Is it sexist to say boys and girls are different? I mean beyond physical differences, aren't we all the same at our core?
No.
As soon as you bring home your little bundle wrapped in blue the realization starts to dawn. All of those years staring at your partner wondering why his mother didn't do more? Couldn't she tame that animal spirit? Tone down the dust storm? Yeah, it was hopeless from the beginning. You probably owe her an apology.
The difference lies in how we express ourselves. Girls use their heads, not so much thinking although that too, but they use their mouths with a stream of words that flow with every inhale and exhale. Their eyes not only absorb but also flow. Women can TALK with their eyes, not just "come hither" looks but mothers telling their children to pipe down or a full dialog between friends with a simple roll of eyes.
Boys use their other five limbs. Yes, I am including the little dingle-hopper between their legs. If they use their head, it will be as a sixth limb, usually to clobber something. Using the head as a legit soccer move was most definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, invented by a boy.
That's not to say girls aren't physical because they are. That's not say girls can't be rambunctious because they are. But there is an intensity to the physical nature of boys that make girls seem... delicate. Being physical is the first option for a boy. He will ram into, stomp, hit, jump, or run before anything else.
(OMG, while writing this my husband just turned on The Andy Griffith Show which drives me INSANE. The whistling theme song comes on, I look up, then look over to him with a KILL look. He grins and without a word, changes the channel. Yes, we women TALK with our eyes. A smart man will learn to listen with his eyes. Or die.)
You would think this physical boyness would hit sometime in the grade school years when other boys would have influence. Or maybe as early as pre-school? Or when his father displays his own boyishness? Nope, right from the start, all on his own, without any other male influence. There is something with those rapid leg thrusts or his deep, demanding squawk. He is learning very early on how to use his body at its full physical maximum.
He will discover his penis about the time he can grab his toes. His fascination with his toes will wane as soon as he can fully sit up, but not that other appendage. That is a life-time fascination. It will be up to you to teach him that it is not proper to display it, touch it, talk about it or in any other way wield that thing in public. And good luck when he discovers peeing. When I worked at a daycare center I once had to go into the boys bathroom to break up a Star Wars style pissing contest between four boys standing at the urinals. They were gleefully crossing streams and making the WORST MESS EVER.
And gadgets. Oh my God, the gadgets. It starts with toys
and ends with, well, toys. Golf clubs, cars, game adapters, cell
phones, remote controls, lawn mowers, computers, or power tools. These
are all just extensions of their limbs. Yes, again, women use, even
collect all of these devices, but we just don't weild them with the same
intention or intensity. We use tools for an end, to accomplish a
task. For boys using the tool IS the task.
I think they see, hear, taste, and feel the world in a language us mothers cannot comprehend. Like a dog whistle, it's something we simply can't hear. My 2 year old grandson was playing at my house. I finally halted his non-stop motion to change his diaper. It was impossible to pull down his pants with his pockets jammed packed with something. One by one I pulled out five big, white rocks. I do not have any white rocks in my yard. These rocks arrived with him. I changed his diaper and redressed him and handed him his rocks which were promptly shoved back into his pockets. Then he toddled over to my collection of pretty stones and started to pocket them as well! When I tell women this story they laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Men look blankly at me with, "well, of course he would."
Boys aren't all muscle and no feeling. Their feelings, however, are usually expressed physically. A girl will take her most cherished items and proudly display them on neatly dusted shelves, never touched, only to be admired. Boys take their favorite items straight to the backyard, run them through the dirt, hang them from a tree, strap them on bicycles, splattered in mud. The most egregious thing a mother could ever do is wash her son's favorite stuffed animal. Through the muck and indiscernible stains we stitch the ear back into place and promptly sanitize our hands.
Boys are caught off-guard that not everyone sees the world through their curious little eyes. A girl will wail for days on end about her poor decapitated doll. Her brother amused the lawn mower can make such a precision cut is suddenly wrought with guilt not for the damage he caused to his sister's toy, I mean that's what you DO with toys, right? No, he's sorry his actions hurt her. He can't fix it, he can't make her stop feeling sad. Years after she rebounded with new favorite toys, he will still ache for the pain he caused her.
Our little boys, in reality, are tender hearted creatures.
A year and a half ago, my ex-husband's father passed away. He was a sweet man who loved his family, even those of us that married into and divorced out. Love was his tool, and he wielded it expertly. Losing Ralph rippled through the community, but shattered his family. Everyone rallied around expressing the love they had so warmly received.
At his funeral I sat at the back of the church next to my mom, my brother, and his wife. My father-in-law had touched many people and it was only right that my family came to pay their respects. In the first pew my ex-husband, a big, lumbering biker, a former Marine crumbled, devastated and whimpering in his wife's arms. At the other end my daughter still managing to dribble tears after days of non-stop crying was curled up next to her boyfriend. Behind her sat my two sons, ages 15 and 23. They sat stoically in a boyish silence unsure what to do with all of this grief around them. They were used to seeing their sister cry but seeing their dad so dismantled was surely unnerving.
I don't remember what was said, but whatever it was it struck my sons simultaneously. The bricks their physical boyishness had encased around each of them suddenly crumbled. Tears rolled out, big sobbing tears out of both of them. Grandpa Ralph was dead, and they hurt. A lot. Shaking and trembling they threw their arms around each other. Maternal instinct thrust me out of my seat just short of climbing over all of those pews and I ran to them. Suddenly I had my arms around my two little boys, devastated and hurting. If they could have crawled up on my lap, they would.
Having sons can be a challenge. Boys jump and leap, run, and headbump, all with vigor. Things will be broken and "clean" will be an eternal quest. As you clean out pockets filled with mysterious white rocks from a bouncing little boy with smudges on his face, never forget underneath it all is the most fragile heart of any creature you will ever meet. It is our jobs as mothers to protect that heart and make sure that it doesn't get buried and trapped under all of the toys and gadgets, bricks and stones they clutter around themselves as a shield.
There is nothing on earth like a little boy.
