Raising Boys/Raising Girls - is there really any difference?

[Mercy]

Following on from the Stephen Biddulph thread basically.

I haven't read either of those books tbh but so far I think I've raised my dd and ds according to their temperaments rather than their gender. Will it become more obvious when they are older?

Do you think there is a difference? And in what way?

Ime not much difference until puberty. I go with the temperament rather than gender, too.

just from observation with my boys and their friends (both boys and girls) - the girls are generally much happier to sit and do colouring or other things that involve concentration, whilst the boys want to be moving about and find it hard to sit still.

Obviously that general trend is superimposed on the personality differences.

I have 2 boys and o ne girl, boys 6 and 4, girl 2 in may. Definite difference between the boys and girls in my house and have seen this for a while now, girl likes to sit quiet, boys tear arse about. Personality does also play a part, has ds1 is now at school and ds2 and dd are sat quitely together, so maybe a bit of gender and personality, and maybe a good catalyst to get the party started so to speak.

I have two boys who are completely different and we deal with them differently according to their temperaments.
Children are so individual that I think its really hard to pinpoint the gender differences and I do think they become more obvious as they get older.
Having said that there are generalisations to do with play, aggression,social skills, and concentration which do seem to hold true for the different sexes. But there will always be exceptions.
I do also disagree about puberty being the trigger- I think the differences are noticable way before that.

I think the sex of the child may well play a role, but in terms of its gender, a lot of it might come from expectations. I am very feminist, determined not to label my kids or make them be a certain way, but could I put my DS in a dark pink snowsuit which was amongst the stuff we were given? No, I made excuses that it didn't go with his pram, but actually it was the social acceptableness thing. also when I talk to him I'm often saying things like 'You're a lovely toughie' or 'shall mummy rough you up?' (meaning a tickle), and I'm not sure, would I say that to a daughter?

It's very interesting as impossible to prove either way and impossible for one's own prejudices not to play a bit of a role...