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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I worry a lot less about my daughter. I am not sure why.

Is it just because son is the first kid and bears the burden of all my hopes and expectations?

Part of me thinks it might be because I think it’s just harder for boys in the world in the long term. Girls mature faster and outperform boys so much in school, and also always have the option of an easier career or staying at home with the kids. To do well in a HCOL area like we do, boys eventually have to have a lucrative, high paying job and with that, there’s so much more stress on the academic and college front when they are younger.

And girls are just easier when younger based on what I hear. Fewer learning issues, therapies needed. Went past  a speech therapy office recently and the 4 children in the waiting room were all boys.

Anyone relate? [/quote]

Yes, completely.

DD is my oldest; I signed her up for many supportive, affirming groups like Girls on the Run (then Heart and Sole), Coding for Girls, the Girl Scouts.  Each group has its own empowering messages to encourage and motivate her through our male-dominated culture.  She’s responded by working hard, excelling, and has such a bright future!

DS I enrolled in Cubs, then Boy Scouts (now renamed again Scouting USA) and it’s now co-ed; the subtle message to the boys has been “you were wrong to exclude girls; you should be ashamed).  There was no boys on the run.  All his classes are co-ed; all the history lessons in school are all about colonialism and oppression (and the subtle message is always: the oppressors are cisgender white males).

As an 8th grader, the books he’s assigned are all things like George Takei’s They Called us Enemy or, Things Fall Apart (same messages about oppressors:  males. Whites).

We listen to NPR in the car and read the Post at home:  same messages and none of it is good when it comes to males, who are the ones who created and perpetuate patriarchal culture.

It’s no wonder he and most other teen boys around here feel depressed.  Look at the messages we are sending? [/quote]

You know it's really interesting to me how white adults assume that if you teach kids the history of this country it's going to make white children feel bad. What actually happens is that children have a lot of empathy those who have experienced injustice. I think kids inherently understand power dynamics and how they too have experienced where other people have had more power and control over them.[/quote]

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