Treating baby boys more 'rough' than girls

[DirtyDancing]

We visited my parents in law today & I feel I need to get this off my chest! Firstly, I must start by saying I have excellent FIL & MIL. Apart from the usual odd annoying things that everyone had with in laws(!), I am very, very lucky indeed. They adore their Grandchildren.

However, I noticed today that my FIL is just a bit rougher & tougher with my 3.5 month old baby boy, than he ever was with my BIL little girl when she was a baby. She was treated like she was made of glass! Where as there seems to be an attitude that because my DS is a boy, he needs to be toughened up. Just the way my FIL picked him up really roughly sort of squished in this cushion at one point, and then he banged a metal spoon on the table very very loudly right in DS face which made him cry. There have been a few things that annoy me like that. It sounds v v petty but I didn't like it. Boy or girl he's just a 3 month old baby. I know babies are quite flexible & tough & he's my PFB so I'm prob being OTT! But I don't think I agree with treating boys & girls so differently & toughening up.

My FIL loves him to pieces so I think it's just an old fashioned attitude.

Hmmm... Did they actually say anything about 'toughening him up' or is that your interpretation? Did they comfort him after making him cry?

Is it possible Dirty that you are just a bit more observant and sensitive to how FIL treats your DS, in a way that you weren't with the other child?

Are you sure it's a boy/girl thing, or are you being sensitive? Are these the only grandchildren?

My dd was the first grandchild on my dh's side and everyone treated her like glass. By the time ds came along they were used to rough and tumble with a heavy 2 year old and ds did get 'rougher' treatment as a result. Even I would forget how tiny he was.

This doesn't surprise me, there's loads of studies about how we treat baby boys and girls differently. I read one which said expectant mums chat more to girl-bumps than boy-bumps, which I have a horrible feeling is true in my case

I may definitely be an over sensitive ftm. I am not going to pretend that there is an element of that here! And with one girl & one boy in the family there is no line of comparison. I bit my to

But Vashta I do agree that there could be an element of social & gender conditioning too.

I just wondered if anyone had experienced this.

I bit my tongue as aware I may just be being a bit paranoid!

I have a toddler DD and a new baby DS and I've noticed this already - especially from PILs. Again, they're lovely but they keep saying things like "he looks a proper boy" (he looks EXACTLY like DD did!), he can come down the rugby club soon and his name is "a proper boy's name not a wuss's name". They're also definitely more loud and rough and tumble - although maybe this is because he's the second. I can see it driving me a bit crazy if they continue in this vein!!

My friend let her boy continually bit my girl (I obv picked her up etc every time and waited for her to discipline, to no avail) and when I pushed on it a bit she said "Oh well, we are teaching them to be BOY boys, you know, not pansy boys" ! I thought, no, you are teaching them that bullying behaviour is fine and one day it will backfire on you. Sure enough the oldest bit the back of her youngest's head so hard it bled and then her cheek. He still flips in and out of biting as there is no hard and fast rule with them on discipline. I dread to think what they will be like in a year or two! It's lazy parenting and confused messages on what 'being a man' means - macho/unemotional crap that serves no role in society, IMO!

I only have one DS and he is 3 months old. No comparison with girl baby but I am sometimes surprised by how folk are with him. Maybe I'm just inexperienced and I know I'm protective but there seems to be a lot of vigorous leg wriggling etc. I don't like it at all. We play a lot but you can see he is not used to contact like that, he looks startled by it!

As vashta says, they are not alone in treating girls and boys differently even as babies.

When speaking of bringing up boys to be more respectful of women and girls to have self respect and not be people pleasers think we need to start here.

Lion that's shocking!

The only gender specific things I have noticed already (DS 9 days) is the constant references to activities (sports etc) that the baby 'can now take part in' because he's a boy.

I fought hard all the way through this pregnancy to remind the GPs when they started their 'if it's a boy you can...' speil, that my baby could be a rugby playing girl or a cake making boy if s/he wanted to.

It drives me insane that already my PFB is being put into boxes

It's going to be a long hard fight LastOne to counter the effects other people's prejudice and an all-consuming marketing effort to keep girls pretty & docile, and encourage boys to be aggressive. Check out Let Toys Be Toys if you haven't already. And congrats on your new DS!