Until recently (really until Alan was born), I was convinced that I only wanted girls, that girls were the superior sex and that I would build an all-female army of feisty, intelligent, super hot women out of my daughters who would one day rule the world Lysistrata-style.
Shockingly, I was wrong.
I have recently started working once a week at my daughter’s pre-school and lets just say, the boys are rowdy and rambunctious, but the girls are worse.
Last week one girl threw shoes at my daughter’s head, another refused to listen to me on the playground, another tried to exclude my daughter from several pieces of playground equipment because she is “too young,” and yet another insists that every toy another child touches–even if it is across the room–is “hers.”
Lest you think I believe my daughter is exempt, let me be clear: my daughter’s behavior is the same. She snatches toys, throws massive fits, screams at other kids and last week, she scratched the faces of both her brother and one of the babies at her daycare. Ani is currently sporting two red streaks on his face from when his sister decided to channel a jungle cat:
Meanwhile, the boys. Ah, the boys. Those bastions of peace and equanimity. When Sam snatches one of the boys’ toys, he only smiles and shows her how to use it. When she scratches their faces, they cry for a bit and then get over it, unlike the girls who are likely to tell their high school guidance counselors about this transgression a decade from now under the “and this is why my life is so screwed up” category.
These boys are chill little dudes and I want to hug each and every one of them. My feelings for the girls are more complicated. Of course, isn’t that the male-female truth? We women are infinitely convoluted, complicated and tricky while men employ a “simpler is better” philosophy. And I, for one, am hoping that if I have a third, that we will be blessed with a boy.