By Ellen
I grew up with sisters. There wasn't a lot of roughhousing or physical clobbering in our house. No, we preferred the ladylike approach to fighting -- emotional clobbering. We'd whisper to my youngest sister, "Sara is just your nickname. Your real name is Fred." She'd be horrified and run to ask my mother. We perfected the Silent Treatment. Or we'd just insinuate that the other's bangs were flat on top (the ultimate no-no in the '80s.)
My husband, on the other hand, had two brothers. They had BB gun wars, forced slug-ingesting, mud fights, and spit-sucking torture (don't ask -- it's gross). They were always getting hurt. Quite a difference from my youth. I barely recall ever getting dirt on my clothes. (Maybe if Barbie took a ride through the mud with her Jeep...)
In fact, the only time I was seriously injured was when my male cousins came to visit one Thanksgiving. We were goofing around on our couch when one of them jumped on my arm. SNAP! My sisters and I were so proud of my cast. A real injury! Nobody ever gets a real live arm cast from the Silent Treatment.
Boys and girls are just innately different. Of course, you get the sensitive boys and the tomboy girls, but from the beginning, they are just different. I think that each requires different parenting tactics.
My friend, Shelley, has one 3-year-old girl, Sadie. When she is around, I hear Shelley say things like, "Please don't throw the Russian nesting dolls. Thank you." "Let's not run." Stuff like that. I haven't seen too many injuries with Sadie. My friend, Mindy, on the other hand, has two little boys, ages one and two. When she is around, I hear "Not in the eye! Not in the eye!" "For Pete's sake, just don't hit him in the head." and "Come down from there!" Their parenting goals are very different. Shelley tries to ward off any impending scuffs, whereas Mindy mainly tries to keep the damage to a minimum.
I don't know if God will ever bless us with a little boy. If so, it will be quite a change for me. I never had brothers or nephews or such. But I'm sure that I'll figure out what to do… even if it's just preventing a few slugs from getting eaten.
I must be doing something wrong. My 10 and 8 year old girls, left unchecked, will hit, punch, kick, scatch, pull hair etc... and then my 5 year old son is very gentle.
Posted by: Amber | October 15, 2005 at 04:32 PM
I too, was raised with a sister and rarely had boys around. My first born? A boy. My two step-children? Boys. HUGE difference in every way. However, as we're planning on having more children, if I ended up giving birth to ALL boys, it would be okay. I'll just play Barbies in secret....
Posted by: onewithcat | September 18, 2005 at 03:23 PM
Sisters have their own special brand of torture. You're right--with three sisters in my house, we didn't wrestle or spit. But we did tie our youngest sister to the downstairs bannister and said 'we're going to play hide and seek. When you figure out how to get out of that thing, you come find us.' The guilt haunts me to this day.
Oh, and once I threw the top of a phone at my sister in a rage and it bruised her ankle terribly. I don't think I'm that sorry for that one. I'm sure she was showing me her list of chores all checked off while I hadn't even started mine. Smug little bastard.
El--thanks for the mention! :)
Posted by: Shelley | September 09, 2005 at 04:00 PM
My sister told me that I was actually born in a coconut. The story went that my parents were walking down the beach and found an ugly little thing in the sand just outside a coconut. They felt bad for the "thing" so they brought it home. Nice, huh?
Posted by: Cathy | September 06, 2005 at 08:59 PM
I'm not sure if the differences are really based on innate boy/girl differences or they way we treat boys and girls differently. Either way, it's also interesting to see the differences between girls who don't have brothers and those who do. I know a few girls (including me, when I was a child) who could rough house it with the best of them. I wish I'd known about the spit sucking torture. Sounds more interesting than enticing my brother to eat mud. :-)
Posted by: Kat | September 03, 2005 at 10:52 PM
Oh, I am way familiar with the Spit Sucking Torture. My brother would add a little flair and pretend to be cranking it in and out of his mouth.
Posted by: mindyr | September 03, 2005 at 12:24 PM
My brother was brutal...to the point of being sadistic. He would pin me to the ground and drool in my face and I couldn't scream because his drool would get in my mouth.
Yeah. Beat that.
Posted by: amy | September 03, 2005 at 11:10 AM