Before Harry met Sally

Forget men and women, I'm not sure boys and girls can be friends.

Colter used to play with female friends all the time, but today we were babysitting a female friend of his and suddenly I was confronting all kinds of conflicts I haven't faced with him before.

We went to an indoor play space called "Great Explorations," which had a special "block party" today with a hay maze, petting zoo, paint-your-own-pottery, and all the regular exhibits: a pretend pizza kitchen, science stuff, musical instruments, and more.

Colter didn't want to go in the petting zoo, but the little girl wanted to play with the bunnies, so he stood outside the fence and watched us. Colter didn't want to paint the pottery, but the little girl did. Eventually, Colter changed his mind. Colter didn't want to make a fake pizza (or even pretend to eat one), so he played nearby while I watched the girl cook and serve.

Suddenly, he's becoming sexist, I fear. And I don't get it. He had his own Barbie as a toddler; he has a working mother; he lives in a home where the man does all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Oh, maybe that's why?

Or maybe he's becoming sexual. For the first time today, he also didn't want to pretend to be this little girl's brother.

And it's always possible that their interests are just diverging, related to gender or unrelated.

Whatever the cause, I'm beginning to wonder can boys and girls be friends?

Comments

[feras]

hi

[toni]

There's a really interesting book by Deborah Tannen called, You Just Don't Understand, which explored some of these issues. It's been out a long time, and honestly, I couldn't find my copy to make sure I was remembering the title correctly, but she did a lot of observations about how boys and girls socilize themselves differently in spite of parents or teachers trying to be gender neutral. Since I had two boys who grew up where the dad was by far the better cook / cleaner, it boggled my mind to watch them make some of the choices they made.

[Robin]

Rich's sister has a 6 year old son and 12 year old daughter. When the kids are together (and this has been since the little ones were about 3 years old) it's usually the girls who will play together. Ryan and Lillianna are the same age but Ryan wants to play with very different things than Lillianna. Marissa, who is almost 12, can play with Lillianna for hours doing girl things.
It's hard because Ryan gets left out sometimes if he doesn't want to be the dad playing house.

I don't think Colter is becoming sexist. I think kids have different likes and dislikes. I'm not sure about all this.It's just a guess. So let me know what happens.

[Angie]

Hmmm...I see it too. The girls play with the neghbor boys down the street and are constantly coming in a telling me the "bad things" the boys have been doing. Things like throwing the ball at the house and hitting each other with sticks. Things my prissy little girls would NEVER do (at least not when the boys are around). I think you are right about diverging interests. They do show different interests from a very early age.

[AGK]

They can. Maybe more once they get past the usual stuff that comes up at around 7,8, whatever. My 13YO has several very good female friends. Even if they "go out" and it doesn't work out, they remain friends. And my younger children, a boy and a girl, are best friends with each other.