Vive la Difference!

This piece of research from Scientific American completely refutes what I would have said if anyone asked me:

Sons are tough on their mothers. Whether it is heavier birth weights, amplified testosterone levels or simple, hair-raising high jinks, boys seem to take an extra toll on the women who gave birth to them. And by poring over Finnish church records from two centuries ago, Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England can prove it: sons reduce a mother’s life span by an average of 34 weeks.

My sons have been 10,000  10,000,000 times easier to raise than my daughter.  I would not trade her for anything and I love her to pieces, but she's a tough cookie.  The saddest thing in the world to me though, was recently hearing her say that when she has kids, she hopes she has all boys because she doesn't want to have a girl who is as difficult as she is.  I responded to that by telling her that there is a special relationship between mother and daughter that is different than any other.  I have this with both my own mother and with my daughter.  We might argue, but we know one another like no other.  My husband knows me very well after 32 years, but he does not know what it is to be a woman. A woman who can share a close relationship with her own mother and then share something similar with her own daughter is enriched by an intangible thing that is wonderful beyond words. We look at one another and what we see contains different details than what a man sees or even what our best friends see.  And I am certain that men have this same intangible thing with their own fathers and sons.

I certainly don't want to slight my sons - they are the most delightful of young men and treat me wonderfully.  Watching them grow taught me so much about the differences between men and women and the value of male qualities.

Male and female qualities are both wonderful.  Ying and yang. Spring and fall.  Music and art.  They are different but each has a lot to offer. 

I can't stand it when people - male or female - disparage either gender as a group.  I've known great and not-great people of both sexes. I would never say one group is better than the other.

All I will say is that they are different in ways I can't always define very easily, but those differences make all the difference.   

Comments

[soccerdad]

My mother who has 3 sons always said the she wished us to have daughters so that we'd know the grief we had given her. :-)

(As it happens she has - kan ein hara - 15 grandsons and 4 granddaughters, so we didn't even listen that well to her when we started our own families.)

I'd agree with your observation though. I think that my wife has a relationship with our oldest daughter that I don't have with my sons.

[AndyJ]

Parents are people who grow progressively unnecessary... My parents raised us with that thought. They viewed children as the greatest toys...Just lots of wonder and fun... I have tried to continue that spirit...

Kids are kids... Each one is different. Within a range they are similar by gender... BUT that is such a slight difference it's negligible... Some daughters give heartache and heart burn. Other daughters are the second soul we always wished we had... And so are sons... It does not make them more or less wonderful... Just more or less so-right now-... Things change... They're changing and so are we..

They grow so fast... All we can do is enjoy the show and hope they get more right than we did and they they avoid the easy-stupid mistakes that we didn't...