When I was expecting my son, my husband and I decided that we would not find out if we were having a boy or girl. We had undergone fertility treatments and there was not much of a surprise about the pregnancy itself, so we decided to save the big reveal for the delivery room.
I didn’t have any preconceived notions about whether I wanted a son or a daughter. After all of the years I spent trying to get pregnant, I truly did not care what sex the child was, I felt truly blessed to finally have the chance to be a mother.
Female friendships have always come easily to me — I have one sister who is truly my best friend, a very close relationship with my mom and lots of really wonderful girlfriends. I have never had many friendships with guys.
Growing up, we lived in a neighborhood with lots of girls and very few boys around the same age — in fact, all of the neighborhood girls played “house” nearly every day one summer, and the only neighborhood boy was invariably cast in the roll of “Scruffy” the dog! Now fast forward to me, parenting a three year old boy!
Chase is the first (and currently only) boy on my side of the family. When he was born my mom, sister and I didn’t really know what to expect, and sometimes, we still don’t.
My husband sometimes laughs at me and says I need a male-mind manual! As my son started getting older, I was sometimes reminded of the old American nursery rhyme that notes little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” while little boys are made of “snips and snails and puppy dog tails”.
I first started noticing the difference in behavior between boys and girls when Chase began nursery school — just watching the class line up before school tells it all! The girls generally stand in a line and wait for the teacher to greet them as the boys do vertical leaps in the hall while singing silly songs and squealing with delight!
After school, the boys run to the playground for an hour to expend some extra energy before going home. Of course, this post would not be complete without mentioning little boys’ unending fascination with bathroom words! The perpetual motion aside, the Y chromosome seems to govern more aggressive imaginative play, as well.
I often wonder whether to step in while he plays “bad guys” or shoots a laser at a character in his pretend play to send him to a fiery end. I always have my character explain why that hurts and ask him to not blow up any other characters. After all, my main job as mom is to work on the emerging super ego, right?
My husband, on the other hand, does not intervene and lets the violent imaginary game play out, so long as it is not actual violence. I do not disagree with this tactic, however, I am more comfortable raising an objection than not.
These are just a few observations gathered over the first three years as a mom raising a boy. I’m sure there will be many more as the years go by but in the meantime, I’m making sure to enjoy my time with the emerging little man in my life.
How have you adapted in your role as mother to a boy or a girl? How has that changed as your kids have grown older?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Alison Charleston, an attorney gone stay-at-home mom in New York City.
Photo credit to epSos.de. This photo has a creative commons attribution license.
As mom to two boys, I totally hear you! My husband also seems to be more accepting of the more violent aspect of their play than I am. I refuse to buy toy guys for my kids and I discourage them from stuff like pointing their finger and going “bang”. My husband doesn’t buy them toy guns either, but he did get each of them a pair of boxing gloves for Christmas! (I have to be fair and say he also got them a punching bag).
Boys will forever remain a mystery to me!
Kirsten
I have one son so I can relate to this post. I grew up with two brothers and my extended families are mostly well boys so I’m used to the roughhousing and so on but yes it’s a mystery still.
Boys are fun tho’ they grow up still loving their moms (I know coz my brothers still cuddles to my mom sometimes) hahaha.
Thank you for giving me a window into our next year with our son!
As a mother to boy/girl twins I have observed inherent gender differences emerge quite naturally in each of my children’s personalities. Some of them are predictably stereotypical, others break the mold on both sides, which make me believe that it is less environment and more nature that is the driving force of their character. We try to dissuade negative behavior that emerge from both and try to teach them kindness and empathy, cause and effect, consequences of their behavior and hope for the best. Not sure what we will do when our boy starts up with guns but just like everything so far, I suspect that we will let them explore and learn, and teach them about the good and the bad. Over the long run, I am hopeful that their personalities will be formed more by the principles we teach than the imagination they use in play.
I always felt that moms of boys seemed to keep their youth for some reason. Don’t know why — just wanted to share that!
I’m a mom of girls. It’s all I know, really. Being a mother who is raising girls and who grew up with 2 sisters, I can relate to how I felt as a young girl, what types of things I was interested in at certain points in my life and relate them to points in my daughters’ lives.
If I had a boy, I would be just as thrilled, but now that I know I’m a mom of girls, it’s fun having our own girly pack!
Jen 🙂
My little girl is very active, she’s right there with the boys doing vertical leaps LOL