Friday, 25 July 2008
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Boys will NOT be boys and Girls will NOT be girls!
by Mama Monkey
We all know that there are true and obvious differences between boys and girls. (At least I hope all of us on here know that. 
) But what I am talking about here is the implied or stereotypical differences. You know, the ones that say that boys play with trucks, are tougher, have shorter hair, and are less emotional and girls play with dolls, get hurt easier, have longer hair and are more 'in tune' with their emotions...just to name a few.I have three boys and have therefore, not really experienced the girl side of this. I have minimal experience with my 3 nieces. These are the examples I have to go by.
Monkey1, we have always called our drama queen! He is so sensitive and emotional about absolutely everything. We have to be very careful with how we say things to him because he can take even the smallest criticism (constructive or not) very critically. I guess he is into 'typical' boy toys, such as legos. But he is also very artsy and loves to paint and create. He also loves to play with kitchen sets (he has since he was young, so I built them one for Christmas this last year) and, when he was younger, was into playing with and taking care of dolls. That came and went around the time we had Monkey2 and I think that is pretty normal actually. So he kind of seems to be half way in between the models most of the time.
Monkey2 is a lot like the first really. The main difference being that he is an angrier child - for lack of a better description. It is not like he is always angry or anything, but he is just irritated easier and isn't quite sure how to manage those feelings yet. But that is a whole difference blog.
Then, there is Monkey3. He is what we like to call 100% boy. He is a tough little dare devil. He falls and gets hurt and jumps right back up to do it again. He does not like to cuddle, but would much rather spend some time wrestling on the floor. He wrestles his big brothers, his dad, me and our dog. He has even been known to grab a big stuffed animal and 'wrestle' it. He loves balls and trucks. He is what you think of when you think of a typical boy.
My oldest niece is 4 and she is all girl. She is totally into princesses and dressing up. She loves CareBears and dolls of all sorts. (Her sister is not old enough to tell yet.) And my third niece, who is about 1 1/2 is definitely 'built like a girl.' She is tiny all over. But, she does not play the 'typical girl' role. She is more the dare devil type, like my youngest son. Not that she is boyish, but a tiny little tom boy.
So, from the experience I have, there is no norm. Yet, this is often what people think. Men want to have their boys so they can play sports and hunt with them and women want to have their girl to do make-up and hair and shop with.
Do you think most kids fill the mold or break it?
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Comments (23)
Man, I broke that mould in half and then broke it some more. To this day I'm still not afraid of pain, and I'm always up for a daring situation (even if it gets me into trouble.....ye, I'm in trouble a lot). I'm totally not a girly girl, never mind the fact that I'm in a dress right now...I have no idea why...
Methinks these days high school girls are becoming more "boyish" whilst I keep seeing younger (preteens) girls getting girlier and girlier. It's the same for guys, except reverse! High school guys need to be tougher, while the young'ns are like Monkey1.
Mine are all boy. Haha! Gotta love having 3 boys huh? But besides that #1 is the neat freak, #2 is just grumpy and #3 is the cuddler (but he's a baby so it's a side effect haha).
I'm not a mother (I'm only 19!) but I have a lot of younger cousins I look after. I'm one of the kids that grew up as not a "girly girl"... because I was surrounded by boys. I was afraid of dolls (they are creepy sometimes), loved video games, and I always got annoyed when I couldn't do something the boys were doing because I was a girl.
A lot of my younger girl cousins play video games and my boy cousins play house with them as well. Girls like to wrestle as much as the boys do. Some of the boys in my family used to be cry babies. Really, there is no set "mold"... it's just what the kid prefers, and probably also what they're exposed to.
My two fill the mold. My daughter is a princess all around and has to wear a dress every day and when daddy rough houses with her she screams and runs LOL My son is total boy, 10 months old but will eat any live bug on the floor, loves trucks, and likes to be rough housed by daddy LOL
My niece, 4 years old now, was a pirate for Halloween when she was 2. She was a cross between a pirate and Spiderman for Halloween when she was 3. This year she wants to be Batman. Go figure.
Hehehe, I grew up as a tomboy. All my friends were boys, and we dug in the dirt, climbed trees, battled "enemies," and generally caused a ruckus in the neighborhood. Then something changed (around the time I got my first training bra, I think), and I became a girly girl. Skirts, all the time. Makeup, and carefully styled hair.
I like to think that now I'm a balance between the two. I like to dress in a feminine way, but I'm not afraid of dirt and general grossness (being the oldest of 6 kids and "second mommy" might've helped with that too). And I'm still fascinated by frogs and insects and such.
My daughter loves trucks and planes. She doesn't even let out a cry until she's really really hurt, so she's a tough little cookie. But on the other hand, she loves to look at herself in the mirror after she's in a new outfit or a cute dress. She just adores herself then. She "mothers" her stuffed animals and like to "cook" with her "pots and pans."
I come from a very large family, and have two kids of my own, and so far all of the kids pretty much fit the mold. There are girls who are more sportsy and perhaps more dare-devilish and my brother, although he loves hunting and motorcycle riding is actually really into musicals, theater and his favorite movie is "pride and prejudice. I think that there isn't a total mold, however there are some core attributes that most boys and girls have.
I have no kids yet but I can tell you that I was very boyish/tomboy growing up, my little sister was the girly drama queen (still is), and my little bro is boyish but also very sensitive. I don't believe in molds or 'roles'.
I agree with you. Growing up with a younger brother I would play with Lego's and he would play with some of my stuffed animals. I still wore pink and thought I was a mermaid. He still played pretend with cars and Transformers & he was the more sensitive one growing up! There really is no norm!
All I can say, is I worked with children for a year and a half, (toddlers - around 2 and 3 years old.) I noticed more of the little girls playing with trucks and balls, and the little boys running around with pocketbooks and playing house!
The stereotypes are irrelevant and ridiculous, if you ask me.
Children play with whatever they feel like playing with! lol. But anyways, thanks for the invite and subscription. I appreciate it =)
I grew up androgynous. I still am. I don't do boy or girl things, I do me things. The reason being I wasn't told that any certain behavior was expected of me as a child. I think I'll do the same thing for my son.
From what I've seen, most kids break the mold. But they also do the things that society expects and that perpetuates the belief "in the norm".
Growing up, I climbed trees, played with dinosaur toys, and put up a fight when I had to wear a dress. However, my favorite possession was a bright pink Barbie bike.
I guess I will disagree with everyone - I think most kids fit the typical molds. I do think everyone's molds are a bit small. EVERY kid is different so there isn't going to be 1 mold for a girl and 1 for a boy. My first boy is very sensitive (much like yours). Can be very whinney, emotional, etc. But you put him next to my niece and it is like night and day. He might be more sensitive than the stereotypical boy, BUT he is still nothing compared to her. He will run and tackle her and she will be mad for like an hour about it when he has forgotten what he even did. I bought my son dolls constantly and he never played with one. He does like to cook on his "cookin' " though. His favorite is cars and now action figures. I work at a LARGE church in the children's department and although there are obvious mold breakers, I would say about 90% of the kids fit my "mold" of a boy or a girl....
omg! my three boys follow the SAME criteria! lol. i wonder if its a birth-order thing? anyway, my oldest, SUCH the drama king, which is why he does well with his modeling and acting. really. its a perfect fit. my middle one: the anger. yes. sidenote: what do YOU do to help him learn how to release those strong feelings without hurting others or himself? and my youngest: earlier today he came running to me with his fingers in a pinch position saying, "Momma, buggy!" No idea what kind of "buggy" he had picked up this time, but i instructed him to put it back outside... sigh.
and me, well, i was nervous at first about the possibility of having a girl because i was not the *typical* girl, as they say. Drove my mother crazy because she is ALL about the social roles (boys take out the garbage, girls do the dishes, boys work on cars, girls knit and sew...) I just dashed all her hopes on that one - I even wore white combat boots underneath my wedding dress! :) I think she may have cried.
how about a new saying? instead of "boys will be boys..." how about we say "kids will be kids!" because i think that fits better than anything. they are free - without the constraints yet to be placed on them for societal behavior and just about every action they do is just them being true to themselves. :) Maybe we could learn something from that...
you know what though, now that i am reminded... my youngest has a bit of "girl" in him too because he carries around his "purse" whenever we go out... its an old purse of mine, but when its time to go, he turns and says, "Where's my purse?" and he carries it on his arm... so funny...
As a the youngest daughter, I have the girliest older sister (as girly as a stripper can be) and I seem to be the oldest son and the youngest daughter. I play video games more than most guys I know and I am getting my cosmetologist's license. Seems like everyone fits different molds.
@mamaseahorse - With Monkey 2 and his anger, I just try to talk him through it and help him put words to his feelings. What I have heard/read is that kids act out their feelings the way they do because they don't know how else to express them. We will sit together and do 'deep breaths' and then talk about what he was feeling and why once he calms down. He still has his explosions, but it is a work in progress.
I think that it is precious how you refer your children as Monkeys 1 - 3!
it depends if you socialize your kids to fit the mold or not ... if people would just let kids be , then kids would grow up with more freedom , openmindedness and less issues regarding self-esteem / body image / identity ...
that's true; my little brothers are complete opposites; the older one is really friendly, sensitive, & somewhat feminine, because he loves gossiping, evesdropping, & doing other 'girly' things. but the younger one is sly, violent, apathetic, etc. while i'm more of a tomboy, & my two older brothers are just...'normal' boys, so stereotypes don't really apply anymore, to anyone! =]
I think most kids break the mold in one way or another. At least...the boy-blue girl-pink mold. I wasn't exactly a tomboy growing up (at least I didn't think so at the time) but I liked My Little Ponies,animals, Star Wars and playing outside way more than Barbie. I grew up with a younger brother and a fairly non-girlie mom. Most of my friends are men to this day. Some of them gay, (some of them bi) some of them straight.
In most of the kids (an admittedly small number) I've interacted with in the past couple of years, I've noticed a less rigid adhesion to the gender stereotypes you're talking about. I haven't really noticed a lessening in the clique stereotypes that occur from about elementary school onward. Which I think is interesting. And there are gender stereotypes that go along with the clique stereotypes, but they aren't so much stand-alone anymore.
Interesting question.
This "mold" wouldn't even be a mold if society hadn't made it that way. I highly doubt, besides some natural physiological differences, that girl and boys would be doing the same stereotypical activities if our society (and past societies!) hadn't brought them up to behave that way. Note, it's not the parents, but our culture as a whole that teaches this.
It starts from the day they are born. Baby boys get blue blankets, and baby girls get pink blankets. Even though there is nothing inherently "Boyish" about the color blue, nor is there anything inherently "Girlish" about the color pink. This is societal meaning projected onto colors, activities, and expectations for children.
I'm not saying fitting the mold is bad. I fit the mold in many ways. I just want to be clear that it doesn't have to be that way... that it's not absolute truth. I'm sure u knew that though!
Break that mold!