Let's Hear It For the Girls

I've been feeling badly recently. It hits me at odd times: in the bath; drifting off to sleep; sitting at a stop light. I and a few others have been talking about the joys of parenting teen boys and implicit in that is the claim that teen girls are less joyful to parent.

And I used to be a teenage girl, and I am a feminist, and the preference for boys historically is offensive and I am officially offended by myself.

I want to apologize to any and all teen girls, and those who were once teen girls, for offensive comments.

And I still have found that boys are easier.

I've been wondering why that is my experience, and the experience of other foster parents. I have some thoughts.

One is that maybe it is just my limited experience. I happen to have parented boys who were relatively easy and given respite care to girls who were living in a therapeutic home. It is a distorted sample.

Maybe it is that unconscious prejudice in which people from dominant groups are not taken to represent anyone other than themselves. A boy steals from us and I think, "that is a difficult kid." A girl lies and wanders off and I think, "Girls are hard to parent." I know I am not immune to those errors.

Maybe it is because of the expectations we/I judge kids against. My experience as a professor is that students who get C's from my male colleagues conclude that they (the students) are not good at that subject. Students who get C's from me are more likely to conclude it is because I am a b*tch. They expect me to be more understanding, supportive, gentle, something. So maybe I'm doing the same thing...judging them by different standards, seeing the girls as more difficult because I expect girls to be nicer.

Maybe there is some reality behind it. Girls are more likely to be adopted at almost every age (I'm told, no reliable info to back that up). Once again based upon no firm evidence at all, it seems to me that the most difficult boys are more likely to end up in juvenile detention, so maybe when you put those things together the teen boys in foster care are easier to deal with than the girls.

I have often thought though that one difference is that the boys are not as angry or fearful of women. The girls feel their mothers' failures more acutely. They boys have seemed less defensive with me. Of course the boys often do this whole dominant male dance with Roland, who thankfully doesn't notice and just moves on.

So maybe it is just us.

But I don't know.

A lot of the things I say about teen boys applies to teen girls. They have a track record. You are much more likely to know whether their needs match your skills. They respond better to parents who see themselves as mentors and don't try to control them. They need understanding and support. They need to feel valued and cherished.

So if you are thinking about what age of kid to parent, consider teens, girls and boys.

There are amazing, wonderful kids out there. They come in different ages, genders, sexualities, sizes, and backgrounds.

Consider it.