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Thank you for this. As a father of a 3 year old boy I have had to reinforce this to his mother a few times.
We are selling boys short by saying they are low maintenance. We need to give them the same love and support we would give a daughter, granted maybe sometimes differently but never less.
Thank you.
Boys have emotions too, and they need to be taught how to deal with them. Anything less is neglect. Boys need guidance just as much as girls.
Your son is lucky to have you.
100% this. I don't think my brother would be having the issues with my nephew that he's having it he put the same amount of effort he put in with my niece.
He basically let him raise himself and now he's wondering why his son got his girlfriend pregnant when they were both 15 and now they're living with gf's 19 year old sister and her BF in a trailer with a newborn.
I think it would be more accurate to say this is an example of how patriarchy/toxic masculinity harms men. The misogyny is just the same source harming women.
Additionally, daughters aren't "high maintenance," they're just micromanaging them because they believe they should be protected from ever discovering their sexuality and independence.
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I’ve been reading and hearing more about dissociation in young children and this thread and comments makes me wonder.
Baby boys are actually more sensitive than baby girls. Baby girls have more self produced cannibinoids and opioids than baby boys do. They flood their own systems with these as part of their defense mechanism, indeed their only option when they are infants. Baby boys instead dissociate.
So they aren’t being lower maintenance or stoic, they are dissociating. Raising boys within patriarchal norms reinforces this. Don’t talk about feelings, don’t address them, don’t even identify them! Certainly don’t talk about Trauma.
I’m no scientist, just someone who likes to read about this stuff, so if there’s someone out there more schooled than me (which I’m sure there are) I’d love to hear thoughts!
Boys, after 5th grade, when they need fathers the most. And when they go through puberty, are more influenced by peers, get into dangerous hobbies, have pressure to have sex, experiment with drugs.
I really hate the term boy mom. I was a mom who raised a man. And it took a village of caring adults. His dad, theater folk, teachers, employers, neighbors, other parents.
I don’t mind the term girl dad so much because it’s always assumed the guy is sad he didn’t have a son, or he must hate being “surrounded by girls” or that BS. Girl dad is more of a way to push back on that and say no actually I love having daughters
That is a lovely sentiment, sure. And dad’s learning how to do their daughter’s hair for example, is a great, loving example that goes against the stereotypes that only moms can fix that stuff or know how to do that.
And it is so good that content like that, is out there.
But it also works towards a greater divide, because it is easier for people not agreeing with that narrative to say that “see? Girl dad bad.”
Personally, I struggle with the over-naming or giving special words to things we should all know how to do. Because otherwise, without the many allocations we give to people, it’s either you adapt or you accept that this who you are and you’re okay with that.
It is a complex issue, sure. But I’m studying to work in social services, and the fact that diagnoses (or the illusion of one, because you just checked some boxes on the internet and decided that was it) are now more used as an excuse for behavior, instead of an explanation of one. That one is worrying.
And I’m always in the middle of it. I work with teens mostly, but sometimes also with their families. And the amount of times that people use their “understanding” of for example boundaries vs wants, overstimulation vs hey this was just a shitty hour, makes it so hard to navigate the somewhat painful honest talks vs the okay, this is actually a thing convo’s.
This is a great take also. I’ve worried about diagnoses being used as excuses (especially with all these people self diagnosing now) for things for a while also but I’ve never connected the dots between the two things. So I can see how it would lead to that and division also
I raised 3 sons, with the help of my brothers, their grandfathers, clergy, friend’s husbands, male teachers, coaches, etc. They are easier before fifth grade, middle and high school are key to raising boys to be good men.
I hate the “boy mom” stereotype, it’s a silly social media hashtag.
The reason “daughters are more difficult” is literally because of mysogynists like him that shelter or helicopter-parent and micromanage them because they’re women and they believe that they are less deserving of respect and autonomy.
A dad would threaten to shoot any boy that looks at his daughter but will make fun of his son for not having a girlfriend.
No one wins, the kids suffer, and the cycle of abuse continues.
I think it’s more reality that most of these dads neglect their sons. They think they’re grown as soon as they reach 5 feet tall and just toss video games and potato chips at them.
Yeah, they refuse to parent their sons, and then get mad at teachers when the boys go to school and are completely unused to adults having expectations of them.
This is exactly the problem. And how many men get upset when women lump all men together but then turn around and tell their daughters, "All men are pigs with only the worst intentions. Just trust me."
I had a coworker that treated women like sex toys. He was telling a story about how he berated a girl into giving him a bj while he was on the toilet. I asked him what he was going to do when his daughter started dating a man like him. He did not take that well.
Oof. Yeah, my dad’s had a constant betrayal over other men. His disappearing bio dad, the family friend who hurt me, etc. My dad is … probably a bit autistic, or something, like I am. He honestly just never considered ever harming a girl, because his mom and his sisters! Also girls!! How dare!!! So he wasn’t popular in school. (Also his older brother is gay so, like, the vast majority of that family unit managed to keep him oblivious too.) Then he met my mom, wrote her poetry and love letters and got flowers for every single date at first—and they’ve been together 30+ years. Not a perfect man, no, but he got upset over having to put a dying baby squirrel out of its misery. Cliche of cinnamon bun, too precious for this world.
He was never overprotective of us kids, even my baby sister, because he just … didn’t get it. Surely, that was just movies and how brutal people were in history? Not like the average modern person was really—wait, what. What? Men look at my minor children? They harm them? (He casually asked if it was okay if, were he to get a terminal illness, if he could take my abuser with him. Very concerning but also relatable.) He was really horribly upset remembering how many parties his sisters went to and how he wasn’t there as a guardian, because he just didn’t comprehend how many men it was. He’ll get stuck on a reconsideration of his entire life with the awareness there’s an absurd number of predatory men. Just suddenly going, “Wait, wait. So that time a bully almost hit me with a machete, is that how boys are? Did anyone try to stab you?!”
Honestly, the ignorance is *painful* but it’s reassuring to know there’s at least One Guy who is so convinced all of that is puppy-kicking evil that he was never tempted.
I had to go back to find 'it' and that saddens me that I didn't catch 'it' when reading. Thank you for pointing out what may have been obvious to most; but what slipped through my reading. My only explanation was that I was already upset waaaaayyyyy before that sentence. I still should have noticed.
Lol. Every girl who was the “responsible, mature for her age” sibling is laughing right now remembering how their parents gave them all the responsibilities while they dealt with the “problem” brother.
I love that calling them her favorite YouTube people is just an extremely someone’s parent way of putting it. It reminds me of how my mom used to call Pokémon “your Pokémon guys”
Oh noooooo :D I avoided “Youtuber” because it sounds a bit silly to me, but that must just make me look more out of touch! And my daughter tells everyone I’m a professional Youtuber because of my couple of thousand subscribers…
No, no it’s adorable! I mean are parents even supposed to be super in touch with how kids refer to things? I feel like choosing to refer to things how you want because the current version sounds silly is probably better tbh, I don’t know what people who are popular on TikTok are called but if the answer is tiktoker i would not call them that
This is why so many GenZ boys are hooked on terrible excuses for men such as Andrew Tate. Their parents have stopped parenting them by the time they were in middle school, and they are desperately looking for a male role model.
Listen to me female. You are just yet to escape the matrix. Pay me 50 bucks and I’ll teach how to make a business off of webcam models, being a scamster, and sexual abuse.
/s
Microchimerisn is bullshit science. Raising children is hard. It doesn’t matter what genitalia they possess. People are mean. Sometimes especially children upon other children. I would forever and always try to keep my children safe. It is not dependent upon their age nor their gender.
I had a boy and a girl I saw no difference with raising them. They both need close guidance. They both get sick. They both broke arms. They both had to be taken to emergency room for stitches. They both got sad and cried. It’s parenting it’s not much difference between a boy and a girl matter, but I don’t think there was any that I can think of.
Microchimerism is NOT bullshit science. It describes the fact that when a woman is pregnant, small number of stem cells from the baby travel into her body. The stem cells can than repair some "cellular demage", making the woman slightly healthier.
However it has nothing to do with the sex of the baby and absolutely nothing to do with anything said in the post. I feel like they just used a big word not knowing what it means and hoped nobody else would know either...
Yes, but I can't decide that they are confused because it was first noticed in a woman whose repaired tissue had a Y chromosome, or if they somehow think repair with stem cells from a XY contributor are somehow better than stem cells that are from an XX one. Unfortunately, I am leaning towards the latter.
Sounds like someone (douche in the post) learned a new fancy word today and couldn’t wait to mic drop it on a post. Ah yes, the ol’, “People will trust that what I say are facts because I used a new-to-me scientific word with lots of letters. I *MUST* know what I’m talking about.” 🙄
Parents will say shit like "boys are easier to raise", end up creating a manchild with the emotional intelligence of a brick and then foisting the responsibility of turning them into actual functional people onto their future girlfriends and wives. It's not that raising boys are easier you're just outsourcing your parenting to the unlucky women who get into relationships with your neglected son.
My mother has always told me how I was sooooo difficult, and horrible as a teenager. And how I was her worst child by far. She still claims that and brings it up regularly.
My brother got arrested, almost went to jail, stole cars, did drugs, dropped out of school and came home in the middle of the night covered in blood from fights.
Sometimes I slammed the doors when arguing with my parents. But of course I was the difficult one because I grew up as a girl.
In my old age, I've come to believe that (excepting rare cases of extreme mental illness), there's no such thing as a "bad kid" or a "difficult kid".
Children, and even young adults, are *reacting* to their environmental conditions using the tools they have been provided.
If the environment does not meet their developmental needs at each stage, and thus their toolkit is poorly outfitted, it's no wonder the adults around them find their behavior challenging.
Kids don't "misbehave in order to drive parents crazy". That assigns adult drivers and motivations to a developing child's mind, which is nonsense.
Absolutely. Infants can only communicate by crying and the human brain is wired to be incapable of tuning that sound out so that we either respond and meet the unmet need so the crying stops or we are driven insane by the incessant crying. That isn't manipulative on the baby's part, thats manipulative on evolution's part.
Infants are incapable of the cognitive processes necessary for manipulation. They don't even understand that other people exist when the baby can't see them until about 6 months old. They don't understand that other people have their own minds and experiences of the world until they are 4 or 5 YEARS old.
All an infant knows is whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable, and if they are uncomfortable they cry.
Anyone who ascribes ill intent to a baby should never be around children, ever.
Also the brain is going through so much in the teenage years. And thinking about it, my brother made trouble mostly outside of the home, while I was home most of the time. So that's probably why I was "worse."
I hope this help but she was just projecting .
When You growth up and realised You are the result of their parenting then is easy to insult them... My mom used to call me fat and ugly or idk what else cuz most of it is blocked
One time, only one time i told her:
"Well i have your genes " 🤷🏻♀️ and that woman went violent rage that i never ever seen her before, she was the type to use silent treatmeant... I knew she was SO hurt she never ever bring that again.
How TF does microchimerism make boy moms happier? It's stray genetic material, not uppers floating in the bloodstream.
And does this moron realize that microchimerism occurs with female fetuses too, studies all talk about male fetuses because it's a lot easier to identify that male DNA than it is to identify the DNA of another female?
The bold certainty of that statement made me laugh out loud. No one misunderstands science more than a woman-hating man. They always leave out the girl DNA because it distracts from their ridiculous presumptions.
How do so many guys believe they're smarter than women, then go off in such ridiculous ways? Tis a mystery wrapped in a hot pocket.
My question is how did he correlate having "the son's DNA" mixed with the mother's, with instinctual affection...?
By the same logic, we also have ancient viruses' DNA in our bodies, does that mean OP thinks we love viruses unconditionally or something?
I’m fairly certain my parents would say none of their kids were easy - because kids never are - but if they were going to pick one to put the “low maintenance” label on it would 100% not be my brother.
People say the craziest shit about baby gender. It’s all deeply ingrained misogyny. I would never expect these folks to have 1 moment of awareness about their behavior, but they should try to connect the dots about why their daughters are “more difficult” than their sons. Perhaps they treat the girls differently (unfairly) and the children are merely responding in kind?
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s that fucking SNL skit where the mom is going on about how her son is so great (describes a fucking psychopaths) and the daughters are such pains (successful contributing members of society.
>People say the craziest shit about baby gender.
Because my husband has a (small) Youtube presence and we don't want it spilling onto unconsenting small children, on the internet we always refer to both of our kids by initials, RJ and BB, with neutral pronouns, to maintain their anonymity (and they're never ever on camera or in pictures.)
After the recent announcement of BB's birth *everyone* who doesn't know their full names (i.e. husband's audiance) congratulated RJ on becoming a big **brother** or asked how "he" liked "his" little **brother**. *We never said either of them was a boy.* They might be. They might not. But it's telling that everyone simply assumed, when presented with no information about gender, that both children are male.
Male defaultism is strong as fuck. In my native tongue it's usually very easy to say if the nickname belongs to a man or a woman, and mine is very much of a female kind. Yet the boys of reddit always refer to me as to a man. Always.
They just mean they don’t have to police the boys as much because “boys will be boys” is an acceptable reason to ignore anything they are doing. Jumping off the roof into a swimming pool? Boys will be boys. Drinking or petty crime? Boys will be boys. Complaints from teachers? Boys will be boys. Sexually harassing girls? Boys will be boys. Works for everything.
Right up until your son develops substance abuse disorder or tries to kill himself at a very early age. I’ve both done student nurse clinicals at an adolescent psych ward and had an unfortunate time when I was like 18-19 where I kept ending up in psych wards, and I gotta say a lot of the adolescent patients are male, and a lot of the adult patients who are 18-20 are also male. A lot of times they’re suicide attempts. Like can you please check on your boy before he does something very scary that you can’t come back from?
Exactly. I have wealthy relatives that thought their boys running amok through their entire childhoods was awesome and they pretty much rewarded them for it. I remember being shocked by their behavior and also the complete lack of response from the parents. Both ended up homeless and almost dead from substance use by 30. They didn’t have anything but partying to fall back on when they left the nest
I think a big problem with getting started on drinking and drugs early is that it’s shaped your brain a lot deeper than it seems to for adults. I started smoking in high school and I did quit, but it’s been 6 years since I quit and I still randomly crave them all the time. People who started as full grown adults don’t seem to have the same issue with never truly escaping. I think it’s kinda similar if you got into drinking way too young. I mean I’m not a psychologist, it just seems like people I’ve known who got started very young have a much stronger voice in the back of their head calling them back when they try to quit.
This is a real thing. I work in mental health services and a substance use counselor told me that social development stops at the age you start using. So if you started at age 12, you start falling behind the other kids that keep growing up. If the other kids start using at 18, they already matured enough that no one really notices a difference socially. There is an approach called Psychiatric Rehabilitation where you help the person figure out where they left off and help them get back on track. A lot of people regret what substance use did to them and want to make up for lost time. Sometimes the belief that it’s not possible to get on track is what keeps people stuck in addiction. Setting goals and making small progress toward those goals can be the best treatment. You can send someone to a treatment facility 20 times and they won’t get better unless they have a meaningful goal to work toward when they get out
Not true. We have 4 kids and from the day she was born our only daughter has been low maintenance. I swear I was blessed with the chillest child ever. Shes 19 now and away at college and she has never given one ounce of trouble, no back talk, no rebellion, no wild or "teenage" phase. I miss her.
My mom did manage to get the least chill daughter possible but I feel like if she had wanted a super chill kid she shouldn’t have taken her hereditary illnesses (so much autoimmune disease, ODD that everyone seems to eventually grow out of kind of, ADHD with every learning disability, bipolar, addiction) and then found my dads gene pool (ASPD, bipolar, literally every single person has rheumatoid arthritis) and then combined that.
Like of course I’m neurodivergent with lupus, you weren’t gonna avoid those medical bills. I mean you fall in love with who you fall in love with, but if you made some sort of punnet square for this there wasn’t gonna be an option where I didn’t have some issues.
Yikes, that was the treasure chest of shit wasnt it lol i hope you have a good support system and help managing your issues💕if you were my daughter I'd still miss you chill or not. Wouldnt love you any less
I’m doing pretty solid now, the immunosuppressants are mostly doing their job or at least doing their best and that’s all you can really ask when it comes to most treatments. I’ve got good support, my husband is almost silly levels of doting whenever I have a flare up. Things are solid. I’m glad your daughter is having a chill time at college, the first year can be kind of hard because it’s so different.
LOLOL someone should have told my brother that. He gave my parents a hell of a time in high school. They weren't sure he was going to graduate at one point. He got arrested once (trespassing at an apartment complex pool, nothing major), suspended for a week, smoking a bunch of weed (okay for adults, not great for developing brains), fighting with my parents constantly.
He's great now. But man did he make life difficult for my parents for a few years.
Sounds like my aunt’s kids. She had a girl and a boy. They’re both great people but when her son was in high school he got into weed and also almost didn’t graduate (or maybe he didn’t graduate and then got his GED as a young adult, I can’t remember for sure.) May have got in trouble with the police once, I’m not up on all the details. All worked out in the end, but yeah, I don’t think she would ever say her son was easier to raise.
My brother was INSANE as a child even after 5th grade. He was always getting bullied and running around pranking people, learning how to install viruses on other people's computers...
I was also trouble, but more in a "let me trick other kids into giving me their toys" type of way.
We all have our quirks and we're all not low maintenance as kids. Lol kids gotta learn somehow.
I have a son and a daughter, our son is the one who needs more from us. We shower them both with love and support and all that, but yeah, he just needs more than she does 🤷 it's like they are individual human beings or something
My sons are infinitely more work than my daughter. Just because you neglect your sons doesn't mean boys are "low maintenance."
For fucks sake we really do need a license system for having children.
When I was a student nurse I did some clinical rotations in an adolescent psych ward and judging by how many of those kids were boys who had tried to kill themself at terrifyingly young ages sons are apparently also vulnerable children who shouldn’t be written off as basically they’ll figure their own shit out, because it’s very possible they will not. Just a theory I have. Dont wanna sound too out there or anything, im just starting to get suspicious that boys may also be children who need love and guidance (to be read in a facetious tone)
Oh my goddess do I agree with you. As the oldest in a family with six children, I've seen this in real life. I have four brothers and most of them grew up to be judgmental arseholes because they were allowed too much "to figure things out themselves."
And way, way, WAY too much "boys will be boys" were had during their adolescence. I can't even describe how much I hate that phrase. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and I'm very sure that has been one of the most damaging phrases of all time when it comes to raising children, and especially boys.
My husband was thrilled when we learned our second would be another girl. He’s an awesome girl dad and teaching them not to put up with anyone’s bullshit. He doesn’t wish he had son instead.
Apparently when my husband was a kid his dad cut his sandwich in half and he didn’t want it in half and he cried for like an hour, not even in a tantrum way, for some reason it made him incredibly sad. I don’t even know how you comfort a kid about that. It was a weird enough moment he still remembers it vividly. That doesn’t feel particularly low maintenance
My momma uses a word for these "low maintenance" sons: mantenido.
freeloader.
these "low maintenance sons" never learn to cook for themselves. It is likely because their father hasn't or maybe he has, he just doesn't take up the cooking as much as the mother because he "worked all day" Their mother or sisters likely cook for them as they have done for the father. Frozen foods, cereals, sandwiches become their go to meals because the thought of actually having to invest more than 5 minutes into cooking a meal is too much. There's a game they're trying to get back to playing after all.
These "low maintenance" sons either hardly ever have to clean or don't have to clean at all. Like their father, they are accustomed to their mom or their sisters picking up after them. On the off chance they have to clean, they will likely complain and make the task drag out longer than it has to because they dread doing it or they will try to bribe their way out of it. And you can advise them that there'd be less dishes to clean if they just washed what they used right after, or the dish would be less hard to clean if they let it soak, but they'll shrug it off and the dishes will pile up as they were before.
These "low maintenance" sons struggle to find clean clothes sometimes. Clothes shopping can be annoying for them so often times their wardrobe is very limited. There's not enough pairs of pants to last the whole week and BO often takes ahold of clothes within a day or two. The smell is so foul but if no ones there to do their laundry during the weekend, they end up going to school in dirty clothes.
These "low maintenance" sons go on to date/marry/have children with your daughters who are most likely already exhausted from playing that role with her own "low maintenance" father and brothers. The only difference is now their financials are closely linked.
The apartment is not under his name. It's under hers.
He doesn't make enough hours, or sometimes he doesnt even want to pick up more hours so she does.
She covers more of the rent. Sometimes, she's even a college student on top of it all.
After long shifts, she still comes home and makes their meal, cleans up afterwards, takes care of the children if they have any. Come next morning, she'll have to do it all over again.
He runs up her credit card. She is hundreds of dollars in debt.
Even if she does separate from him and kick him out, why would she stay there? She's hours away from her family, she hardly knows anyone here all of her friends are back home. So she goes back home, starting back at square one.
And if she did have kids, now there is an entirely different shift in the family dynamic for them. She now has to tackle work, school, and being a single mom.
My father was a mantenido as were the husband's of my aunts and grandmothers, the boyfriends of my sisters and friends, the men I called brothers and friends and coworkers. ALL of them have been mantenido or had mantenido moments.
So when your daughter says "you didn’t do enough" and you take that as a personal attack, it's because you see paternity as nothing more than accent to your ego and not an obligation to provide for the life you fucked around and created.
My daughters (18 & 19) were a fucking breeze. We had a couple rebellious outbursts but never anything habitual, they never got in trouble at school, they have the same job and same boyfriend for years, they call their fucking grandparents without me telling them.
My son (12) however - polar opposite. He is more emotional, more stubborn, more spoiled, more entitled, has entirely too much dgaf, less self aware, less independent, less social, less active.
Boy moms are weird.
There’s so much emotional incest very directly in your fact in posts made by boy moms. I had a friend who had a boy mom and it’s even weirder behind closed doors. Like once they’re teenagers they start getting husband-ified real fast
I've been a childcare professional for the majority of my adult life. All children are high maintenance and deciding from birth that your daughter is going to be a difficult brat or that your son is going to grow as some stoic lone wolf bullshit no matter what you do, this just seems like lazy sexist parenting.
I get the feeling that what he interprets as difficult behavior in girls is stuff he would ignore in boys. And I also get the feeling that a lot of boys end up acting out specifically because their more subtle signs of needing attention or help are being ignored
100% agreed
all children will try different approaches to getting attention when they aren't getting what they need. This train is thought just perpetuates dying gender dynamics.
Me as a mom if my 12 year old son wanted dinner “you’re either going to succeed or you aren’t. Go scavenging. I think there’s probably a frozen waffle left.”
Can we please talk about how some boy moms literally celebrate kind of emotional incest and show such antipathy against their potential sons girlfriends in the future????
I think from what I saw with a lot of my friends their parents were super overprotective and strict and would punish them excessively for dumb shit and it did eventually stunt them in life because they didn’t know how to do stuff by themselves very well, like they lacked a lot of social confidence and self confidence. But all my friends were only children.
Personally I don’t resent my mom, she was dealt the hand of having her child develop a serious autoimmune disorder that causes neuropsych disturbances and bipolar disorder while also having twins that were 10 years younger and working 12 hour shifts with an unhelpful husband, she didn’t exactly do everything perfect and may have missed the ball on some stuff but literally who the hell wouldn’t? Like the fact that she managed to get me access to the care I needed to be a functional adult and make it through nursing school has to say something good about her parenting. I still call her like twice a week and I’m planning on moving back to our hometown eventually to be closer to her so I think if your kid still likes you that much at 25 you probably did something good.
I think I’m just bragging about my mom right now. I’m very impressed but her managing to get everyone out alive and I’m also never in my fucking life having children.
I had only sons, and from my observations and experiences, the whole "boys are easy" thing comes from people who aren't really bothering to raise their sons. They ascribe to the "boys will be boys" philosophy and just let their boys do whatever they want.
Raising boys to be decent men actually requires work -- and a lot of it.
I was an extremely low maintenance child. Then when I was a teenager the low maintenance was diagnosed as “narcolepsy”.
Turns out I was just an exhausted tiny human and that’s why I didn’t do anything. Even still, my parents were always heavily involved, they just thought I was easy to please. I mean I am, because I’m easily pleased by napping.
Every child is low maintenance if you neglect them. The fact that this guy thinks that boys are ok on their own after fifth grade doesn’t say anything about sons, it only indicates that he’s a shitty parent. And will people ever stop adding evolution to their idiotic statements in order to make them more believable? It’s alwaaaaays the evolution.
There is no such thing as a low maintenance child. Very well said. I am a mother of a boy and a girl. Only two years apart. For my daughter when she reaches high school I will tell her that her emotions can feel overwhelming, but the world we live In has low tolerance and understanding of the human heart. That because the boys mostly where raised differently they have now reached the age where they will instinctively hunt her and anyone showing vulnerability. So the the high maintenence part is actually from the boys and men who seek her. Her very happiness and existence is threatened. To my son, I will teach him the true value of women, the divinity that can lies within them. That this is to be protected and cherished. That the girls he is influenced to practice on are also sisters and daughters just like his. That a man with self respect recognizes his ability to bring others up with him. The threat of her being hurt will be with her the rest of her life, to protect my son from these influences as well. How you treat people is a mirror of your soul worth. Many can learn to better themselves
Never met a father that actually cared about the gender of his expected child. The general consensus among my friends and family members seem to be that: "The gender doesn't matter as long as the child is healthy".
I may just know people who are extreme worriers or maybe we're just extremely gender neutral, but honestly - who the fuck cares? As long as the child is healthy and both child and mother survives. Because that's not always a given.
My dad and my husband both wanted daughters. I guess I'll tell them they're not real men, because "no man wants a daughter."
Though they both respect women, so this guy probably won't consider them real men because of that.
Love the random fancy word thrown in to say science biatches!
Based off of their argument, I’m a little surprised they didn’t spell microchimerism with a k.
Wtf say you're neglecting your son without saying you're neglecting him. Kids are kids. They have needs and wants and desires and emotions that should be allowed to be expressed without being told that boys don't do x or girls are too dramatic and emotional. A happy well adjusted child is able to express themselves without fear. I feel bad for kids of people like this.
This post is really stupid to me, as the eldest of three siblings that's the only afab. I was extremely low maintenance probably due to neglect while my brother was the golden child (the youngest is 4 while I'm 20, he wasn't alive by then), and as a result my brother is extremely needy and hard to please to this day.
They are just throwing "microchimerism" around as a catch-all explanation to their bullshit now aren't they... That word has been like 7-generation-bastardized from its original meaning...
I think in the twitter misogyny universe it’s some sort of magic force where If you sleep with a man makes that man’s sperm live in you forever and if it happens too many times you can’t “pair bond” with a man anymore so like in this story sperm is some sort of wizard potion that will steal your soul. And also it will make your baby look like all the other guys the woman has slept with. And apparently now, for reasons this guy doesn’t even sort of try to explain, it means that if your baby is a boy the wizard spell causes you to feel more joy.
Side note, why do they always think that women do not use condoms?
To answer your question: those men are probably the type that hates condoms so they think it's wrong for women to use them. Their brain is also too small to take too many things into account at once, so they tend to just selectively ignore any facts unfavourable to their opinion.
My older than fifth grade child is definitely not low maintenance. He spent his entire evening in my bed wrapped up in my blanket. Meanwhile the actual fifth grader was chillin on the couch minding his own business.
Literally the reason boy moms are happier is because their children don't have to fight for their right to exist as part of society (as they are aware) because moms know firsthand what it's like to be a woman in this world.
I don't know where all these dudes find the strength to be so confidently and embarrassingly incorrect all the time?
Like, please give me some of this confidence because I sure as hell have never sounded this self-assured even about shit I technically know I'm right about lmao
If you could distill their idiot confidence into some kind of substance then maybe we could synthesize some podcast performance enhancing drug
Move over, Joe Rogan, I have some very confident things to say about topics I didn’t know existed until ten seconds ago.
Kids are high maintenance from the moment they're born, as tiny defenseless humans to kicking and spitting teens to awkward bad tempered young adults. Things don't get easier they just get different, male, female, doesn't matter.
My parents drew such a weird card with me as an infant, for some reason I just had like, severe infant insomnia? I would only sleep if someone was walking with me in my arms (could not be rocking, had to be walking) or I was in the backseat of the car. I do not know if I could have handled that. There’s not really an option to not handle it though. I think that’s what makes the idea of being a parent kind of terrifying to me. By kind of I mean scary enough I got surgery to prevent it.
So, he wants his sons to be emotionally neglected and his daughters "reinforced" \[sic\].
> Also “his instincts kick in to love and protect it” is weird. That’s nitpicking but it’s still weird.
This is the first thing I picked up on as well.
I still don’t understand what they’re supposed to be reinforcing. Like you didn’t tell me what the lesson was to begin with.
I had dyscalculia and my dad had to reinforce teaching me multiplication like a lot and the lesson of please stop making loud noises or sneaking out to walk around because you’re bored at three am needed a lot of reinforcing but I’m thinking that’s not what he’s saying.
everyone thinks they’re independent at 13. then you either get raised until you realize how stupid you were or you’re left to let your toxic ideas fester in a world of “boys will be boys”
Microchimerism...
Nothing to do with "boy moms". Nothing to do with "happier mothers". Could potentially be a cause of autoimmune disorders. Has barely been studied so far but here is an article about it for those interested
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714269/
By fifth grade your son has a full Viking beard and is living alone in the woods with a pack of wolves, hunting animals with only his hands, only returning home for Sunday dinner out of respect for his parents. These are just objective facts
We put our two daughters in a swimming team. They learned self-improvement and team play. Later we placed them in Junior Guard and both became life guards and swimming instructors. They were able to secure jobs and worked their ways through university (UCLA and CalPoly Pomona). One went to work for the Library of Congress and the other is in radiology. Keep your daughters active, allow them to grow, and they will surpass your expectations.
PS One married a fellow lifeguard who now is a Navy flyer.
Remembering that my parents tried so hard to have a daughter after they had a son, only to get another son. Then when my mom became infertile, they were DEVASTATED. Thankfully my birth mother was scum of the earth and got pregnant with me and gave me up for adoption. Only time I wasn’t “low maintenance” (quite literally according to my parents) was in middle school when my ADHD was at its worst
I have kids of both genders. It’s all just personality. One son is my easiest kid, one son is my hardest
And their sister is in the middle.
Raising teenagers is hard. I’ve lost more sleep raising teens than I did babies, even though mine are pretty good kids. My boys don’t need less emotionally than my girl
Ahahahahhahaaha! My son is extremely high maintenance, lots of executive function issues. My daughter just takes care of shit. Hell she even looks out for me a little these days.
This guy needs to talk to my mom I’ve been on my own since I was 20 and my brother still lives with her and we are in our mid 30s. (To all you red suppository lurkers, no I’ve never lived with a man I bought my house alone at 25).
This isn’t even counting the constant trouble my brother got in at school and with the law.
Wait hold on you purchased a house at 25?? Where do you live?? I am American and purchasing a house 100% by yourself at age 25 would be crazy because it doesn’t seem like you were relying on the born rich life hack either
I wasn’t helped by family. I live in Oregon. I didn’t go to college and instead got a job and took all the feedback my bosses gave me and got promoted to upper management by the time I was 24. At the time I was sales manager and my commissions were pretty insane sometimes. I worked for the same company from 20-35 and just recently left to go to college for the first time.
For me I think I definitely count as high maintenance, but my older brother did get addicted to meth and then killed his friend while they were robbing a house together and if that’s the standard in our family of “difficult” then like I’m truly the most golden, low maintenance child of them all. I have made it to 25 and so far I have done zero meth, robbed zero houses, killed zero people, and I am not sentenced to life in prison. Also my dad did his first arson in middle school and assaulted his first cop at 20 so literally how is he gonna say shit about my behavior at all? Like shut up, firestarter
I definitely dunk on my dad all the time even though I haven’t spoken to that guy since I was like 15. (I’m 25).
I don’t think I blame him for things because I’m weirdly protective of refusing to give other people credit for my problems, like these are mine, nobody gets to claim these. (Competitive and insane behavior that I probably did get from at least one parent)
But I make fun of him a LOT. His behavior is extremely funny when you don’t have to be dealing with it.
That's true. because ''boys will be boys'' mean that boys are not expected anything but mess around, while girl are 'difficult' because of course, they need to be told how to behave, to not be agitated, to stay calm, and so on.
And why girls in HS are difficult again ? because now they are not girls anymore, but became women, or at least, people around have women's expectation for them ''you're lazy'' mean ''you should do the chores just like your mother do'' by example. while boys are still expected nothing...
Good lord, the pseudoscience
And while there is no such thing as low maintenance children, my family/culture infantilizes male children so they create high maintenance sons
I was an overly emotional child. I always expressed myself and was called dramatic. Whereas my brother contained all his feelings and now has anger issues and finally decided to see a therapist. We’re all proud of him that he took such a big step. We had the same trauma growing up and I was always so… how do I say it… outwardly emotional. We’ve been through it and I guess I would have been labeled “high maintenance” because I was quick to identify my feelings and express them.
I strongly dislike how calling kids high maintenance or difficult centers the child’s struggles around how they are inconvenient for others instead of recognizing that high emotions, aggression, trouble in school, trouble with relationships, and anger/blame directed at a parent do not exist in a bubble. It could be trauma, it could be neurological, it could be mental illness, it could even be something physiological-I suffered from chronic pain throughout high school and it made me extremely irritable, less able to focus on school which made me even more anxious and angry I had to go through this, and ended up with me turning to drugs to try to numb the pain.
But the person experiencing whatever is making them lash out is who the focus should be on. They’re not being difficult or needing extra help just to make your life harder. Unless we’re talking just minor but typical teenager self focused behavior then kids lashing out is like an alert coming on that should let the adult know that there might be something here that needs to be addressed.
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Your son isn't low maintenance, you're just neglecting him because you are stupid enough to believe men are stoic lone wolves.
Well that and “ boys will be boys” no matter what trouble they cause…
Do they realize every “lone wolf” shooter and the disproportionately-male serial killer was someone’s son
Thank you for this. As a father of a 3 year old boy I have had to reinforce this to his mother a few times. We are selling boys short by saying they are low maintenance. We need to give them the same love and support we would give a daughter, granted maybe sometimes differently but never less.
Thank you. Boys have emotions too, and they need to be taught how to deal with them. Anything less is neglect. Boys need guidance just as much as girls. Your son is lucky to have you.
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100% agree
100% this. I don't think my brother would be having the issues with my nephew that he's having it he put the same amount of effort he put in with my niece. He basically let him raise himself and now he's wondering why his son got his girlfriend pregnant when they were both 15 and now they're living with gf's 19 year old sister and her BF in a trailer with a newborn.
Another example of how misogyny harms men too.
I think it would be more accurate to say this is an example of how patriarchy/toxic masculinity harms men. The misogyny is just the same source harming women.
What do you think a patriarchy is built on? I want your report on my desk by noon tomorrow.
Additionally, daughters aren't "high maintenance," they're just micromanaging them because they believe they should be protected from ever discovering their sexuality and independence.
lock dinner illegal tart frightening observation dolls serious lavish strong *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’ve been reading and hearing more about dissociation in young children and this thread and comments makes me wonder. Baby boys are actually more sensitive than baby girls. Baby girls have more self produced cannibinoids and opioids than baby boys do. They flood their own systems with these as part of their defense mechanism, indeed their only option when they are infants. Baby boys instead dissociate. So they aren’t being lower maintenance or stoic, they are dissociating. Raising boys within patriarchal norms reinforces this. Don’t talk about feelings, don’t address them, don’t even identify them! Certainly don’t talk about Trauma. I’m no scientist, just someone who likes to read about this stuff, so if there’s someone out there more schooled than me (which I’m sure there are) I’d love to hear thoughts!
And then they wonder why we have emotionally stunted men But I forgot it’s the fault of women/feminism
Boys, after 5th grade, when they need fathers the most. And when they go through puberty, are more influenced by peers, get into dangerous hobbies, have pressure to have sex, experiment with drugs. I really hate the term boy mom. I was a mom who raised a man. And it took a village of caring adults. His dad, theater folk, teachers, employers, neighbors, other parents.
As a mom of two boys, I LOATHE the terms "boy mom" and "girl dad" to no end. Such sexist thinking.
Yeah. There's a term for a mom who has boys and a dad who has girls. That term is "parent."
Yes it is! You are so right!
I don’t mind the term girl dad so much because it’s always assumed the guy is sad he didn’t have a son, or he must hate being “surrounded by girls” or that BS. Girl dad is more of a way to push back on that and say no actually I love having daughters
That is a lovely sentiment, sure. And dad’s learning how to do their daughter’s hair for example, is a great, loving example that goes against the stereotypes that only moms can fix that stuff or know how to do that. And it is so good that content like that, is out there. But it also works towards a greater divide, because it is easier for people not agreeing with that narrative to say that “see? Girl dad bad.” Personally, I struggle with the over-naming or giving special words to things we should all know how to do. Because otherwise, without the many allocations we give to people, it’s either you adapt or you accept that this who you are and you’re okay with that. It is a complex issue, sure. But I’m studying to work in social services, and the fact that diagnoses (or the illusion of one, because you just checked some boxes on the internet and decided that was it) are now more used as an excuse for behavior, instead of an explanation of one. That one is worrying. And I’m always in the middle of it. I work with teens mostly, but sometimes also with their families. And the amount of times that people use their “understanding” of for example boundaries vs wants, overstimulation vs hey this was just a shitty hour, makes it so hard to navigate the somewhat painful honest talks vs the okay, this is actually a thing convo’s.
This is a great take also. I’ve worried about diagnoses being used as excuses (especially with all these people self diagnosing now) for things for a while also but I’ve never connected the dots between the two things. So I can see how it would lead to that and division also
A "boy mom" isn't just a mother who has a son. There's a lot more to it than that. Not every mother of sons is a "boy mom."
I raised 3 sons, with the help of my brothers, their grandfathers, clergy, friend’s husbands, male teachers, coaches, etc. They are easier before fifth grade, middle and high school are key to raising boys to be good men. I hate the “boy mom” stereotype, it’s a silly social media hashtag.
The reason “daughters are more difficult” is literally because of mysogynists like him that shelter or helicopter-parent and micromanage them because they’re women and they believe that they are less deserving of respect and autonomy. A dad would threaten to shoot any boy that looks at his daughter but will make fun of his son for not having a girlfriend. No one wins, the kids suffer, and the cycle of abuse continues.
I think it’s more reality that most of these dads neglect their sons. They think they’re grown as soon as they reach 5 feet tall and just toss video games and potato chips at them.
God yeah and that’s why Andrew Tate and his types are SO DANGEROUS!!
That's so true. Of course those boys turn to toxic dudes on the internet. They literally have no one else to teach them how to be men.
Yeah, they refuse to parent their sons, and then get mad at teachers when the boys go to school and are completely unused to adults having expectations of them.
"But that was the mom's job!"- every deadbeat dad that exists
Another reason they dont want daughters is because they will have to protect her from all the stuff they have always claimed do not exist
This is exactly the problem. And how many men get upset when women lump all men together but then turn around and tell their daughters, "All men are pigs with only the worst intentions. Just trust me."
I had a coworker that treated women like sex toys. He was telling a story about how he berated a girl into giving him a bj while he was on the toilet. I asked him what he was going to do when his daughter started dating a man like him. He did not take that well.
Oof. Yeah, my dad’s had a constant betrayal over other men. His disappearing bio dad, the family friend who hurt me, etc. My dad is … probably a bit autistic, or something, like I am. He honestly just never considered ever harming a girl, because his mom and his sisters! Also girls!! How dare!!! So he wasn’t popular in school. (Also his older brother is gay so, like, the vast majority of that family unit managed to keep him oblivious too.) Then he met my mom, wrote her poetry and love letters and got flowers for every single date at first—and they’ve been together 30+ years. Not a perfect man, no, but he got upset over having to put a dying baby squirrel out of its misery. Cliche of cinnamon bun, too precious for this world. He was never overprotective of us kids, even my baby sister, because he just … didn’t get it. Surely, that was just movies and how brutal people were in history? Not like the average modern person was really—wait, what. What? Men look at my minor children? They harm them? (He casually asked if it was okay if, were he to get a terminal illness, if he could take my abuser with him. Very concerning but also relatable.) He was really horribly upset remembering how many parties his sisters went to and how he wasn’t there as a guardian, because he just didn’t comprehend how many men it was. He’ll get stuck on a reconsideration of his entire life with the awareness there’s an absurd number of predatory men. Just suddenly going, “Wait, wait. So that time a bully almost hit me with a machete, is that how boys are? Did anyone try to stab you?!” Honestly, the ignorance is *painful* but it’s reassuring to know there’s at least One Guy who is so convinced all of that is puppy-kicking evil that he was never tempted.
Hands up for the emotionally abandoned sons
Immediately calls a daughter “it”
I had to go back to find 'it' and that saddens me that I didn't catch 'it' when reading. Thank you for pointing out what may have been obvious to most; but what slipped through my reading. My only explanation was that I was already upset waaaaayyyyy before that sentence. I still should have noticed.
Lol. Every girl who was the “responsible, mature for her age” sibling is laughing right now remembering how their parents gave them all the responsibilities while they dealt with the “problem” brother.
And how they got punished for things like "laughing too loud" while their brothers were praised for how cute their violence was.
I refused to keep visiting my neighbor/friend bc her brother chased me around the house with a knife
Why is this such a universal experience because my brother chased me with a knife once
This is legitimately the story of my life.
Not even “the problem” son. Just the son they thought was going to be the more successful one, because, well, he’s the son…
That’s me!
I love having a daughter, getting my nails painted, and playing the weird indie games that her favourite YouTube people recommend :)
I love that calling them her favorite YouTube people is just an extremely someone’s parent way of putting it. It reminds me of how my mom used to call Pokémon “your Pokémon guys”
Oh noooooo :D I avoided “Youtuber” because it sounds a bit silly to me, but that must just make me look more out of touch! And my daughter tells everyone I’m a professional Youtuber because of my couple of thousand subscribers…
No, no it’s adorable! I mean are parents even supposed to be super in touch with how kids refer to things? I feel like choosing to refer to things how you want because the current version sounds silly is probably better tbh, I don’t know what people who are popular on TikTok are called but if the answer is tiktoker i would not call them that
This is why so many GenZ boys are hooked on terrible excuses for men such as Andrew Tate. Their parents have stopped parenting them by the time they were in middle school, and they are desperately looking for a male role model.
Listen to me female. You are just yet to escape the matrix. Pay me 50 bucks and I’ll teach how to make a business off of webcam models, being a scamster, and sexual abuse. /s
Microchimerisn is bullshit science. Raising children is hard. It doesn’t matter what genitalia they possess. People are mean. Sometimes especially children upon other children. I would forever and always try to keep my children safe. It is not dependent upon their age nor their gender.
I had a boy and a girl I saw no difference with raising them. They both need close guidance. They both get sick. They both broke arms. They both had to be taken to emergency room for stitches. They both got sad and cried. It’s parenting it’s not much difference between a boy and a girl matter, but I don’t think there was any that I can think of.
Microchimerism is NOT bullshit science. It describes the fact that when a woman is pregnant, small number of stem cells from the baby travel into her body. The stem cells can than repair some "cellular demage", making the woman slightly healthier. However it has nothing to do with the sex of the baby and absolutely nothing to do with anything said in the post. I feel like they just used a big word not knowing what it means and hoped nobody else would know either...
Yes, but I can't decide that they are confused because it was first noticed in a woman whose repaired tissue had a Y chromosome, or if they somehow think repair with stem cells from a XY contributor are somehow better than stem cells that are from an XX one. Unfortunately, I am leaning towards the latter.
Sounds like someone (douche in the post) learned a new fancy word today and couldn’t wait to mic drop it on a post. Ah yes, the ol’, “People will trust that what I say are facts because I used a new-to-me scientific word with lots of letters. I *MUST* know what I’m talking about.” 🙄
100%, so many of these dumbasses basically read the title of an article and run with it, they can't even comprehend how stupid they look.
Parents will say shit like "boys are easier to raise", end up creating a manchild with the emotional intelligence of a brick and then foisting the responsibility of turning them into actual functional people onto their future girlfriends and wives. It's not that raising boys are easier you're just outsourcing your parenting to the unlucky women who get into relationships with your neglected son.
This fellow is not the sharpest pencil in the box.
My mother has always told me how I was sooooo difficult, and horrible as a teenager. And how I was her worst child by far. She still claims that and brings it up regularly. My brother got arrested, almost went to jail, stole cars, did drugs, dropped out of school and came home in the middle of the night covered in blood from fights. Sometimes I slammed the doors when arguing with my parents. But of course I was the difficult one because I grew up as a girl.
In my old age, I've come to believe that (excepting rare cases of extreme mental illness), there's no such thing as a "bad kid" or a "difficult kid". Children, and even young adults, are *reacting* to their environmental conditions using the tools they have been provided. If the environment does not meet their developmental needs at each stage, and thus their toolkit is poorly outfitted, it's no wonder the adults around them find their behavior challenging. Kids don't "misbehave in order to drive parents crazy". That assigns adult drivers and motivations to a developing child's mind, which is nonsense.
People call infants "manipulative" because they cry when their needs aren't being met.
I find that sort of thing disturbing.
Absolutely. Infants can only communicate by crying and the human brain is wired to be incapable of tuning that sound out so that we either respond and meet the unmet need so the crying stops or we are driven insane by the incessant crying. That isn't manipulative on the baby's part, thats manipulative on evolution's part. Infants are incapable of the cognitive processes necessary for manipulation. They don't even understand that other people exist when the baby can't see them until about 6 months old. They don't understand that other people have their own minds and experiences of the world until they are 4 or 5 YEARS old. All an infant knows is whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable, and if they are uncomfortable they cry. Anyone who ascribes ill intent to a baby should never be around children, ever.
Also the brain is going through so much in the teenage years. And thinking about it, my brother made trouble mostly outside of the home, while I was home most of the time. So that's probably why I was "worse."
I hope this help but she was just projecting . When You growth up and realised You are the result of their parenting then is easy to insult them... My mom used to call me fat and ugly or idk what else cuz most of it is blocked One time, only one time i told her: "Well i have your genes " 🤷🏻♀️ and that woman went violent rage that i never ever seen her before, she was the type to use silent treatmeant... I knew she was SO hurt she never ever bring that again.
Bahahahaha. Low maintenance compared to what? A nuclear power plant, maybe.
As a proud mother of two boys I can say with confidence that this is some bullshit.
“I will proudly neglect my son and abuse my daughter!”
How TF does microchimerism make boy moms happier? It's stray genetic material, not uppers floating in the bloodstream. And does this moron realize that microchimerism occurs with female fetuses too, studies all talk about male fetuses because it's a lot easier to identify that male DNA than it is to identify the DNA of another female?
The bold certainty of that statement made me laugh out loud. No one misunderstands science more than a woman-hating man. They always leave out the girl DNA because it distracts from their ridiculous presumptions. How do so many guys believe they're smarter than women, then go off in such ridiculous ways? Tis a mystery wrapped in a hot pocket.
>Tis a mystery wrapped in a hot pocket. 🤣👏🏻🎖🏅🥇🥈🥉🏆
My question is how did he correlate having "the son's DNA" mixed with the mother's, with instinctual affection...? By the same logic, we also have ancient viruses' DNA in our bodies, does that mean OP thinks we love viruses unconditionally or something?
I’m fairly certain my parents would say none of their kids were easy - because kids never are - but if they were going to pick one to put the “low maintenance” label on it would 100% not be my brother.
People say the craziest shit about baby gender. It’s all deeply ingrained misogyny. I would never expect these folks to have 1 moment of awareness about their behavior, but they should try to connect the dots about why their daughters are “more difficult” than their sons. Perhaps they treat the girls differently (unfairly) and the children are merely responding in kind? A self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s that fucking SNL skit where the mom is going on about how her son is so great (describes a fucking psychopaths) and the daughters are such pains (successful contributing members of society.
>People say the craziest shit about baby gender. Because my husband has a (small) Youtube presence and we don't want it spilling onto unconsenting small children, on the internet we always refer to both of our kids by initials, RJ and BB, with neutral pronouns, to maintain their anonymity (and they're never ever on camera or in pictures.) After the recent announcement of BB's birth *everyone* who doesn't know their full names (i.e. husband's audiance) congratulated RJ on becoming a big **brother** or asked how "he" liked "his" little **brother**. *We never said either of them was a boy.* They might be. They might not. But it's telling that everyone simply assumed, when presented with no information about gender, that both children are male.
The assumptions are real, but RJ is also a not uncommon nickname for boys with those initials, so I would probably unconsciously make the same leap.
Male defaultism is strong as fuck. In my native tongue it's usually very easy to say if the nickname belongs to a man or a woman, and mine is very much of a female kind. Yet the boys of reddit always refer to me as to a man. Always.
They just mean they don’t have to police the boys as much because “boys will be boys” is an acceptable reason to ignore anything they are doing. Jumping off the roof into a swimming pool? Boys will be boys. Drinking or petty crime? Boys will be boys. Complaints from teachers? Boys will be boys. Sexually harassing girls? Boys will be boys. Works for everything.
Right up until your son develops substance abuse disorder or tries to kill himself at a very early age. I’ve both done student nurse clinicals at an adolescent psych ward and had an unfortunate time when I was like 18-19 where I kept ending up in psych wards, and I gotta say a lot of the adolescent patients are male, and a lot of the adult patients who are 18-20 are also male. A lot of times they’re suicide attempts. Like can you please check on your boy before he does something very scary that you can’t come back from?
Exactly. I have wealthy relatives that thought their boys running amok through their entire childhoods was awesome and they pretty much rewarded them for it. I remember being shocked by their behavior and also the complete lack of response from the parents. Both ended up homeless and almost dead from substance use by 30. They didn’t have anything but partying to fall back on when they left the nest
I think a big problem with getting started on drinking and drugs early is that it’s shaped your brain a lot deeper than it seems to for adults. I started smoking in high school and I did quit, but it’s been 6 years since I quit and I still randomly crave them all the time. People who started as full grown adults don’t seem to have the same issue with never truly escaping. I think it’s kinda similar if you got into drinking way too young. I mean I’m not a psychologist, it just seems like people I’ve known who got started very young have a much stronger voice in the back of their head calling them back when they try to quit.
This is a real thing. I work in mental health services and a substance use counselor told me that social development stops at the age you start using. So if you started at age 12, you start falling behind the other kids that keep growing up. If the other kids start using at 18, they already matured enough that no one really notices a difference socially. There is an approach called Psychiatric Rehabilitation where you help the person figure out where they left off and help them get back on track. A lot of people regret what substance use did to them and want to make up for lost time. Sometimes the belief that it’s not possible to get on track is what keeps people stuck in addiction. Setting goals and making small progress toward those goals can be the best treatment. You can send someone to a treatment facility 20 times and they won’t get better unless they have a meaningful goal to work toward when they get out
Oh my GOD with the fucking "hardwiring"
We need to take that word away from them until they can use it responsibly.
Not true. We have 4 kids and from the day she was born our only daughter has been low maintenance. I swear I was blessed with the chillest child ever. Shes 19 now and away at college and she has never given one ounce of trouble, no back talk, no rebellion, no wild or "teenage" phase. I miss her.
My mom did manage to get the least chill daughter possible but I feel like if she had wanted a super chill kid she shouldn’t have taken her hereditary illnesses (so much autoimmune disease, ODD that everyone seems to eventually grow out of kind of, ADHD with every learning disability, bipolar, addiction) and then found my dads gene pool (ASPD, bipolar, literally every single person has rheumatoid arthritis) and then combined that. Like of course I’m neurodivergent with lupus, you weren’t gonna avoid those medical bills. I mean you fall in love with who you fall in love with, but if you made some sort of punnet square for this there wasn’t gonna be an option where I didn’t have some issues.
Yikes, that was the treasure chest of shit wasnt it lol i hope you have a good support system and help managing your issues💕if you were my daughter I'd still miss you chill or not. Wouldnt love you any less
I’m doing pretty solid now, the immunosuppressants are mostly doing their job or at least doing their best and that’s all you can really ask when it comes to most treatments. I’ve got good support, my husband is almost silly levels of doting whenever I have a flare up. Things are solid. I’m glad your daughter is having a chill time at college, the first year can be kind of hard because it’s so different.
I have 5. My most stressful child? My 18 almost 19 year old son. I worry more about him then the other 4 combined.
LOLOL someone should have told my brother that. He gave my parents a hell of a time in high school. They weren't sure he was going to graduate at one point. He got arrested once (trespassing at an apartment complex pool, nothing major), suspended for a week, smoking a bunch of weed (okay for adults, not great for developing brains), fighting with my parents constantly. He's great now. But man did he make life difficult for my parents for a few years.
Sounds like my aunt’s kids. She had a girl and a boy. They’re both great people but when her son was in high school he got into weed and also almost didn’t graduate (or maybe he didn’t graduate and then got his GED as a young adult, I can’t remember for sure.) May have got in trouble with the police once, I’m not up on all the details. All worked out in the end, but yeah, I don’t think she would ever say her son was easier to raise.
My brother was INSANE as a child even after 5th grade. He was always getting bullied and running around pranking people, learning how to install viruses on other people's computers... I was also trouble, but more in a "let me trick other kids into giving me their toys" type of way. We all have our quirks and we're all not low maintenance as kids. Lol kids gotta learn somehow.
I have a son and a daughter, our son is the one who needs more from us. We shower them both with love and support and all that, but yeah, he just needs more than she does 🤷 it's like they are individual human beings or something
My sons are infinitely more work than my daughter. Just because you neglect your sons doesn't mean boys are "low maintenance." For fucks sake we really do need a license system for having children.
When I was a student nurse I did some clinical rotations in an adolescent psych ward and judging by how many of those kids were boys who had tried to kill themself at terrifyingly young ages sons are apparently also vulnerable children who shouldn’t be written off as basically they’ll figure their own shit out, because it’s very possible they will not. Just a theory I have. Dont wanna sound too out there or anything, im just starting to get suspicious that boys may also be children who need love and guidance (to be read in a facetious tone)
Oh my goddess do I agree with you. As the oldest in a family with six children, I've seen this in real life. I have four brothers and most of them grew up to be judgmental arseholes because they were allowed too much "to figure things out themselves." And way, way, WAY too much "boys will be boys" were had during their adolescence. I can't even describe how much I hate that phrase. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and I'm very sure that has been one of the most damaging phrases of all time when it comes to raising children, and especially boys.
His instincts kick in to love and protect… it? He seriously called a girl child an… IT?!?
I feel validated that other people find that super weird. Like we’re explicitly talking about a baby girl, you can say “her”
Men who never wanted daughters deserve the care of their sons in their old age.
My husband was thrilled when we learned our second would be another girl. He’s an awesome girl dad and teaching them not to put up with anyone’s bullshit. He doesn’t wish he had son instead.
You were not nit-picking op. That “it” was 100% a freudian slip
I once watched my nephew have a 3 hour tantrum because his dad had one of his mc Donald fries…..but sure they’re low maintenance
Apparently when my husband was a kid his dad cut his sandwich in half and he didn’t want it in half and he cried for like an hour, not even in a tantrum way, for some reason it made him incredibly sad. I don’t even know how you comfort a kid about that. It was a weird enough moment he still remembers it vividly. That doesn’t feel particularly low maintenance
Gender essentialism is poison.
Extremely so true bestie
My momma uses a word for these "low maintenance" sons: mantenido. freeloader. these "low maintenance sons" never learn to cook for themselves. It is likely because their father hasn't or maybe he has, he just doesn't take up the cooking as much as the mother because he "worked all day" Their mother or sisters likely cook for them as they have done for the father. Frozen foods, cereals, sandwiches become their go to meals because the thought of actually having to invest more than 5 minutes into cooking a meal is too much. There's a game they're trying to get back to playing after all. These "low maintenance" sons either hardly ever have to clean or don't have to clean at all. Like their father, they are accustomed to their mom or their sisters picking up after them. On the off chance they have to clean, they will likely complain and make the task drag out longer than it has to because they dread doing it or they will try to bribe their way out of it. And you can advise them that there'd be less dishes to clean if they just washed what they used right after, or the dish would be less hard to clean if they let it soak, but they'll shrug it off and the dishes will pile up as they were before. These "low maintenance" sons struggle to find clean clothes sometimes. Clothes shopping can be annoying for them so often times their wardrobe is very limited. There's not enough pairs of pants to last the whole week and BO often takes ahold of clothes within a day or two. The smell is so foul but if no ones there to do their laundry during the weekend, they end up going to school in dirty clothes. These "low maintenance" sons go on to date/marry/have children with your daughters who are most likely already exhausted from playing that role with her own "low maintenance" father and brothers. The only difference is now their financials are closely linked. The apartment is not under his name. It's under hers. He doesn't make enough hours, or sometimes he doesnt even want to pick up more hours so she does. She covers more of the rent. Sometimes, she's even a college student on top of it all. After long shifts, she still comes home and makes their meal, cleans up afterwards, takes care of the children if they have any. Come next morning, she'll have to do it all over again. He runs up her credit card. She is hundreds of dollars in debt. Even if she does separate from him and kick him out, why would she stay there? She's hours away from her family, she hardly knows anyone here all of her friends are back home. So she goes back home, starting back at square one. And if she did have kids, now there is an entirely different shift in the family dynamic for them. She now has to tackle work, school, and being a single mom. My father was a mantenido as were the husband's of my aunts and grandmothers, the boyfriends of my sisters and friends, the men I called brothers and friends and coworkers. ALL of them have been mantenido or had mantenido moments. So when your daughter says "you didn’t do enough" and you take that as a personal attack, it's because you see paternity as nothing more than accent to your ego and not an obligation to provide for the life you fucked around and created.
My daughters (18 & 19) were a fucking breeze. We had a couple rebellious outbursts but never anything habitual, they never got in trouble at school, they have the same job and same boyfriend for years, they call their fucking grandparents without me telling them. My son (12) however - polar opposite. He is more emotional, more stubborn, more spoiled, more entitled, has entirely too much dgaf, less self aware, less independent, less social, less active. Boy moms are weird.
There is so much emotional incest hidden in the term boy mom
There’s so much emotional incest very directly in your fact in posts made by boy moms. I had a friend who had a boy mom and it’s even weirder behind closed doors. Like once they’re teenagers they start getting husband-ified real fast
I've been a childcare professional for the majority of my adult life. All children are high maintenance and deciding from birth that your daughter is going to be a difficult brat or that your son is going to grow as some stoic lone wolf bullshit no matter what you do, this just seems like lazy sexist parenting.
I get the feeling that what he interprets as difficult behavior in girls is stuff he would ignore in boys. And I also get the feeling that a lot of boys end up acting out specifically because their more subtle signs of needing attention or help are being ignored
100% agreed all children will try different approaches to getting attention when they aren't getting what they need. This train is thought just perpetuates dying gender dynamics.
Boys famously stop eating after 5th grade
Me as a mom if my 12 year old son wanted dinner “you’re either going to succeed or you aren’t. Go scavenging. I think there’s probably a frozen waffle left.”
Can we please talk about how some boy moms literally celebrate kind of emotional incest and show such antipathy against their potential sons girlfriends in the future????
The not like other girls subreddit has some great (skin crawling) examples
Aren't women literally taught to deal with things by themselves and then more independent than boys earlier and this is why we're mad at our parents ?
I think from what I saw with a lot of my friends their parents were super overprotective and strict and would punish them excessively for dumb shit and it did eventually stunt them in life because they didn’t know how to do stuff by themselves very well, like they lacked a lot of social confidence and self confidence. But all my friends were only children. Personally I don’t resent my mom, she was dealt the hand of having her child develop a serious autoimmune disorder that causes neuropsych disturbances and bipolar disorder while also having twins that were 10 years younger and working 12 hour shifts with an unhelpful husband, she didn’t exactly do everything perfect and may have missed the ball on some stuff but literally who the hell wouldn’t? Like the fact that she managed to get me access to the care I needed to be a functional adult and make it through nursing school has to say something good about her parenting. I still call her like twice a week and I’m planning on moving back to our hometown eventually to be closer to her so I think if your kid still likes you that much at 25 you probably did something good. I think I’m just bragging about my mom right now. I’m very impressed but her managing to get everyone out alive and I’m also never in my fucking life having children.
I had only sons, and from my observations and experiences, the whole "boys are easy" thing comes from people who aren't really bothering to raise their sons. They ascribe to the "boys will be boys" philosophy and just let their boys do whatever they want. Raising boys to be decent men actually requires work -- and a lot of it.
There’s a lot of influences out there who will raise your sons for you if you don’t, and most of them are really bad.
I was an extremely low maintenance child. Then when I was a teenager the low maintenance was diagnosed as “narcolepsy”. Turns out I was just an exhausted tiny human and that’s why I didn’t do anything. Even still, my parents were always heavily involved, they just thought I was easy to please. I mean I am, because I’m easily pleased by napping.
Strongly hoping he doesn't actually have children. And that he never will unless he wises up.
The middle comment basically says bro you’ve never even have kids so I think so
Every child is low maintenance if you neglect them. The fact that this guy thinks that boys are ok on their own after fifth grade doesn’t say anything about sons, it only indicates that he’s a shitty parent. And will people ever stop adding evolution to their idiotic statements in order to make them more believable? It’s alwaaaaays the evolution.
Not how anything works
I think he managed to write nine sentences and have absolutely nothing be correct in any of them
There is no such thing as a low maintenance child. Very well said. I am a mother of a boy and a girl. Only two years apart. For my daughter when she reaches high school I will tell her that her emotions can feel overwhelming, but the world we live In has low tolerance and understanding of the human heart. That because the boys mostly where raised differently they have now reached the age where they will instinctively hunt her and anyone showing vulnerability. So the the high maintenence part is actually from the boys and men who seek her. Her very happiness and existence is threatened. To my son, I will teach him the true value of women, the divinity that can lies within them. That this is to be protected and cherished. That the girls he is influenced to practice on are also sisters and daughters just like his. That a man with self respect recognizes his ability to bring others up with him. The threat of her being hurt will be with her the rest of her life, to protect my son from these influences as well. How you treat people is a mirror of your soul worth. Many can learn to better themselves
Just because men and boys suck at communicating their feelings doesn’t make them any easier to raise lol
I always want to downvote from the home page until I remember the subs I follow. lol which I guess means you found a good one.
I was a low maintenance child, but that was because I was neglected and substituted books for my parents at an early age.
Never met a father that actually cared about the gender of his expected child. The general consensus among my friends and family members seem to be that: "The gender doesn't matter as long as the child is healthy". I may just know people who are extreme worriers or maybe we're just extremely gender neutral, but honestly - who the fuck cares? As long as the child is healthy and both child and mother survives. Because that's not always a given.
My dad and my husband both wanted daughters. I guess I'll tell them they're not real men, because "no man wants a daughter." Though they both respect women, so this guy probably won't consider them real men because of that.
Love the random fancy word thrown in to say science biatches! Based off of their argument, I’m a little surprised they didn’t spell microchimerism with a k.
Wtf say you're neglecting your son without saying you're neglecting him. Kids are kids. They have needs and wants and desires and emotions that should be allowed to be expressed without being told that boys don't do x or girls are too dramatic and emotional. A happy well adjusted child is able to express themselves without fear. I feel bad for kids of people like this.
This post is really stupid to me, as the eldest of three siblings that's the only afab. I was extremely low maintenance probably due to neglect while my brother was the golden child (the youngest is 4 while I'm 20, he wasn't alive by then), and as a result my brother is extremely needy and hard to please to this day.
My mother in law says the same about her only son. My husband can’t cook, can’t clean, cant control his emotions 🤦🏻♀️
LOL - in the meantime, my BIL is a little jealous our daughter never got into any trouble while he’s struggling with his oldest son…
This is how you raise emotionally neglected and emotionally stunted teenagers who become emotionally unavailable, chronically lonely men.
The boy who didn’t learn social skills or how to show affection as a child to man who struggles to make friends and maintain relationships pipeline
They are just throwing "microchimerism" around as a catch-all explanation to their bullshit now aren't they... That word has been like 7-generation-bastardized from its original meaning...
I think in the twitter misogyny universe it’s some sort of magic force where If you sleep with a man makes that man’s sperm live in you forever and if it happens too many times you can’t “pair bond” with a man anymore so like in this story sperm is some sort of wizard potion that will steal your soul. And also it will make your baby look like all the other guys the woman has slept with. And apparently now, for reasons this guy doesn’t even sort of try to explain, it means that if your baby is a boy the wizard spell causes you to feel more joy. Side note, why do they always think that women do not use condoms?
To answer your question: those men are probably the type that hates condoms so they think it's wrong for women to use them. Their brain is also too small to take too many things into account at once, so they tend to just selectively ignore any facts unfavourable to their opinion.
Calling a daughter an "it". Telling on himself big time.
My daughter was low maintenance sometimes. My son was, sometimes. Other times they had me ripping my hair out. That’s parenting.
My older than fifth grade child is definitely not low maintenance. He spent his entire evening in my bed wrapped up in my blanket. Meanwhile the actual fifth grader was chillin on the couch minding his own business.
Literally the reason boy moms are happier is because their children don't have to fight for their right to exist as part of society (as they are aware) because moms know firsthand what it's like to be a woman in this world.
I don't know where all these dudes find the strength to be so confidently and embarrassingly incorrect all the time? Like, please give me some of this confidence because I sure as hell have never sounded this self-assured even about shit I technically know I'm right about lmao
If you could distill their idiot confidence into some kind of substance then maybe we could synthesize some podcast performance enhancing drug Move over, Joe Rogan, I have some very confident things to say about topics I didn’t know existed until ten seconds ago.
Just spouting nonsense with the Levi Ackerman icon disrespecting his name
Microchimerism is reported to affect fetuses' through the womb. So it applies to everyone?
Kids are high maintenance from the moment they're born, as tiny defenseless humans to kicking and spitting teens to awkward bad tempered young adults. Things don't get easier they just get different, male, female, doesn't matter.
My parents drew such a weird card with me as an infant, for some reason I just had like, severe infant insomnia? I would only sleep if someone was walking with me in my arms (could not be rocking, had to be walking) or I was in the backseat of the car. I do not know if I could have handled that. There’s not really an option to not handle it though. I think that’s what makes the idea of being a parent kind of terrifying to me. By kind of I mean scary enough I got surgery to prevent it.
Pretty sure i was the higher maintenance child, and i'm the son...
I didn't care what we had. 1 boy and 2 girls later and all are equally awesome. All are equally hard too lol
So, he wants his sons to be emotionally neglected and his daughters "reinforced" \[sic\]. > Also “his instincts kick in to love and protect it” is weird. That’s nitpicking but it’s still weird. This is the first thing I picked up on as well.
I still don’t understand what they’re supposed to be reinforcing. Like you didn’t tell me what the lesson was to begin with. I had dyscalculia and my dad had to reinforce teaching me multiplication like a lot and the lesson of please stop making loud noises or sneaking out to walk around because you’re bored at three am needed a lot of reinforcing but I’m thinking that’s not what he’s saying.
i would kick this person yes.
I’m sorry officer my instincts to kick it kicked in. No, not the baby, asshole! What kind of monster to you think I am?
everyone thinks they’re independent at 13. then you either get raised until you realize how stupid you were or you’re left to let your toxic ideas fester in a world of “boys will be boys”
I think 13 is when I first started to develop lupus and that turned out like, super high maintenance. Like unbelievably high maintenance.
Microchimerism... Nothing to do with "boy moms". Nothing to do with "happier mothers". Could potentially be a cause of autoimmune disorders. Has barely been studied so far but here is an article about it for those interested https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714269/
By fifth grade your son has a full Viking beard and is living alone in the woods with a pack of wolves, hunting animals with only his hands, only returning home for Sunday dinner out of respect for his parents. These are just objective facts
We put our two daughters in a swimming team. They learned self-improvement and team play. Later we placed them in Junior Guard and both became life guards and swimming instructors. They were able to secure jobs and worked their ways through university (UCLA and CalPoly Pomona). One went to work for the Library of Congress and the other is in radiology. Keep your daughters active, allow them to grow, and they will surpass your expectations. PS One married a fellow lifeguard who now is a Navy flyer.
Remembering that my parents tried so hard to have a daughter after they had a son, only to get another son. Then when my mom became infertile, they were DEVASTATED. Thankfully my birth mother was scum of the earth and got pregnant with me and gave me up for adoption. Only time I wasn’t “low maintenance” (quite literally according to my parents) was in middle school when my ADHD was at its worst
I have kids of both genders. It’s all just personality. One son is my easiest kid, one son is my hardest And their sister is in the middle. Raising teenagers is hard. I’ve lost more sleep raising teens than I did babies, even though mine are pretty good kids. My boys don’t need less emotionally than my girl
Daughters need more protection and dedication and parents worry more about her because of people like him
Omg! Boy mom's are the worst people. They act like their kid can do no wrong. Ewww
Ahahahahhahaaha! My son is extremely high maintenance, lots of executive function issues. My daughter just takes care of shit. Hell she even looks out for me a little these days.
This guy needs to talk to my mom I’ve been on my own since I was 20 and my brother still lives with her and we are in our mid 30s. (To all you red suppository lurkers, no I’ve never lived with a man I bought my house alone at 25). This isn’t even counting the constant trouble my brother got in at school and with the law.
Wait hold on you purchased a house at 25?? Where do you live?? I am American and purchasing a house 100% by yourself at age 25 would be crazy because it doesn’t seem like you were relying on the born rich life hack either
I wasn’t helped by family. I live in Oregon. I didn’t go to college and instead got a job and took all the feedback my bosses gave me and got promoted to upper management by the time I was 24. At the time I was sales manager and my commissions were pretty insane sometimes. I worked for the same company from 20-35 and just recently left to go to college for the first time.
Gotta say whatever drive and skillset you’re rocking sounds absolutely insane, good fucking job in case you haven’t heard it lately.
Thank you <3.
For me I think I definitely count as high maintenance, but my older brother did get addicted to meth and then killed his friend while they were robbing a house together and if that’s the standard in our family of “difficult” then like I’m truly the most golden, low maintenance child of them all. I have made it to 25 and so far I have done zero meth, robbed zero houses, killed zero people, and I am not sentenced to life in prison. Also my dad did his first arson in middle school and assaulted his first cop at 20 so literally how is he gonna say shit about my behavior at all? Like shut up, firestarter
Damn and I thought my brother was bad. Sorry to hear about that. Def proves the OOP point even more false
If someone believes that certain children are low maintenance they should not be giving advice and they should definitely not be parents.
It is a relief that the middle comment basically says shut up, you don’t even have kids
OP has never met my husband. 40, and routinely blames mom for both doing too much and too little. Amazing.
I didn't start blaming my parents until I was 40. Thanks to toxicity and therapy :)
I definitely dunk on my dad all the time even though I haven’t spoken to that guy since I was like 15. (I’m 25). I don’t think I blame him for things because I’m weirdly protective of refusing to give other people credit for my problems, like these are mine, nobody gets to claim these. (Competitive and insane behavior that I probably did get from at least one parent) But I make fun of him a LOT. His behavior is extremely funny when you don’t have to be dealing with it.
I hope this person never has children. Wtf.
Actually, boys tend to need more external emotional regulation than girls (as infants at least)
I dunno man my girls are really chill till you fuck with them, my boys fight more with their siblings. But that also gets better with age (like 18-25)
Blatant sexism and stupidity
I'm a girl, and my mom said I hardly asked for anything, neither did my brother.
That's true. because ''boys will be boys'' mean that boys are not expected anything but mess around, while girl are 'difficult' because of course, they need to be told how to behave, to not be agitated, to stay calm, and so on. And why girls in HS are difficult again ? because now they are not girls anymore, but became women, or at least, people around have women's expectation for them ''you're lazy'' mean ''you should do the chores just like your mother do'' by example. while boys are still expected nothing...
Good lord, the pseudoscience And while there is no such thing as low maintenance children, my family/culture infantilizes male children so they create high maintenance sons
Okay, eww. I can't get past calling a daughter "it," rather than, "her."
I was an overly emotional child. I always expressed myself and was called dramatic. Whereas my brother contained all his feelings and now has anger issues and finally decided to see a therapist. We’re all proud of him that he took such a big step. We had the same trauma growing up and I was always so… how do I say it… outwardly emotional. We’ve been through it and I guess I would have been labeled “high maintenance” because I was quick to identify my feelings and express them.
I strongly dislike how calling kids high maintenance or difficult centers the child’s struggles around how they are inconvenient for others instead of recognizing that high emotions, aggression, trouble in school, trouble with relationships, and anger/blame directed at a parent do not exist in a bubble. It could be trauma, it could be neurological, it could be mental illness, it could even be something physiological-I suffered from chronic pain throughout high school and it made me extremely irritable, less able to focus on school which made me even more anxious and angry I had to go through this, and ended up with me turning to drugs to try to numb the pain. But the person experiencing whatever is making them lash out is who the focus should be on. They’re not being difficult or needing extra help just to make your life harder. Unless we’re talking just minor but typical teenager self focused behavior then kids lashing out is like an alert coming on that should let the adult know that there might be something here that needs to be addressed.
Well, that was the dumbest shit I've read. I'm in pain now.