Take a look at the parents and you will have your answer for why a child (boy or girl) is rude and selfish or polite and kind. It's really that simple.

It’s so boring now, can’t be bothered replying

Ok to hate and generalise about boys, am in turn mothers parenting of those boys?

It strikes me as lots of this is just waffle and projection as any parent with an ounce of nous, particularly Mothers, aren't going to bring their girls up to accept this as a thing.

It’s warmed my heart how the overwhelming majority have essentially responded with “WTF are you on about OP!”

Well, yes. It seems most of you are happy for boys to be brought up as they are now, and men to be manly and dominant; and sometimes a bit violent. And presumably you accept the social side effects. That doesn't surprise me. But not everyone is happy with this kind of society, including the OP.

@Clockbook so the police, and all of the professionals who contributed to the website I posted about female violence don’t know what they are talking about? It doesn’t start at a young age via socialisation? It’s no one’s issue? It’s something that just randomly occurs in late childhood and early adulthood? We can’t reduce risk factors of offending by raising children differently? Why do boys and men offend? Is it genetic ie nature vs nurture? What counts as ‘firm evidence’ - rising rates of sexual assault?

There are “mum blinkers” too. Dd then 15 was waitressing at an event and one woman my age was a guest twittering on that she bet the girls all “knew her son jack isn’t he marvellous plays rugby bet all the girls love him” etc.

To be polite they nodded along as dd said afterwards we couldn’t exactly tell her her son is a massive misogynist twat and all the girls despise him. Constantly pestering for nudes grades girls to their faces and particularly vile to girls he deems less attractive. Mum blissfully ignorant.