I know that my children are familiar with this posturing. And I suppose when things threaten to get chaotic I fall back on my training and enter teacher-mode. I suppose also that raising a houseful of boys is not so much different from managing a classroom. I was a special education teacher for most of my adult life. And then I do a follow-up to confirm that directions have been followed. I give directions in a series of distinct steps and then I repeat the directions for the sake of clarity. And as I write this I can almost hear the guffaws and snorts of my mommy-friends who know from experience that I am spectacularly understating my case here. In my own experience I may be guilty of that. The other being that perhaps the dynamic between mothers and sons is that different. This may be the result of several forces at work: one being that perhaps the less precocious baby boys did seem to need more help. The mothers of boys were full of help and hints and in some cases actually finished the task for their sons. The mothers of girls encouraged them to keep trying hard. I read something once about a study that observed mothers and babies working on a problem solving task. Mothers for instance are found to encourage independence in girls while being solicitous of boy babies. All the above may well be true but there are other researchers who suggest that the way babies of one sex or another are socialized by their mothers exacerbates the traits they are hardwired for. I never got the opportunity to confirm this theory. I had a professor who once told me that if one first gave birth to a girl and then a boy, one would be certain that the second baby was not normal so slow they would seem in comparison to their sister. They develop faster, potty train earlier, are easier to wean, are more verbal, more independent, and more emotionally savvy. And there were some general truths that I learned in developmental psychology texts. And having once almost been an actual girl, I knew something of how they functioned. I came into this family we created with all manner of knowledge about the workings of the dynamics between mothers and daughters. But I have never before been privileged to see how they get made. They are not competitive, have no sub textual agendas, and are honest in the absolute. Men are deliciously uncomplicated once the prospect of coupling is taken out of the equation. My husband just shakes his head, my mother just rolled her eyes and sighed, my single female friends want introductions to all the straight, eligible and unmarried ones though there are not too many of those. Young and old, near and far, gay and straight, old lovers and the permanently platonic, relatives by blood or marriage friends from work, or the theatre, or from childhood, armfuls of nephews and cousins. I birthed several of them, was raised in a houseful of males and have what my mother would certainly consider to be a shocking and unseemly number of sustained long term relationships with several men friends. Awash as I am in this sea of testosterone that I live in, and drown in, the only female living with five men, believe me, I’ve noticed. This is continually pointed out to me by my friends who are mothering daughters.
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