Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment
How would two sets of parents – one with girls and one with boys – cope if they swapped children for a weekend. Would they need to alter their childcare tactics? And how much blood would be spilled? By Jon Robins and Bibi van der Zee
Jon Robins and Bibi van der Zee
Toy guns and teacups
How would two sets of parents – one with girls and one with boys – cope if they swapped children for a weekend. Would they need to alter their childcare tactics? And how much blood would be spilled? By Jon Robins and Bibi van der Zee
Gender agenda: Mike and Bibi Herd, right, with their children Sam, Ben and Joe; and Jon and Juliet Robins, with their children, Bea and Eve. Photograph: Andrew Hasson
Jon Robins
“So you’re just observing, not intervening, then?” my wife asks. Chaos has descended more swiftly than either of us anticipated.
We arrived at Mike and Bibi’s an hour before the 8pm bedtime curfew. Sam, eight, Ben, six, and Joe, four, were sweetly lined up in their pyjamas on the sofa enjoying reruns of Crystal Maze. Not any more. It’s now 9.04pm: Mike and Bibi have gone and cushion, rugs and all manner of soft furnishings have been gathered and piled into a precarious tower. Sam is sandwiched between third and fourth cushion with a triumphant Ben perched cross-legged on top. The smallest, Joe, is livid and trying to haul Ben down.
Time for action; I take out my notebook and write my first tentative insight into the difference between the sexes: “Boys squeal more then girls.”
“I want Mummy,” screams a teary-eyed Joe. What’s the problem? “I’m trying to make Ben bang his head because he made me hurt my leg,” Joe says through the sobs.
I always wanted girls and I always wanted two. Happily, that’s what we have: Bea, seven, and Eve, six. I suspect this weekend’s experiment isn’t going to make me change my mind.
The reasons for wanting daughters probably run deep in my psyche but here’s an insight: the prospect of spending Saturday mornings talking to dads on the sidelines about Arsenal has never thrilled me. That said, I do occasionally envy friends with sons.
Here’s what I like about boys: their energy levels, plus the fact that there is more rough and tumble and less talk. I’m sceptical about labelling boys as more difficult than girls (“louder”, “messier”, “more aggressive” etc). I suspect it does both sexes a disservice. Bea and Eve can wreak devastation on a house as speedily as any bunch of boys, and girls can be pretty violent too. However, as I survey the wreckage of Mike and Bibi’s lounge, I begin to reappraise that view.
Before this little experiment began, I sought the advice of Dr Fiona Starr, a psychologist who specialises in children and families. What should I expect from the weekend? Are boys really different from girls? Yes, it’s a totally different parenting experience, she explains. “You see it instantly in the playground at school. The boys go for their guns – it’s all physical – and the girls play with their teacups and Polly Pockets. Their play is far more in the mind, more about symbolic imagery.” … Continue reading
