PARENTING Parenting RAISING BOYS

E asks “Why are boys rougher than girls?”

They look like they’re cuddling, but they’re wrestling

“Mom, why are boys rougher than girls?” E asked me tonight.
I had half a second to craft my answer, and an hour’s worth of images pop into my mind at once:
It isn’t “nurture,” I can tell you that.  I took my share of psychology classes in college, and I’ve read my share of parenting magazines.  That whole “nature vs. nurture” debate?  I put it to bed when I became a M.O.B.
I didn’t teach my boys that doing puzzles is a full contact sport.  But they turned it into one.
Even D, the youngest, can hold his own in an impromptu wrestling match.
And how they actually broke the couch in our living room remains a mystery to my husband and me.
The many dirt smudges on our newly painted walls – I guess those are from them grabbing the walls to slow themselves down around corners as they run through the house like a tornado.
That hole in the plastic drum I bought for my youngest and forbade E to touch because he’s an aggressive drummer – yeah, that drum is ruined.
Why our stomp rockets last less than a season every year . . .
Why my sweet, smiling son can enter a room and spontaneously PUNCH his brother in the back, then keep walking by with a smile . . .
And that floral placemat I mentioned in a prior post – that quickly became a creased projectile device . . . it had no chance at resting peacefully as a spring decoration on my table.
I have a flashback to the time I met my college roommate for brunch last year with her husband and sweet daughters, and how they sat quietly and read the menu while my kids bounced from seat to seat and shredded paper placemats.
It’s why many M.O.B.s I know describe their families as “spirited,” our code word for “crazy-high energy, constantly moving and chaotic, and, yes, rough.”
It all brings me back to that very valuable wisdom a friend shared with me about being a M.O.B. – “Everything will be broken.  Everything will be ruined!”  It’s an adventure I’m taking on and embracing.
I looked at E’s eager brown eyes awaiting my answer.  “What makes you think boys are rougher than girls?” I asked him.
“Because boys wear helmets and mouth-guards in lacrosse, and girls only wear mouth-guards.”
It’s as simple as that.

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