by Leslie Folsom

Created on: March 07, 2009

Girls! Girls! Girls! While I believe parenting girls and boys is both rewarding and difficult at times, I have found that there is a definite distinction in raising my daughter versus my son. Perhaps it has to do with my being female and able to understand my daughter's psyche or perhaps it is simply their distinct personalities, but there is no question that the easier task is raising a girl. This statement has nothing to do with my capacity to love them equally and everything to do with the trials and tribulations that accompany having children.

In the fourteen years of being a mom to my son, I have spent countless hours worrying about broken bones when he decided he could stand on the handle bars of his bicycle, or dunk the basketball by jumping off of the hood of a car, or even jumping from the top step of the staircase directly to the bottom landing having no use for the ten steps in between. And of course we cannot forget to mention that since he has officially become a teenager, he's decided that it's not cool to hug me or kiss me in front of anyone and that I can't possibly understand his need to text his friends at 2:00 a.m. or wear the same shirt every Monday because it's his "lucky" shirt. You see, I'm not a "guy"; and to him, these are "guy" things that I will never be able to understand.

On the other hand, with my daughter things are simple, straight forward and best of all...she actually thinks I know something! When her dad tells her to clean her room and she walks into the kitchen while I'm cooking dinner and says, "Mom, you understand why I can't clean my room tomorrow. I have to practice my gymnastics. It's important to me". And then she blinks those big brown eyes and smiles and says "Mom, I love you and I'm so glad we're friends". Then she leaves and I tell her dad to cut her some slack she'll work on her room later. There's no broken bones, no hurried trips to the E.R., no rolling of the eyes. Just a simple, straightforward conversation. Sort of.

Truthfully, I think it's easier to raise a girl if you're the mom because you can empathize with the emotions and drama of being a girl. And while I can understand this and console my daughter when she's upset or rejoice with her when the right boy looked at her, I find it most difficult to explain to my son why the girls at school act just like his "stupid sister". No matter what explanation I give it is apparent that nothing I can say will sink into the male brain he has. I look into his sweet face (the one that looks just exactly like his father's) and try to find words that he will understand. But there it is...he looks back and me and says "Mom, you're just saying that because you're a girl". It's hard to ignore the truth.

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