Does anyone else think boys get a hard time??

[SoupDragon]

Following on from the daggers at school thread, I'm quietly fuming that boys get such a hard time about their toys and how they play.

Yes, I do believe that, as a sweeping generalisation, "boys will be boys" and play with toy weapons and keep play fighting etc just as girls will be girls and play at princesses, fairies and with dolls. There are exceptions like the boy who plays with My Little Pony and the girl (like me) who preferred Action Man to Syndy. No one keeps trying to stop girls playing girly games and tell them to stop being so girly do they? Why should boys always come up for a lot of stick for wanting to play boys games?

Does playing with baby dolls mean a girl is more likely to become pregnant as a teenager? I bet you could prove it to be statistically true - after all, the teenage pregnancy rate has increased as has the sale of realistic baby dolls. Should we stop our daughters playing with them?

I'm not saying that boys should be allowed to take weapons into school but only because home toys shouldn't be taken into school/nursery. Girls shouldn't take their toys in either.

Actually SoupDragon, I totally agree. Society does smile on girls toys more than the 'dangerous' ones boys play with - having said that, I have no intention of buying ds a gun, dagger or sword! But I did overhear at toddler group a mother of 2 girls watching my ds 'wrestling' with his friend (very good naturedly - my ds is very physical and loves to wrestle) say 'Boys are always fighting aren't they. Girls just sort things out. Boys just take to their fists'. Ha ha - her daughter then snatched a toy of her 'friend' and they both ran to their respective mummys screaming! I wouldn't have minded if ds HAD been fighting, but they were both screaming with LAUGHTER as they wrestled!

IME, girls can actually be nastier than boys but they don't tend to use physical means.

Children learn through play and they also love to copy and to shock adults. The most popular toys have always been the ones that make adults react ? like toy guns or rubber insects or pots of slime. All invented by adults and presumably conforming to toy safety standards. It?s not surprising that children want to play with weapons and explore pretend death when they are exposed to media images of absolute horror. Children do look at the pictures in adult newspapers and hear about killings etc
Children of either sex ought to be allowed to get on with their play and to explore the concepts of their role play in supportive environment.
It may not be appropriate to wave a giant black hairy tarantula at grandma, it may be impolite to pretend gunk is snot at the meal table, and it may be best not to take personal toys into a nursery school.
But give the kids some credit ? they are working things out in their own minds and learning ? not showing signs of future delinquency. I used to spend ages throwing a knife into my lawn when I was little and I too loved action men with their lovely hair and facial scar. We used to play raucously with water pistols and spud guns and buy ?Warlord' magazine (anyone remember that?), but grew up to learn right from wrong and abhor murder and wars as much as any normal person.

I agree boys get a 'bad press' so to speak.

My friend with 2 dds positively scowls at the boys on play dates because they run round and round the table laughing and giggling or pile on top of one another or chase each other with toy animals (don't ask me to explain why!). She thinks they are naughty but it's just the way boys seem to be. Her dds will sit and watch The Wizard of Oz twice over without moving from the sofa - great for her as she can read a magazine, get on with housework etc whereas mine don't sit for more than 5 mins. However, I'd rather have excited, energetic kids that interact with eath other and have fun than ones that are clingy, wimpery and glued to the TV .

I know this is a sweeping generalisation but yes, for the most part, the girls I know sit more quietly and watch the boys in amazement (as do their Mums) while I don't see my boys the whole time we are at someones house cos they are too busy playing! A couple of the girls do love the boy stuff though and get stuck in with them which is great!

Girls do fight phsically - well my brother and I did all the time when we were small.

I think boys sometimes get a hard time for being boys too. I really liked That's my boy! by Jenni Murray on the subject.

I have a girl and a boy and to my mind they are both the same, I don't treat them differently. She likes her dolls and he likes his cars. If he liked dolls and she liked cars that would be fine also. In fact from time to time they do share the same role play games. However, she can wave a wand and turn him into a frog yet he can't defend himself with a sword, as this is seen as aggression. Yes, boys get a raw deal imho and I have only developed this opinion since having a boy.

Totally agree Soupy

I also find that girls seem to 'whinge' and manipulate more than boys .. if we're looking at the 'boys are always violent' statement

Vive la Difference say I

I have one of each too BTW

As iota said my brother and I always fought and I really was the instigator. He was never a fighter and I notice now it is dd 4 yo who smacks ds 2 yo and then wonders why he hits back. I think he'll be a lover not a fighter .

Yes definatly!
What I really hate is whenever my 19mth old ds does anything like post something in the video etc, people say "Oh he is a real boy!"
No he is a typical toddler who is still at the experimental stage!!
I work in a school & all our behaviour problems in our last years class were from girls!

www, I was going to recommend Jenni Murray's book too.

I haven't met this much with ds yet, although someone did say last winter that boys shouldn't be in tights cos they're for girls. He was 10 months old - are boy babies meant to go cold ffs!

My mum got this a lot over my brother in the 80s - but the opposite. He shouldn't be pushing that dolls pushchair, pretending to iron etc, he should be playing rough games with the other boys. Well, no, he was at the imaginative play stage, and that's what he wanted to play. He hasn't come out to my mum yet, BTW.

Only from mother's of girls who sit neatly colouring in!

We were hoping number 3 was going to be one of those - but he's another boy. Ah well I could never do the smug mummy look anyway with ds1 balancing on the stairrails (he doesn't do pretend play just a god line in climbing) and ds2 being as insane as he is. Actually apart form the extra autism risk of having a boy I'm secretly quite pleased we're sticking with boys.

Agree 100% sd. Before I had kids I thought that it was all about how they were raised and that neither of my kids would be steriotypes. And then they arrived

My boy needs to run around like a mad thing. He isn't bad, it is just the way he is. Dd will sith and draw for hours ds treats pencils as the spawn of satan.

As the mother of 22 month-old girl, I think that girls have an easier time of it than boys. DD has both a toy pushchair and toy cars and diggers. She can wear dresses and dungarees. She can run around and shout, or snuggle up to me. But I have been surprised at how some mothers of even very young boys seem anxious about underlining their masculinity and pulling them away from anything that might be considered feminine - in dress, in behaviour and in the toys they play with. It seems as though gender roles are more constricting for young boys than they are for young girls. I would be interested to know whether people think that this also holds for older children.

I definately think that girls get ALL the toys available and boys don't.
My sister has two boys, (i have one girl and another girl on the way). Anyway, my sisters younger boy loves dolls and pushchairs and bottles etc, (he's 2) and there's alreday beed a discussion whether my mam is allowed to buy him a doll for Christmas as his dad will think it's sissy-like

Thing is though, when they grow up (boys) we then all want them to be good dads and modern men who change nappies.....

(Am feeling sorry for boys now!)

There are far more boys than girls on the school's SN regester. Secondary schooling as it stands (and I teach in secondary) is a nightmare for boys who are chock full of enery who want to do things rather than study them IYSWIM. If the reforms on the diploma do something to restore the value of vocational training it will help the plight of so many disafected 14-16 year olds who would be better learning a trade than wasting their time as they do at present. With luck it will be in place by the time my kinesthetic learner son gets to secondary.

hmb, we just had bil {other thread staying, and his wife was saying how short of builders they were in Canada as they don't learn trades anymore.

Boys just can't seem to win whatever they do. If they run around then they are tutted at for being too rough. If they play quietly or with pushchairs etc then they get disapproving looks for being too girlie.

Plumbers can charge whatever they want as they are at such a premium. Why is it that we only value the university style education and not trade training? It is insane

One or two mothers of girls at my sons'school have definitely perfected a look of dismay whenever a boy happens to raise his voice or move at more than a walking pace. I can't say the majority do this though, to be fair.

But, I have an old friend with two dds and her assumptions abour my boys leave me silently fuming. She lives in another town so we talk on the phone and meet at most 2 or 3 times a year in parks etc. She has not great personal knowledge of my sons.

I believe her daughters are quite bright and do well at school. Over the years when I mention something my son is doing, she tells me ' my dd was into that last year but boys are a bit behind compared to girls, aren't they?'

She has also got it into her head that my son is not at all academic. OK he is not a swot, and he has had problems with concentration on school work in the past, but I have never implied he hates school or studying or is struggling to keep up in class.

When we were discussing secondary schools, I mentioned my son had sat the 11+ and she did nothing to hide her surprise. FFS, how can she have any idea of his academic level?

I really think you'd like that book tigermoth.

I've got one of each - and I firmly believe that every family should have at least one boy. I am sick to bloody death of mothers of girls bleating on about the noise boys make, how boisterous they are and how bad mannered they are. They are also loving, kind, less whingey, less catty and less manipulative than girls. It really winds me up when I hear women saying how lucky they are to have girls, or pitying other women who have 2 or more boys.

back to the topic of this thread, how many parents of weapon-loving children feel ok about taking those toys to parks and other public places of play? I used to say weapon play was confined to the house, but I don't see why I should feel embarassed by my sons role playing as long as they are playing within set behaviur boundaries. But still, I feel taking toy weapons out attracts frowns, even if my sons are playing nicely with them. If they took out dolls or fairy wands, I cannot imagine I'd get the same sort of looks.

www, I'll put it on my christmas list.