If I had a My Little Pony for every person whose smiled and exclaimed how lucky we are for having girls, followed by some sing song comment like “at least you don”t have boys” or “I”d trade my boy for three girls any day”, followed by light hearted peels of laughter, then I would be a freakin” Princess of Pony Land. Stop telling me girls are easier than boys.
Ok, I don”t have any boy children. I”d imagine they are different to girl children. I am in no doubt there are marked differences, but I would not say either child is “easier” than the other. And I surely wouldn”t generalise as to how they are different. You see, I”ve met many a quiet, gentle boy. I have also met many a loud, rush around, aggressive girl. I have also met boys who never sit still and like to randomly bash shit with other shit. I have also met boys who spend much of their day playing with barbies and wearing princess outfits. To assume that inattentive, violent, ants in pants behaviour is inherently a boy characteristic is just plain naive. The same applies to painting girls with the pink, sparkly, placid brush.
One thing I am fairly certain of after having three children of the same sex is their differences are based on their personality. They came out of me with their personality well and truly intact. Yes, my girls like doing craft and watching Barbie movies. They also like climbing up the inside of door frames like spiders and have an extensive collection of online casino nbso much-loved Lego. They have questionable hygiene, have problems leaving toilets fresh and have no qualms sleeping in a bed of biscuit crumbs.
Having girls makes life no easier than someone who has boys. They still eat all of the time. They talk all of the time. They do craft all of the time which involves much bickering over supplies and often ends with me sitting alone doing the project while they play outside. And then me cleaning it. They fight – verbally, mentally and physically. They scream. They demand bandaids for scratches. They wet their bed. They have tantrums. They make loads of noise. They have very short attention spans – swapping between building, to making, to singing, to eating, to more eating, to demanding stuff, to fighting, to climbing, to watching tv, to playing on the computer, to collecting rocks, to whatever they damn well want. All of the time wanting.
They have their own individual needs. They are people who live and breathe and worry and laugh and cry and live fully. They suck everything out of life and sometimes everything out of my life too.
And then when they need it, they sit. They read, they cuddle, they lay upside-down on the couch watching a movie, they draw, they put on puppet shows and plays, they dance, they learn, they”re brave, they get their highest score in a video game, they squeal with joy, they bake, they hold hands, they chat, they sit quietly in the garden tending to their fairy homes and then sometimes they go to sleep at a reasonable hour and don”t sneak into our bed. And they give the best kisses imaginable.
I suppose what I”m trying to say is don”t assume, based on antiquated gender stereotypes, that you have it in any way easier based on the genitals of your child. All children are hard work. All children come with their own challenges. All children are amazing, complex and wonderful.
To say a girl is easier than a boy implies some sort of compliance. It just reinforces everything we are trying to dismantle. Girls and boys are unique, but none are “easier”.
bigwords x
Hi, I'm Bianca Wordley, I write about life.
Brilliant post. So well said. I have one of each and neither of them ‘fit’ the stereotype for their gender.
I get this all the time. “You’re so lucky to have girls, at least they sit still and don’t climb all over things” is one comment that comes to mind. When I eventually stopped laughing I said, “Have you met my kids?!” but I wish I’d asked if they thought I’d given birth to statues rather than actual human people.
I have two of each and how ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ they are at any given moment has nothing to do with their gender!
But oh people do love to ‘make conversation’ and say ‘harmless little things’ like that don’t they…. pity it is not always ‘harmless’ for these stereotypes to be perpetuated, especially in front of our kids.
I am the opposite. I have 3 boys & have always been told boys are much easier than girls, especially when they hit their teens. Well I have a teenage boy & he is HARD FUCKING WORK!!! All 3 of my boys are different, different in personality, looks & interests ( ok so the youngest is only 9 months old but so far hes not like the other two!).
What upsets me is that people seem to think your life isnt complete unless you have a child of each sex. When I told people I was pregnant with our 3rd baby I was continually shocked how many people said ” oh I bet youre hoping for a girl?” Well no, I’m hoping for a healthy baby, I don’t care what it is was my reply & it was the truth. After 3 miscarriages & some scary test results for the third baby all I wanted was to hold a baby in my arms again.I was so surprised when people were upset for me when they found out we were having another son- even people in our own family!It happened again this pregnancy too- everyone thought we would be hoping for a daughter to ” finish off our family”. I tried really hard to not let it get to me because we just wanted to add to our family, regardless of what the gender would be.
Well we ARE going to have a daughter & the first thing people talked about were 1. How much fun I’d have buying pink stuff. I HATE pink & have told everyone we will be avoiding it as much as possible until she cn chose it for herself. 2. How fun it will be to ” have a little princess”. No. My daughter is not getting that lumped on her already. I relpy with ” my daughter will be a queen, not a princess. She will be second to nobody & she will hold the power!” People stare & don’t know how to reply but why do little girls HAVE to be princesses?? 3. She will be a ” daddy’s girl”….Why all the stereotypes? Why do each gender get lumped into togteher BEFORE THEY ARE EVEN BORN? Sorry for the rant but it really bugs me!
Reannon I know exactly what you mean on the princess front. My daughter is not a princess, in fact I’ve banned princess stories in this house. Fairies I don’t mind, but the thought of her being saved by some man is not my cup of tea. We have a boisterous house with three kids very close together (boy twins aged 5 and girl aged 3) and I think the chaos comes from the amount of kids and their age not necessarily their gender.
I had two boys then a girl. I lost count of the mount of times people would say how lovely it was that we FINALLY got a girl, or will we be stopping now because we have a girl? I found it really rude, it somehow implied that we could not have been content without a gender balance with our children, or that we were in some way disappointed that our middle child was the same sex as our first, or that we would have been disappointed had our youngest been another boy.
People can be dicks. Xx