Q for you guys raising daughters...
 

Something that's had me wondering for a while now is the differences in behavior between the sexes as kids grow and mature. I'm an only child and have no kids of my own so all I can go by is the experiences of my friends.

My best friend has a boy and a girl about 2 years different in age. The boy has always been the typical boy, normal interests and such. He had little interest in school but seemed intelligent and tried most of the time. This has always been the case up until the last few years when he's reached his late teens. Now, he seems more focused and serious, is taking an interest in school and doing better there. Much to the joy of his mother.

Now the girl, she was always the serious student, got good grades, was very organized and well behaved. Then all Hell broke loose when she reached about 17. Her grades plummeted, she started partying constantly, drinking beer and smoking. (The smoking really confused everyone because she always hated the fact that her father smoked.) Anyway, she basically went wild from about age 17 until she turned 20 or 21. Now, thankfully, she seems to have gotten it out of her system and actually made the dean's list at university.

I have also heard from other parents that after it was all said and done, they had a better time raising boys than girls and that girls tend to turn into "the devil's spawn" when they become teenagers. Is this because girls have a much greater percieved change since they seem to be "sweet and innocent" when young whereas boys always have a certain base level of rebellion?

What are your thoughts?

that's why I have cats.

La la la..I can't hear you...la la la
:earmuffs::walkman:

Ignorance is bliss until reality punches you in the face. I'm already wincing. :)

Rope-a-dope, mister... :D

I have two daughters. They can oscilate between being the Devil's spawn one minute and little angels the next. They ARE females, of course . . . . . I don't know if the difference is related to their sex or just their personality. My son went through a little wildness as a teenage, but he has always applied himself in school and generally be a very good kid (man, now). He may be more conservative in some ways than I am.

I have one of each.

SEX AGE STRESS LEVEL FROM RAISING THEM
BOY 18 10
GIRL 16 10000

Girls are much harder to deal with than boys.
The girl went from being "Daddy's girl" at young ages to hellspawn at around 11
The boy has been steady in his personality since he was an infant

Its good to here from some of you guys with older daughters and your experiences. My daughter is 8(sons are 4 & 3)and I find it very difficult to get angry at her if she does something wrong or misbehaves. She is just daddys girl to me.:o Guess I will have to change as she gets older. My sons on the other hand seem to be 2 of the devils children(when they are together) and I don't have any difficulty in disciplining or scolding them. My wife is the exact opposite:D

I have a son, but a friend of mine with two daughters summed up the difference quite succinctly:

"When you have a boy you only worry about one penis. When you have a girl you worry about every penis."

I really know about this subject! My wife and I have raised two daughters. It has been HELL. Yes, they were sweet when they were young, but you asked what suddenly happened to them as young teens? HORMONES!!! Oh GOD the hormones in girls turn them into monsters! Both our teen girls had the worst, mouthy, wicked attitudes. Attitude, eyerolling, yelling, drama queens, grounding, police, wrecked cars, you name it... Everyone told us boys were a 100 times easier to raise. The tension around here was so bad at one time it almost caused my wife and I to split.

3 daughters, all different.

The oldest was a very difficult individual through her teen years. Turns out it had an organic cause that has been pretty much cured. She recently gave me a pay raise by getting married.

The middle one is generous and sweet. About to graduate from university. I should get a substantial pay raise from her next summer.

The youngest is a princess. Imperious, demanding, expensive. I feel sorry for the boy that marries that one.

All 3 were/are honest, hard-working and self-starters. They accept responsibility and I look forward to getting to know them as equal adults with Mrs B & me.

I'm not far ahead of you cooner, my DD just turned 9. And I have much the same problem as you. My sons are 11, 5.5 and 2 and I have no problem correcting their behavior. :o

Seems like girls save up all their misbehavin' and let it rip all at once. Boys go through horomones too and it doesn't seem to effect them the same. Probably just really dramatic PMS that lasts for a couple years...

Teenage girls are tough. My sister turned into a b**** when she was 12 and at 21 she still is.:rolleyes:

Couple years? My daughters were/are hellish attitude, drama queen, selfish from age 14 - 20. That's more than a couple years... Both in college now. Whew! Someone asked me about "emptynest"? I said," yea right, it's like someone pulling a big nail out of your head, would you miss that?"

I have two sons and a daughter. The daughter is 18 with a boyfriend(Cant stand him) and she is a senior in High School. Cheerleader, princess and all crazy stuff. My two sons where very easy to raise one is 20 and the other is 35. Girls are much much harder to rasie.

My daughter is 14. She is way too 'good'. Don't know if I can break her away from it.

3 boys, 1 girl; lots of nieces and nephews.
 

Girls are harder. Boys can be dealt with simply, directly and fairly. No drama or grudges.

Girls are just inexperienced women with all the drama and manipulation but without the sane rational foundation. Add to that the fact that they wind Daddy around their little finger when they are little which makes it harder to establish boundaries when they are teens.

Ido- Thanks for making my day and maintaining a sense of humor during your parenting endeavors. I chose not to have children and after reading some of these excerpts(sp) glad I chose not too.

Just the one 14-yr old daughter...
 

Pretty much everything has already been noted...total "Spawn of Satan" when they reach their teens! :cursing:

Their social behavior, however is more personality than gender.

Mine is generally stable, but naturally defiant. She is also much like my wife, so when those two bang heads, I go look for a quiet place somewhere else in the house! Or head outside to see if the yard needs tending... :o

Right in line with you. Cats and cars. Maybe a dog someday.:D


KarTek, to offer the perspective of someone who was a teenage girl, I think one thing that has a lot to do with it is that social pressure just affects girls differently. Little boys work out a social hierarchy at a young age ... beat each other up on the playground and sort of figure their place. Girls tend to be nonconfrontational and all get along well as little kids. Then when they all become teenagers, the boys seem to have sort of settled into a social ecology and the girls, all of a sudden are fighting for position. Most of that fighting comes in the form of cattiness and very harsh social expectations. You better be pretty and skinny and hang with the right crowd, and if not, you have to find another way to get attention. I was a little unusual in that my reaction was pretty much to avoid the social situations by burying myself in whatever nerdy obsession I could find (usually sports or horses ... now it's cars), but I had major social anxiety problems. I guess in a weird way that saved my parents a lot of trouble.:o

My parents have three girls ... my older sister followed the usual pattern ... well-behaved and accomplished as a young girl, then kind of went rebellious in high school (wrong boyfriend, threatening to run away, that sort of thing). She went off to college and it didn't take her long to right ship. Now she's married to a great guy and probably going to start a family soon. I was never much trouble. I got a little into the punk scene freshman year in high school but got rejected by the "cool kids" so many times I just ended up obsessing over grades and running track. I aced my way through college and my parents never had to worry. Now I think they worry because I'm a little too perfectionist. Oh well. My little sister, their third daughter, is educably mentally retarded. She's 24 and a wonderful kid, but will always be very dependant on them. That's worry.

We chicks do love drama though ... keep in mind girls overthink everything into the ground. We never outgrow that. We just learn to bottle it up and let the crazy out in little, more-manageable spurts.

I talked to my dad about parenting.




He said my two sisters have been hell to raise, but they eventually break out of it, and become "normal".



He said my big sister matured alot during college, and my little sister has matured a pretty good deal since starting to drive.



He maintains the fact that it was cheaper for him to maintain his cars than to maintain his daughters. :eek:

So that's why your yard and cars look so good! :D

I think college or their first real job (i.e., hitting the real world) usually does wonders. Once you get out on your own it's less fun to rebel against your parents. Especially when you need to come begging for food/money.:cool:

My dad told me that his little dog is the best kid he ever had.:D

From what I have observed from friends and peers the real world also tends to slap a lot of them into the right perspective.

Nothing like a good old full time job.:D

That's interesting... So do you all think that when girls rebel, that they specifically pick things - activities, friends, behaviors to precisely target their parents greatest fears? Is this a female only thing or do guys do the same kind of things? I never had a "rebelious" stage in life because I was kind of nerdy so I don't know what it's like.

Isn't this stuff more fun to talk about than politics? :D

I don't know about girls but I'm doing the rebelling thing now, kind of late though. Part of the fun of smoking cigars, drinking beer, and shoot guns is pissing off my parents.:D


My sister seems to just hate the world, can't find anything specific.

Not really- I have an 8yr old daughter....

Keep in mind, they are leaving out the horror stories because they don't want to remember them.

Unless you are raised around men...I was and settle my disputes quickly like a man would do. No bulls**t, no drama just get it done and move on.

Yeah, I hear you. I look at the way girls grow up too early, what they wear, how they act and I feel sorry for their dads...

Last year after my youngest daughter totaled her second car in two years, she asked how she was going to get to school and work. Her mother and I just laughed and told her she would be riding the "good old school bus" just like all the other kiddies and that she would have to "walk" to work (grocery store clerk). (BTW - the walk was about eight blocks or thirty minutes through an upper class residential neighborhood). Her reply was, I'm a senior! I don't ride school busses with children and I don't walk anywhere, work included. We informed her that she did BOTH of those things NOW. One more word and her precious cell phone would be gone permanently. She just couldn't resist... "*********s"! I said, "give me the cell phone!" she didn't think I would really take it. She slapped it in my hand, I opened it up and broke it in half.

This daughter is the kind of person that has to learn everything the hard way. She has even had problems with the police. She'll either learn or she won't...

Yikes. Although I can only imagine the headache you experienced when she wanted the first car....

After all the tickets she's received, she can't afford insurance on any car, and so doesn't drive. The streets are safer that way now... for awhile.:rolleyes:

She's not mature enough to drive. :(

That's awesome but you know she'll make you pay for that one way or another... :eek:

No, she knows we hold ALL the cards. Any crap, and we cut "everything" off. She knows not to screw with us. We are soooo tired and done with her drama and attitude and lies.

Wait until you have a little more experience under your belt...

With teens, you have to calmly - say what you mean, mean what you say and ALWAYS enforce the rules to the letter of the law. Never yell. It's a sign that you're not in control of your emotions.

I'm sorry. It didn't come out the way I meant it. I'm trying to say what you've said, that dealing with kids is a science, an often hard to practice science. As far as stating the house laws clearly and enforcing them to the letter, I'm dealing with the same thing in our house but on a simpler level. Man it's a pain some times.

The problem with teens (either gender) is that they are old enough to create adult-sized problems, but lack the depth to grasp the adult-sized consequences! And these days, they feel a sense of entitlement with everything they do. Wreck the car? So what? Parents will work out a (suitable) alternative. But if the alternative thrusts the hardships and atonement to the perp teen, then they see it as persecution...hence the seemingly illogical adolescent response to parental logic.

It may be because girls are under more scrutiny. I'd think the father is more controlling over his daughter (protecting her from eager, seedy boys and such) than his son. Obviously the more control and more rules you exert on your kids, the more they will resent you.

Once the girl goes to college with no immediate parental control she goes nuts ;)

I say this to be funny... before we had kids, wife and I talked about having an undetermined but large number of kids and being one of those perfect families you read about. All I can say is after two kids, we are DONE.

My sister was pretty good. She was a bit dramatic once a month though.....