Some of the Differences between Boys and Girls

     I am blessed to be the father of three children; two boys and one girl. My oldest son will be nine in March, the youngest turned seven back in November. My daughter will turn three later this month. Now that I have been a father for almost nine years, I am finally starting to figure out some of the differences between boys and girls (at least with my own children).

     My boys are loud. They like to yell and scream, at each other, at their friends, at their parents, and even just to hear themselves scream. Now my daughter can be loud and she definitely likes to scream, but it is different. My boys are loud because they are exciting, or they are angry, or they want my attention. Most of the time, they don’t even realize they are screaming. My daughter’s screams seem much more purposeful and calculated. She screams for a purpose. She screams when she is excited, angry, or wants attention, just like my boys, but where they don’t even realize what they are doing, my daughter does.

     My boys are messy. It looks like a tornado ripped through their room and left their books, clothes, toys, and everything else they have managed to pack away strewn across the room. It doesn’t matter how many Saturdays we spend cleaning up, the tornado has hit by Sunday night. Now my daughter is messy and her room is a wreck, but there is an order to her chaos. All of her blankets may be on the floor, but they are there because she wants them there so she can play with her baby dolls. Her room may be messy, but she knows where things are. My boys have no clue where anything is.

     My boys could care less how they look on any given day. They could care less whether their cloths match, whether their hair is rumpled, whether their teeth are brushed. Not so with my daughter. She wants her hair done every morning and only mommy can do it because daddy doesn’t do it right. She wants her hair to be pretty, she wants her fingernails painted and she doesn’t mind telling you which outfit she wants to wear.

At 7 and almost 9, my boys are really starting to experiment with their independence, although they still turn to mommy and daddy for help. Although they like doing things for themselves, they are also content to let mom and dad do things for them when we offer or they can get away with it. Not so with my daughter. She was born independent. She wants to do everything herself. She wants to dress herself, put on her own shoes, brush her own teeth, even change her own diapers (thank goodness she is finally potty-trained so we don’t have to worry about this one anymore). She also wants to set the table by herself, get her own snacks, and take her own laundry basket down to be washed. You name it and she wants to do it herself. It really is amazing.

I know that every child is different and that each is unique is personality, but the differences between my boys and my little girl are startling. I think I know why they are so different. Little boys are born little boys. They aren’t men in any sense of the word; they are just these little boys who need to learn everything. Little girls though, well, I think little girls are born women. They are born women and they are just waiting for their bodies to catch up.