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.

We go to a local NT property which has a wonderful outdoor play area with a huge Fort. My friend will often take her son's 'guns'. They are carved out of wood by her dh and look about as much like a gun as all the other little boys bits of wood that are used as guns. You should see the looks some of the 'nice' mummies give us as our dss play with them. And the envy in the eyes of their dss!

Not keen on a couple of the subtley anti girl remarks on here ( I don't mean you soupy). I have a girl and a boy - and they are both f*ing fabulous so there!

On a serious note - why do people have to sit in boy / girl 'camps'? Its a trifle sad.

Incidentally my dd is not whingey, catty, manipulative or anything else like that. In fact she walks on water.

And ds is practically a god.

d'ya mean me then?

My DS is 3 and he hasn't got any weapon toys but there is time for that if he gets into things like Power Rangers, Action Man and the like. My DS does like to run around a lot but then so does my neice, I am not sure there can be generalisations about what boys and girls do best. My friends little boy is more into puzzles and creative stuff, wheras my DS is more physical, then my neice is a physical girl, but my friend slittle girl likes doing arty things - I think kids are all individuals and it isn't that gender specific from my experience.

I've loads of boys (and a girl), and I don't find they get a hard time. I work in a pre-school, and there is a definite difference in the play of girls and boys, though a lot of boys will play with the dolls, and dolls houses, you rarely get the girls pretending to be tigers and scaring the others, or being Bob the Builder.

Certainly no-one has ever looked disapprovingly at my sons playing with guns, or pretending to be Power Rangers or whatever. You do run into people in Toddler group who say they will never let their children play at weapons, but they usually have yet to realise that their son will some day build a gun with Duplo, or bite his toast into a gun shape and play with that. Sticks make good guns too. When my sons started doing that, I let them have toy guns.

No Twiglett - I don't mean you

I have 2 boys and occasionally have felt squashed by smug mums of quiet daughters. i think it was stephen biddulph who challanged how society seems to have such a problem with children that may be more louddramaticactive than they can tolerate - he said something along the lines of 'you would think we were educating senior citizens, not young people at their most enthusiastic,vital and energetic!' my ds's teacher talks about how sitting still is the hardest movement for a child to master under the age of 10.
re: the sword/gun thing - i had kept my ds protected from tv/newspapers until he was 4 and a half and then he discovered castles...its so difficult, we have recently let him have a sword but i'm constantly drumming into him theres no glory in war and the people couldn't find the words to make friends and play nicely but he senses i'm patronising him. he use to make swords from sticks. there also seems to be a snobbery involved from some parents where i live who don't allow their children swords/guns but will allow bows and arrows which seem to be making a comeback. I am still really uncomfortable with the whole weapon thing really - is there a sentimentality about those types of weapons because they are historical? my dh played with guns and swords and he is the most gentle soul i have ever met. i'm rambling now but this is a very good thread!

I have officially ended the gun ban in my house after 8 years today! For the first time ever my 2 sons were allowed to play with toy guns (that my dh bought years ago and was never allowed to give them). I hate guns and always believed I would bring up peace-loving sensitive 'new men'. How wrong I was! And I have never seen such delight in my lovely boys' eyes as when they happily massacred each other all afternoon.

Boys are not the same as girls and perhaps we are valuing the more 'female' qualities in modern society (such as sitting still, concentration spans, communication skills) more than the traditional male ones (physical strength, competitiveness etc)these days. Boys and girls both have all these strengths but lets celebrate the ones seen as more 'male' for a change.

shimmy, what exactly made you end your gun ban?

What a shame that we can't see our children as equally important, whether they're girls or boys. I wouldn't dream of stereotyping all boys as mad, bad and boisterous - yet girls are being stereotyped as clingy, catty, unloving, whiny, manipulative, nasty couch potatoes ...

Perhaps my loud, boisterous, inquisitive, intelligent, enthusiastic, kind, generous-hearted, loving, perfectly normal 3.5yo dd should have been born a boy ...

Tigermoth- really the drip drip effect of seeing them making weapons from lego, sticks, mast of their pirate ship etc and also realising that they are sensitive and caring children who show great empathy for other people. They have a clear understanding of the difference between fanatsy and reality and I decided that I didn't need to worry about them turning into violent people because of a game. The final trigger was that ds1 needs to dress up for school book week. He hates doing this but agreed to be Tintin with bribery of having a gun to go with his costume (for home use only!)

Those sound like extremely good reasons to me! It's sort of how I feel about my son and guns, too. And there I was wondering if mumsnet discussions had been responsible for your 'u' turn

going back to the original fume - not hard enough for me. I'm trying to teach both my children that violence is unacceptable but most mothers of boys seem to feel it is unavoidable. If they have daughters they don't allow the same violence from them. I've never prevented either of my children from playing with any toy they want but I do prevent them from using those toys to hurt other people. So I'm happy for guns to be used for target practise although mine are keener on boys and arrows. My son now feels he has to hide playing with the dolls house from his friends - I's sure this is the influence of other parents.

sorry - that should have been bows and arrows. Although very soon it will probably be true as typed

tattt that's so sad! do you really feel it's other parents opinions, not peer pressure or the effect of advertising, that causes your son to be secretive about playing with the dolls house? If he came to our home, I'd be enchanted if you son wanted to play with a dolls house. I certainly wouldn't be shoo-ing him away or giving him funny looks, honestly!

Tatt I have a ds and a dd. I don't allow either of them to be violent. Neither is allowed to hit or harm anyone with anything, be it gun, sword of fairy wand

But in his imaginative play he wants to act out violence in a way that his sister never has. He is a very sweet loving little boy who's teachers describe as being a warm and loyal friend, but he likes to play with guns.

My borther played with guns, and even had an air rifle as a child. He is a much calmer, placid person than I am and always has been. My dh, who is in the RAF, and has to do regular gun training is as gentle a man as you can imagine. He has no interest in guns at all, and again is much more placid and reasonable than I am.

Time and time again I have seen boy's imaginative play made 'sordid' by adults who view it as something sinister, which it is not. My 5 year old loves to crash his toy cars into each other. Does that mean he will be a road rage fiend when he growns up? I doubt it.

The fact is, boys and girls are different. Of course you get tom boys and, er, whatever the boy equivalent is, but at the end of the day, historically males are meant to go out and kill the sunday roast for us and females are meant to do the nurturing. I don't think boys should get a hard time for playing like boys! Of course, they should be taught how to play like boys in an acceptable manner.

Why is playing in a traditionally girly manner so much better and more acceptable? Let them play however they want to, boy or girl, but just guide them in how to do it nicely. Let them get on with it and stop giving boys a hard time for being male.

Do we really want to train out all those inherently "male" traits? At the end of the day, I wouldn't want a partner who could pick me out a lovely outfit or choose soft furnishings, I want one who'll stand in front of me and protect me with a toy sword if necessary (although having had 2 elder brothers, I can well protect myself ). Of course, if he could pick me out a nice outfit or soft furninshings that would be a bonus

Well DS who plays with swords at other people's houses (but we don't have any here) makes guns out of lego and plays with 2 action man in a very WWF sort of way (no he's never watched it) ... and when we were round at a friend's house last week was happily upstairs playing with the sister's dolls house whilst 3 of his friends ran wild downstairs

I don't care ... for emphasis I DON'T CARE ... I love his role play (and the little stories I listen to him telling himself) in all its guises .. the acting out fighting and the acting out playing house

.. and his collection of bruises are quite spectacular too

I have 3 boys who play like, well, boys. Most of their games are fairly rough (DS3 normally coming off worst) and very often centre around fighting of some description, be it Action Man, Pokemon, etc. They also play quiet games which have nothing to do with fighting, but these don't happen that often. They have testosterone pumping through their veins and this is their way of expressing themselves.

I have friends who have very quiet, malleable girls and they do look at my boys as though they are from another planet and then look either pityingly or accusingly at me. Thanks, girls.

I'm one of 3 girls, so all this is fairly new to me, although we had our moments of fighting as children too.

Boys need to move around to express themselves and they are much more physical than girls. This shows itself in cuddles and kisses as well as more vigorous moves. My boys love to come to me for cuddles. DS1 (nearly 11) still likes to come and sit on my lap and is distraught at the thought that he might not be able to do that for too much longer because he is getting too big.

Generally boys and girls are different, but, because the way girls express themselves is more gentle and less problematic, this is deemed more acceptable. We need to find ways for boys to express their physical needs in a safe environment and perhaps if schools accommodated this aspect in their teaching methods there would be fewer problems in class with boys disrupting lessons.

Personally, I love having all boys, although there is a part of me that would like to have a girl to do girly things with. Maybe one of my boys will turn out to be gay and will fulfill that need in me .

I think that part of the problem is that we are becoming a risk avoiding society. As a result of this teaching style choices are becoming more and more dictated by H & S and less by 'reasonable' risk taking. This then becomes a vicious circle. As children are denied the chance to do practicals in science ( and I will admit my giult here) they become less and less capable of doing practicals safely, so you become less prepared to let them do the, and so on.

The average Y8 boy when given the chance to do a practical with a bunsen burner doesn't want to do the practical. He wants to set fire to things. The harrased teacher (me, ) gets too worried to let him do it, in case I get reported to the court of mumsnet for letting kids do 'dangerous' things in lessons

And so the proeblms get worse.

And I can see my darling little ds being just like this.

To be honest, I don't really think boys get a hard time and I agree with handlemecarefully, I think there have been quite a few 'anti-girl' remarks here. I have a boy and girls, and to be honest I have found my son and his friends to be just as whingy and 'bitchy' and manipulative abd nasty to each other, as my daughters and their friends. I think the 'boys will be boys' mentality is a very dangerous one as it is often used by over-indulgent mothers of sons to excuse any kind of unacceptable behaviour in their boys,from bullying to vandalism to rape.
Personally, I treat my children, and hopefully all other children, as individuals regardless of whether they are boys or girls and I find my daughters are as different from one another as my son is to my daughters.
Also, my ds aged 7 has never been remotely interested in playing with guns or swords. I asked him a whild ago if he wanted me to buy him one, as some of his friends had them, and he told me he thought they were boring. By a lot of the comments here, that would seem to make him odd and unnatural, which he isn't. He's just himself.

i think this subject also raises the issue of nature/nurture debate. i have found some parents do put their quiet childs behaviour down to their superior parenting skills. my ds1 is very active, sensitive and highly strung, there are times when its difficult to engage with him as he is so busy! whereas my ds2 is very quiet, placid and grounded. i know parents that have twin boys - one enjoys doing and the other is a thinker, they have even sent them to different schools because of this.

Tabitha, I don't think that any sane woman would say 'well boys will be boys' if their son raped someone. I think that is just plain offensive.

I set firm limits for both my kids at the same levels. But one thing that I can say with utter conviction is that 'boys will be different'. I raised bith mine the same way. Both dh and I are quiet, introverted, studious people , and we have a mini torando, very loving son. My dd is a mini me.

hmb,
I can assure you some women do - whether they are sane is obviously a different matter.
As to whether 'boys will be different', well as I've said before I think all children are individuals, boys and girls, and should be treated as such and not typecast.