Marilyn
Last September the noon news showed a piece about the common challenges teachers face with little boys and little girls. The newscaster reported that boys often have poor penmanship, have trouble sitting still and cause disruptions with fighting. Little girls are often timid, are unhappy if they can't sit close to one another and have physical complaints without known cause.
Now, I perked up when I heard that last one because just that very morning Marcy had pointed out that if she wrinkled up her nose "it really hurts". My answer was stating the obvious, "Then don't wrinkle your nose, Honey."
That evening, after I tucked her in and kissed her good night, she stalled my exit by complaining that her shoulder hurt.
"It'll be OK, Sweetheart. Good night. I'll see you in the morning". The morning came with sore legs from P.E. "That happens when we use muscles we haven't used in a long time. Now get ready for school."
God forbid she breaks her wrist or something. I'd be forced to say, "It's just fine, Honey, now go to sleep."
Caryl
When it comes to hypochondria little girls do not have it cornered. I live with a child who would like nothing more than to get a neck brace as a birthday gift. It's finally beginning to wane now but for a while there we owned more splints and knee braces and crutches than most hospitals. Every hurt, every pain had to be the sign of a major injury. He was darn good at the acting part too. Before we caught on, he had us back and forth to the doctor ten times. After the x-rays showed nothing and Bryce got a little sympathy from some unsuspecting nurse, we would usually leave the doctor's office with a sling or some other injury accessory. When we went shopping, I used to have to plead with him to remove his equipment so people wouldn't jump to incorrect conclusions after seeing a five-year-old on crutches wearing a neck brace with a sling on his arm.
This is my fault isn't it? Did I miss that child development chapter? The only other possible theory is that this whole thing was not unlike participating in yet another sport. As with all sports, the sport of being injured required lots and lots of equipment. We all know that the better equipment a player has, the better he is at the sport. Right?
One winter there was a horrible cold going around, everyone we knew had it. I went in early one morning to wake Bryce for school and he rolled over and said in a most pathetic voice "Mommy, my head hurts and I have a sore throat." Well I immediately suckered in, rationalizing that "It was going around..." and besides, I thought, I'll give him an extra dose of that Triaminic and it'll be a quiet day. (Oh come on, we all know, they're so good when they're sick....)
Well, he would have been if he had truly been sick. Everywhere I went in the house that day I could hear his little pitter patter behind me. In order to get him to keep up the game I would say "How are you feeling Honey..."
To which he would muster up in his best fake sore throat voice..."I'm feeling a little better."
After a morning of this charade I tried to bust him, "C'mon Bryce you're not really sick are you...?"
Not one to go down without a fight he would put the histrionics in full gear. He would start coughing and sniffling and really working it up and then say " See ?... I am sick."
To which I could only say "Yeah, then if you have a cold,
why are you limping ?" Gotcha!
Marilyn
Having had kids which represent each gender, I've noticed some unique characteristics. While both have healthy, active imaginations, each go about fulfilling that potential in decisively alternate ways. One hot summer day, the neighborhood kids, ages seven, eight and nine, were all swimming in our pool. I observed that the little girls would swim more often in the shallow end. They were pretending they were otters. There was a mommy otter and two sister otters. The mommy otter was teaching her children how to swim on their backs with clams on their chests. Meanwhile the boys were seeing how far into the middle of the pool they could jump. I heard an inventive Billy exclaim, "I know, I'll fart!" Apparently he thought his gas would propel him farther into the pool.
I noted how this quality plays itself out in the the classroom during art class. The teacher brought in lots of junk: little wood blocks, empty spools of thread, tin foil, pipe cleaners etc. and a glue gun. The assignment was to make some sort of space vehicle. The boys' pieces were huge with most of the concentration going toward elaborate weapons on the front portion. The girls' vehicles were of small to moderate sizes with complicated color patterns of "lights" made out of buttons circling the ship. Lucy was fixated on making little curtains for the little windows and Lola discovered some fabric that made a "perfect carpet". I pointed this out to another parent-helper and she simplified it for me: Boys want to obliterate while girls want to decorate.
Caryl
Boys want to obliterate is right. . . what boy do you know who doesn't turn every object into a gun? From the moment they were born everything became a gun... Legos, sticks, blocks, even their own penis' in the bathtub (and they say there's no connection between that member and power).
I tried to direct them away from violence and the harder I tried the more they craved the ninja lifestyle. They longed to be Superman and Spiderman and Batman. They wore pajamas with capes that became streetwear. The motivation to play with building blocks was fueled only by the joy of tearing it down. This is clearly a gender thing.
It has always been about guns and balls in our house. If you can't blow it up or bounce it there is no point in owning it. I would only notice it when a friend would come over with her daughter. My boys used to line up all their action figures in a row and one by one shoot them down with some ball like object, while at the same time making elaborate sound effects. They especially loved to act out dying themselves. We didn't have too many cross-gender toys so when the girls came over to play, they would line up the same action figures and pose them in friendly non-combat positions with their accessories/weapons displayed all pretty, like in a Nordstrom's window.
I tried giving my boys dolls. They simply became hostages, so I gave up and gave in. Maybe that's why they are so comfortable living in rooms that resemble war zones now.
Marilyn
As I watch my daughter grow, I notice how some of the stronger traits in women manifest themselves early on. For example: There's the time when the neighborhood kids were all playing and I asked why the girls kept marching in from the front yard to the office and then back out again. Marcy reported, "We're keeping a list on the computer of every time the boys are rude. On the tenth rude thing, we print it and give it to their parents!" Men just don't stand a chance.
Even now, when I ask Marcy about school, she'll go into long stories about how Paul got in trouble for not singing and how she didn't think it was right because she noticed that Paul wasn't himself all day and could be coming down with something. She'll describe with sympathy how her friend, Julia, was having a hard day because she was upset about her parents' divorce. She reported that her friend liked both houses, but Julia's room at her father's house was real big with only a little bit of furniture in it and she felt lonely in there. On the other hand, her dad had a really cute dog. Marcy commented to me that she's glad her room is on the small side. In these two examples Marcy observes, communicates, gives her opinion, prognosticates and sympathizes. When I ask my boys how school is, they reply, "OK" and no amount of prodding gets me more.
The first time I ever flew First Class I had to meet Caryl in Cleveland, so I traveled alone. There was only one other person in the cabin; a very nice woman with a gauze bandage over one eye. By the time we took off, I knew about her son's problem in third grade, her husband's midlife career change and what she wanted in the way of new curtains for the living room. As we traveled across the plains, she heard about my breast reduction, Richard's vasectomy reversal and what drugs I requested during childbirth. Just before we landed she explained that she had to wear that patch for a few weeks because she had gotten an aneurysm from masturbating. She explained that at the moment of orgasm a blood clot was released and somehow went to her eye. I wished her good luck and we both went on our own ways. My husband flew up north last week and when I asked him how the flight was, he replied, "OK".
Communication isn't the only thing that demonstrates our gender differences. Let's talk about priorities -- see if you've ever been in this situation . . . Marcy's seventh birthday plans were elaborate. Parents were to drop off their children at 1:00, by 1:15 Richard and I, each in separate cars, were to drive the kids to Great America Amusement Park arriving at approximately 2:00. We were scheduled for "The Party Room" from 2:15 till 2:45 when the Caseman family would take it over for little JoAnna. At around 12:50, Richard took his car to get gas. I waited, paced, tapped my foot and stood at curb side with eight anxious children until 1:30.
Trying, but not succeeding, to contain my frustration and temper, I asked, "What the hell took so long?" He explained that he did get the car gassed, but decided to have it washed and on the way home he stopped very quickly at a garage sale. He then showed me his bargain: a little round, silver ice bucket with penguins embossed on the sides. Apparently he hadn't noticed that it was identical to the one we just got rid of at our garage sale.
What made him forget the time schedule of the party? What could possibly have gone through his mind? Did he say to himself, "I realize that I should get right back, kids are waiting for me, but the car's exterior is so darn unsightly this way." And, "Look! A garage sale! Wouldn't it be something if I found Marcy a birthday present here, right now? Would ya look at that ice bucket! I bet we could use one of these at home!" ? I know I sound like a condescending, irritated wife. There are some that would readily use the word bitch here, but I don't think a female dog could be as pissed off as a wife!
Caryl
It certainly seems that women and men, and girls and boys have a very different approach to life. Now, the girls are starting to call my pre-adolescent son, and by the sounds of the conversations, the girls are far more astute in using the phone as a tool. The phone, to girls, is like the guns were to the boys-- pure power. The other day a group of eleven year old girls called and asked Eric "What are you wearing?" (It seems it was an attempt to be provocative, if there is such a thing at eleven). Maybe they had picked up on some Melrose Place phone flirting scene.
Well, Eric had no idea, nor did he care, why they would ask such a stupid question. He answered simply, "Basketball shorts and a T-shirt, why?"
When you think about it, that represents a lot of marriages in a nut shell. He was not picking up on it at all. His wiring just wasn't allowing him to go there. The girls, on the other hand, have all these illusions and fantasies that they have spent hours working on before they even made the call. These girls are actually conferencing three people in on the calls these days. "Who likes who", is going around the class at lightening speed. Little do they know it's wasted on the boys who have no clue what's happening inside those female heads. If only I could be young again. They are ruling the world from one eleven year old's bedroom.
There is nothing like the "raising boys vs. girls" topic to get parents all fired up. Now we all know there are certain things that fall right down very gender specific lines. It's only when we get backed into a corner that we are not willing to admit to them. It's either that, or our need to defend the weaknesses in our children. I have a friend with three boys and nothing sends her more than an off-handed remark like, "I can't believe your house is so clean with all those boys!" To her, this is not a compliment but a slam. To me, it would be a compliment. They are messy when left to their own devices. Yes, there are men who are clean and neat and tidy, but I'll bet you it was because they were well trained by a woman.
The assumption that we can not be happy living only with boys, that gets under my skin too. I actually had a neighbor that dropped by with her daughter in her first communion whites simply to say, "See what you'll be missing."
I thought, "How dare she assume that I am pining away for a daughter." I'm perfectly happy raising two boys and I don't feel the need to go out and get my husbands sperm spun to get a daughter. I always knew I would have boys. They say God gives you what you can handle. Well, I'm low on patience and doubt I could've handled a smaller version of myself. I admit there are days when I need to get out with some gentle non-wrestlers, days when I need some female bonding, but I do love being the only girl around. I love being needed and adored for the gentleness I bring to their lives and I love the raucous wild behavior they bring to mine.
Boys become men and men have a much better "bigger picture" philosophy than women. It seems to me that they don't get bogged down in the details of living and this makes them much more efficient. They also plow ahead, never checking the temperature of "feelings" and "emotions" the way we girls do. I read somewhere that it's because of this that men actually raise much more independent children. We mothers are constantly stepping in to fix everything, rarely leaving anything to be discovered or learned and then wonder why we are surrounded by ineptness. I hate to admit it, but it is our own fault. You'll never see my husband running a water bottle out onto the football field because Bryce looks thirsty. You'll never see him bringing a jacket to our sons when the weather turns cold. He rarely makes school lunches, if he makes them at all, it's not very well, so the boys learn they are better off doing it themselves rather than having the jelly running out the sandwich and making the baggie all sticky. I would rather die than make a sandwich like that.
Men are just plain better at training for independence. Now, whether or not they do it intentionally is a whole other story and I'm certainly not willing to give them credit for that.