Let’s shout out from the rooftop how bloody AMAZING it is to have sons!! Who cares that we don’t have a daughter? Not me!!!

[LondonLady1980]

Come on everyone!

It’s time we counteracted all these horrible and depressing threads lately about how disappointed women are that they are having “another boy”.

We’ve all seen them and the usual stereotypical worries that women have…. How abandoned they’ll be, how they’ll never see their son once they’ve grown up, how they’ll never see their grandchildren, how they’ll never have that assumed mother and daughter loving bond etc etc.

And don’t forget the sheer disappointment about never being allowed to dress their baby in a pink dress and put a bow in its hair…..

So let’s celebrate our wonderful boys!!!

I have two, they are 8 and 12 and they are the most wonderful and loving sons I could wish for. I absolutely adore them and I genuinely couldn’t give a crap that I never had a daughter!!

I love them endlessly and they were never ever viewed as a potential disappointment and they never will be ❤️

when further apart they seemed to have no thoughts about the friendships at all, unlke girls' complex and conflicty social lives.

I don't recognise this.

My DD has lots of friends and, whilst they have different personalities, they always have each other's backs.

Well I have one of each so can categorically declare that boys are more cuddly, more calm and generally less highly strung.

God I love my girl but fucking goddamn is she hard work. There is absolutely no reasoning with a teeny tiny woman 😂

🙄

Well, you raised her ...

The problem with threads like this is that people can’t seem to find anything nice to say about either boys or girls without saying something horrible about the other sex. Sometimes blatant, often implied.

I have one of each, they are both bloody amazing people, both young adults now. I do understand that boys are vilified more, I’ve often had to deal with thst, especially having my son first, but threads like this often find me having to defend my daughter too. It is a no win for me.

That's really sad.

I think your taking this thread a bit too seriously 😬

I find it sad too. I have some really great conversations with my son. He listens and asks questions about my opinions etc. in 24 yrs I have never found him dull in the slightest.

You very obviously haven’t got boys. They are wonderful conversationalists, DS and I communicate daily via what’s app, usually about rugby or TV series and I am regularly called on for advice for a wide variety of things.

DS texted me from the pub a couple of weeks ago to ask me how tall I was. One of their group was claiming to be 5’11”. Apparently I am the closest to his height. When I collected DS from uni before Easter, I was given detailed instructions to stand next to the flatmate, whose height was question, in a manner that wouldn’t raise suspicion.

I am their virtual executive chef, frequently involved in group phone calls while they navigate a new recipe. And if DS phones me he always puts me on speaker so they can all have a chat. They all delight in telling one another’s parents what they’ve been up to.

Men’s banter and chat is so much more entertaining than that between group of women or girls. They do bitch and moan but usually to each other’s face. Obviously they are still learning how to interact with girls and that you can’t be as direct. They know how to stroke the egos of women but I love their refreshing directness with each other.

DS and his flatmates have recently watched Game of Throwns, they were too young first time round. I avoided it at the time but was encouraged to watch it by DS. We had endless conversations about the plot and characters. We all love the latest production “ Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”.

Martin Clunes and Neil Morrisey were absolutely spot on with their depiction of young male adults flatsharing in “Men behaving badly “. They have successfully navigated the acute embarrassing stage and are adulting reasonably well with the occasional mistake when they still need rescuing.

I have a boy, he’s 10 months. I love him to absolute pieces. It took some very challenging fertility treatment to get him here. When I was pregnant we decided we wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise, as we had thought long and hard about if we had a preference. Hand on heart neither of us did, and waiting til the birthday seemed like fun.

When my partner called out “it’s a boy” it was joyous, because it was something else to know about this little person who had come to join us. I genuinely think my feelings would have been equally positive had it been a girl.

I love my baby, because he is funny and sunny and interesting (to me!), and because he is mine. I don’t love him because he is a boy.

I personally can’t relate to “gender disappointment” at all, perhaps because I truly don’t agree with gender stereotypes, and I wouldn’t make assumptions about a child and their future interests or behaviours or preferences based on their gender or sex.

I think that we live in a gendered, misogynist world, and that parenting in that context will include certain challenges that are related to and influenced by the sex of your children (I.e I would probably worry MORE about a boy child being sucked into the manosphere/abusing steroids/being drawn into physical fights by other males, whereas I would worry MORE about a daughter experiencing anorexia, or navigating relationships with teen boys who have ingested horrible internet porn etc etc)
But there’s always an overlap with these things.

one thing that absolutely gets my goat, is that since I had a boy I have had numerous mothers of boys share their unsolicited view that “omg a boy! How wonderful, I LOVE my boy. Boys are so lovely and easy. GIRLS are so difficult and bitchy and miserable.” One woman even told me she decided not to have a second baby, as she was SO worried she might end up with a girl. It was so sad, and I wish these people would adddress their own misogyny, internalised and otherwise. As it happens, I am a lesbian with a partner, and a little boy. I love women, and think that girls and women are complex, diverse, three dimensional beings, just like everyone else. I am really not receptive to narratives that generalise and stereotype.

OP, your posts read as though your nose has really been out out of joint by these threads. I suggest you no longer read them. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the patriarchy, I have only ever seen the “I love having a boy threads” descend into nasty and reductive comments about girls.

Personally I have two DD's and was v pleased to have 2 girls.....my preference was girls simply because I am one and could relate more, plus have a brilliant sister and wanted that for dd1..…my 2 brothers aren't particularly close or empathetic and have become more distant since they got married...but that's just my particular family dynamic and no doubt some girls get on better with their brother rather than sister. I would also like to have experienced bringing up a son ....but I was nearly 39 when had DD2 so that was that.
I wouldn't be so awful as to put down boys/having sons. I'm sure there are wonderful sons out their and difficult daughters. You can't compare. It depends on their personality and your compatibility with each other so I would just ignore the stupid comments about which is better - all DC should be loved equally regardless of sex/gender.

I think it’s OPs attitude more than the actual thread she comes across as too much and rather frustrating.

there are plenty of people who have both genders and plenty of people who have one gender and are happy. For me I wouldn’t need to write this thread and ram it down peoples throats via comments like she has

I have two DDs and neither have had complex and conflicty social lives. They've also both had the same best friend since they were two or three years old, and they are 20 and 17 now. They are also neither very girly girls nor tomboys. And they get on well, and romp like puppies still when together! No wonder some boys behave appallingly towards girls if they are raised to think girls conform to one of two stereotypes only.

I think a lot of people are 😬

The thread is to celebrate boys and it is certainly not an attack on daughters.

My sister has one of each, her son being the oldest (18) and her daughter being the second born (16) and the relationship she has with her daughter is very different than the one she has with her son, in that on the outside they are much closer. They spend a lot of time together, they are very hands on and affectionate with each other, they speak to each other on the phone a lot etc whereas her son would far prefer to be in his room with his mates on the Xbox or down the pub with them. However, despite that my sister still has a lovely relationship with her son and when it’s just the two of them he will give her big cuddles and Ive seen random texts he sends her that simply say “Love you mum” ❤️

No doubt the differences between the relationship she has with her son and the one she has with her daughter will continue as they move into adulthood but my sister doesn’t feel she has a better or more meaningful relationship with her daughter simply because the closeness they have presents in a different way than how it does with her son.

All children are different regardless of their sex and the parent-child relationship develops based on so many factors outside of the child’s sex.

This thread was meant as nothing more than a chance for those with boys to rave about their wonderful sons to hopefully give reassurance (to women who have worries based on stereotypes) that it doesn’t matter if the 20 week scan shows the baby is a boy and not a girl because sons bring just as much joy as daughters do.

Maybe we will be hated MILs one day and maybe we won’t see our grandchildren as often as the other grandparent but hypothetical situations based on stereotypes shouldn’t have the power to take away joy from a pregnant woman who has found out she’s have going to be having a boy because they’re ace! (disclaimer added: as I’m pretty sure daughters are too).

Lame riposte 😊

Unintentionally I actually think it's really insulting to boys.

Girls are capable of deep and complex relationship which sometimes cause agro but only because of the bonds they make, according to the pp's logic. Whereas fickle boys have no emotional attachments. They sense a fellow boy, go romp with them and then never think of them again cos they're just too shallow and simple.

As a mother of boys, that's defi3not my experience with my 6 year old sons who are just as likely to go find a girl to play with as a boy, who will willingly play hairdressers if they girls want them to, who have all sorts of sweet and complex emotions and attachments. Much like girls!