Girls Are Weird
Turns out my son thinks he’s pretty hot shit. The mother of one of his classmates called our house last night to tell Hot Wife that her son, whom we’ll call Timmy, came home sobbing after school because The Champ was “being mean” to him. More specifically, my son was teasing Timmy because:
1) In preparation for the upcoming Mother’s Day performance at school, Timmy volunteered to play a flower.
2) Timmy’s baseball skills have developed at a slower pace than The Champ’s. As a result, Timmy is playing his second season of coach-pitch while my son has moved up to machine-pitch.
As a child, I was just like Timmy. I was bullied. I was teased. I know why Timmy was crying, and I was therefore well prepared to relay those feelings to my son when I sat him down this morning and talked about the issue with him. He cried a little. He felt bad. His good-hearted side came through and I don’t expect we’ll have any further phone calls from Timmy’s mom.
That’s the great thing about young boys: they’re too dumb to argue with common sense.
I tell that story first because it is the baseline against which we can compare the unfathomable behavior of my daughter, and generally contrast the behavioral and emotional equilibrium of boys against girls.
(That was my diplomatic attempt at saying “Girls are weird.”)
I was at home last night when my wife and daughter pulled into the garage. The first thing I heard when they walked into the house was the inimitable sound of my daughter crying. And screaming. And generally acting like an ass.
She walked over to me and collapsed in my life, still howling mad.
“Woah, woah, woah,” I said. “Slow down. Take a deep breath. OK? You good? OK. Now tell me what’s going on.”
She tried to talk through the beats of her hysteria, each sentence being interrupted at least once by those involuntary, hiccupy inhalations kids get when they bawl.
“Muh-muh-mommy got mad at me buh-buh-because she told me to cuh-cuh-close the door on her car and I dih-dih-didn’t want to.”
“Wait. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you want to close the car door?”
“Buh-buh-BECAUSE, DADDYYYYYY! I ALWAYS HAVE TO CLOSE THE DUH-DUH-DOOR! IT’S BORING!”
I cocked my head. I was confused.
“So you’re telling me you’re crying like this because you didn’t want to push the button that closes the side door on the minivan?”
“Y-y-yessssss!”
Hot Wife walked in from the garage, saw the scene unfolding in my lap and shrugged her shoulders at me, as if to say, “Don’t ask me, dude. She’s your daughter.”
“Honey, this is silly,” I said to my daughter. “All you have to do is go out there and push one button. It takes two seconds. Is something that simple really worth getting so worked up about?”
Suddenly, in some strange dark area of the cockpit in her mind, my daughter jammed on the clutch and shifted herself into full Linda Blair mode. Her face turned red and her eyes squinted and I half expected her to start spitting green shit at me and angrily reveal that members of my immediate family do dirty things to people in hell. It also occurred to me that we should have named her Cujo.
“WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO DO IT?!” she wailed. “I HATE IT! IT’S BORING! WHY CAN’T MOMMY DO IT? I DON’T WANT TO CLOSE THE DOOR! REDRUM! REDRUM! HERE’S JOHNNY! NO MORE WIRE HANGERS! GRRRRRR…”
People. Let’s be real. You would never see a boy act so irrationally. (Not unless he had consumed pachyderm-grade PCP anyway.) When a boy fucks up or spazzes out over something, you tell him not to do it again, hand him a few Twizzlers and – BOOM! – it’s over. With a girl, you get histrionics and flying saliva and the SWAT team showing up with taser guns locked and loaded. Girls are irrational and emotional and weird. (Except for my wife and the brilliant, emotionally stable women who read this site.)
[sheepish grin]
I’ll close with the story Chris, my son’s baseball coach, told me. A few years ago, his daughter bumped her head a doorknob and came running to him in tears. She was inconsolable.
“Do you think a few M&Ms might make it feel better?” Chris asked.
His daughter nodded yes.
Chris scurried away, came back with a handful of candies and gave them to his daughter. As he walked away, he assumed she would eat them.
A few minutes later, his daughter ambled up to him and said, “It’s not working, daddy.”
The M&Ms were in her hand, pressed against the bump on her head.
See? Weird.
Daughter: Tantrum every morning about what I choose for her to wear. Son: Lies every morning about whether he has put on clean underpants.
How to choose, filthy beast or mad beast? All I can say is I can't wait for the teenage years when both those character traits will be exaggerated to the power ten.
They say boarding school builds character...
The good news: the histronics subside somewhat once they start kindergarten or so
The bad news: they come back with a VENGENANCE when they hit pre-puberty.
The worse news: it lasts until they have their first child (but of course, then they are their husband's problem! LOL)
Oh, the stories I could tell...or told, actually, as they are all on my blog...but yes, you are essentially correct - boys will do really dumb things, but they are easy to fix. You punish the boy, boy doesn't want that to happen again, he doesn't do dumb thing again. Girls take everything personally, drag all sorts of emotions into the simplest of discussions, and disciplining them feels like trying to pin down Jello.
Maybe somewhere in your "about" you should put the ages of your kids? I'm a new reader and can't figure it out. I'm guessing your daughter is either 4 or 12.
Oh, and my son wants to major in journalism. Could you come talk to him?
Yes - you are right. Girls are weird - and I use to be a little girl. I'm now one of the brilliant and emotionally stable women who read your site. (smug smile in response to your sheepish grin)
All I have to say is hold on tight it's gonna be a bumpy ride. We have a 15 year old daughter. (And an 18 year old son. Boys ARE easier.) Take what you've got right now to the power of 10 and you'll have a glimpse of your future. Luckily - in both the good and bad aspects. It's enough to give a parent "emotional whip lash"!!
Sadly, you are correct sir.
My almost 3 year old girl drives my hubs and I completely nuts with her emotional dramatics. I just look at her in disbelief, because I am NEVER like that. *smirk*
"Girls are irrational and emotional and weird." We are also "brilliant and emotionally stable." Head explodes from identifying with both scenarios. Must go apply ice cream to brain.
Remember the simpler days when they were toddlers and every button had to be pushed and they had to be the ones to do it or THAT would cause tears?
As for the thing about girls, on behalf of girls, let me be the first to say, Damn, you found us out.
The first thing we do every morning is pee in the potty (she's 3 1/2)...A few days ago I walked her to the potty, lifted her on and then walked into the hall to turn on the light when this SCREECHING comes from the bathroom. Only possible explanation is that she fell ... or her pee hurts, right? I run in..."Baby, what's wrong...?". No lie - She looks up at me with big crocodile tears and SCREAMS "I.DON'T. KNOW!!"
Oh shit. Not yet Lord. Not YET!
Growing up with two sisters, and being the middle child between them, I have to agree that girls are weird. Both my sisters would lose their shit over the simplest things.
Of course, being their brother, I'd provoke most of it. Gotta get your kicks somewhere.
Yet I must confess that I have a son who can sometimes throw fits over the damn dumbest things too! But I agree with you about the broad broad broad emotional spectrum that is the little girl. Wait till she's 10! Then you have hysteria accompanied by an eyeroll and the subtext of every statement she makes has a parenthetical "you idiot" at the end of it. Awesome.
Oh, and good on you for helping the Champ to take into account the feelings of others. As a previous (and current) geek myself, I find it hard to imagine that my kid might be the one that others envy!
Yet I must confess that I have a son who can sometimes throw fits over the damn dumbest things too! But I agree with you about the broad broad broad emotional spectrum that is the little girl. Wait till she's 10! Then you have hysteria accompanied by an eyeroll and the subtext of every statement she makes has a parenthetical "you idiot" at the end of it. Awesome.
Oh, and good on you for helping the Champ to take into account the feelings of others. As a previous (and current) geek myself, I find it hard to imagine that my kid might be the one that others envy!
I swore I would never use this as reasoning with my kids, but if they're not being rational...
"You have to do it because I TOLD YOU TO DO IT."
God save me if I have daughters. I WAS that teenager, and honestly, I don't know why either of my parents let me live through it.
See, here's the thing. Girls are just BORN with emotional access. That's the tricky part for us growing up. We have to learn to conrol all the darn things. That's why it takes so long. There are A GREAT MANY of them. Boys, on the other hand, (as has been brilliantly pointed out in the other comments) have a much more simplistic emotional structure. IF you can't eat it, beat it or (in later days) screw it, you just don't bother. There are days when I try to emulate that. Did I mention I have a 12 and 13 year old girls? Yeah.
I was very happy to have a boy, as I remember the emotional rollercoaster I put my parents thru.
That was until my son turned 16 and seemed to stop thinking with the right head. Teenage girls make for stupid, hormonal teenage boys.
I was very happy to have a boy, as I remember the emotional rollercoaster I put my parents thru.
That was until my son turned 16 and seemed to stop thinking with the right head. Teenage girls make for stupid, hormonal teenage boys.
On the contrary, my 4yo son acts like this. Maybe he's gay? My brother's gay. Perhaps it's a gene? Ugh.
Anyhoo, my daughter is not quite 2yo yet, but she does have to have things HER WAY, and everything has to be HER IDEA. I do not look forward to the little mama drama. I trust that our kids are who they are, they come out hard-wired. I mean, I never threw any tantrums when I was a kid. *cough*ahem*
Nice caviot for the rational women who read. And good for you for having the bully talk!
It just gets worse. I just leave my car door wide open until Victor comes home to close it for me. Why should I have to do it? Except this one time someone drove by and knocked the whole door off! And then got mad at ME for leaving my car door open. What an asshole!
You are so right! This has proven true in my house. Except many times when we ask her what's wrong she wails "Nooooooothing!!!!". What the hell am I supposed to do about that???
So glad I had a boy.
At about 14 the aliens come and take your child and replace them with a clone that looks like your kid, but it isn't. It's really a hormone bomb with a big mouth, bigger attitude and an itty bitty brain controlled completely by the dumbstick. I think your real child isn't returned to you until they are about 20. I'll let you know if it's true in a couple years.
lol!!!
Oh hell yes. Girls and women = psycho. It's just the way it is. Hormones work as one excuse, but not when you're under 10. I'm DREADING having to deal with all the girl issues we will face with my own daughter!
my daughter just turned 4 years old, so I feel your pain. She is constantly turning on the drama and sometimes just cries for no reason. Seriously, I ask her what is wrong and she manages to say (in between the huffing, gasping cries "I don't know momma", oy vey I am in trouble....
I wish I had brilliant advice like all these people, rather than a growing dread now that my 1-year-old daughter may not grow out of her current behavior (e.g. "Up, up!", "You want to come up?", "Yay!", [picks up] "Screeeeeeeeeech!!! No, no, no! Down!!")
I'll just have to take comfort in Becky's assertion above that the good stuff is amplified, too.
Good work setting your son straight with the bullying-- I hope I'll have as much luck on that front.
Sadly, I can not argue with a bit of your logic. My two-year old already goes sobbing to the opposite parent whenever she gets in trouble. Between tears and sobs, she blubbers as she tattles, "Daddy do." I know very well what Daddy did is tell her to stop shoving a fork in the electrical socket. *sigh*
Am I the only one seeing the different format? Love it. I had to triple-check that I came to the right web address. Cool.
Anyway, this is one of the many reasons I'm happy to have three boys. Not to say their heads don't spin 360 degrees when they're feeling particularly pissed, but, for the most part, I think tick-for-tack they're easier than girls.
And seriously, glad you took on the bullying issue.
As the father of a 3 1/2 year old girl and a 1 year old boy, thanks douche bag! It's not like I can put them back now!
Now I have to explain to my coworkers what that wheezing from my cube was.
You are describing my daughter! How can one be BORED by pushing a button? My daughter says this kind of stuff to me all the time, and I don't get it. She is 8 and last summer, when I was trying to convince her to wear flip-flops or flat sandals instead of high-heel sandals (for playing at the park) (I didn't want her to trip and break her ankle) we had a HUGE fight and she ended up yelling at me "THIS IS MY LIFE!!" while slapping herself on the chest.
Seriously? I broke up laughing and told her that she wasn't allowed to use that line on me until she was at LEAST 15. It will only get worse from here. And being of the female species, I know that it won't start getting better until she is at least 30. *sigh*
I like the new format, too. And girls? Yup, we're a big ol' puddle of emotional. But I like to believe that makes us more interesting, too.
I'm risking an ass-kicking here but I hope your boy apologizes to the other kid. I was the one who got bullied too and an "I'm sorry I was a dick" from certain people would have saved lots o' moolah for therapy later on.
Just wait until she hits puberty. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
(By the way, this brilliant, emotionally stable woman thinks the new look rocks.)
When my 5 yr old daughter pulls this kind of crap I have a very easy solution. Goes something like this: "Oh, it BORING??? is it??? Well, I'll tell you what else is boring.....cooking your dinner! And washing your clothes, and buying your groceries and dressing you and taking you places and going outside with you and buying you a swingset and teaching you to use it, and going to work, and being a SAHM, and letting your friends come over and sweeping this floor after you have so irreverently dropped all of your food all over it and buttoning your pants because you just can't quite get it......etc." Bottom line is; I do these things because I love you and I want to care for you. You do things that I ask you to do because you love me and you want to be helpful. We all have our jobs and kids' jobs are NOTHING compared to their parents and we deserve respect SO JUST GO PUSH THE GODDAMN BUTTON ALREADY!!!. umkay? sweetie.
When my 5 yr old daughter pulls this kind of crap I have a very easy solution. Goes something like this: "Oh, it BORING??? is it??? Well, I'll tell you what else is boring.....cooking your dinner! And washing your clothes, and buying your groceries and dressing you and taking you places and going outside with you and buying you a swingset and teaching you to use it, and going to work, and being a SAHM, and letting your friends come over and sweeping this floor after you have so irreverently dropped all of your food all over it and buttoning your pants because you just can't quite get it......etc." Bottom line is; I do these things because I love you and I want to care for you. You do things that I ask you to do because you love me and you want to be helpful. We all have our jobs and kids' jobs are NOTHING compared to their parents and we deserve respect SO JUST GO PUSH THE GODDAMN BUTTON ALREADY!!!. umkay? sweetie.
The weirdest thing is that looks like your leg on the tractor. I've never seen you on a tractor but it's very sexy.
First off I love the new layout.
Second, my daughter is almost 8 and still acts that way. I keep waiting for her to out-grow it but it hasn't happened yet and I'm getting scared, really really scared.
I knew I wanted boys for a reason!
Laughing at Hot Wife's comment about the leg. Funny, I thought it was my husband's leg. You know...knobby kneed, hairy and pasty white.
Rawr. Sexy.
And just so you know, Hot Wife, the husband only looks sexy on the tractor until he flips it upside down or runs it into the side of your brand new minivan.
Then, not so sexy.
As for girls...well, I gotta agree with you. Painful as it may be. But then, I'm one of those irrational emotionally unstable women you were writing about.
Which is why we want to adopt BOYS.
If you're truly emotionally stable, you aren't alive. :)
Girls are weird. I can't deny that. I'll try to put my finger on it by saying that a lot of times, I am incredibly frustrated or irritated, but I'm not quite sure what is motivating all this intense frustration or irritation, so I (logically) blame the very last thing that aggravated me. Which is usually okay, unless it was my husband. That usually doesn't get me anywhere.
My 7 year old daughter does this too. To me, it is very self-absorbed behavior-- if it's not fun and she's getting nothing out of it, forget it.
Girls are emotional freaks, I'll admit. I'd take male shenanigans any day over the fragile nature of young girls. Thank goodness we grow out of all that, eh?
Girls are total freaks . . . weird doesn't even beGIN to describe it! That's why I hoped and wished with all my might that my first child would be a boy . . . and someone was listening . . . the powers-that-be KNEW that I NEEDED a boy first ;-) I love my daughter to death . . . but MAN she is SUCH a girl!
love the new layout!
girls are emotional. women just hide it better. :)
Love the new outlook.
YES, girls are DRAMA!!! I have two boys (10 and7) and a girl (5). And let me tell you, before she came along everything was fine and dandy. I would take my boys anywhere with no problem, but my girl, she has to carry like 20 bags along with her build a bear and all. Don't get me wrong, I love her to death. But she is such a drama queen. She cries for everything and makes it a big deal for about an hour. She can also be a total sweetheart and act like a princess but then 2 seconds later, she becomes this mean ass tomboy. Yes, indeed, girls are weird. Just don't forget that we are very smart as well.....
Much Love
My teenage son pulls the same "boring" stuff on me — that is a genderless reality for most kids in today's hyper-stimulating world.
Girls are emotional, true. But then we grow up to be Hot Wives.
Boys are innocently clueless. But then they grow up to be ...
Well, I think I'd better stop there
;-)
All you people with all your comments have totally burst my bubble.
I had just about very nearly almost convinced myself that she was *growing out of it*.
But she is only four... you mean this will go on and on and on...?
On another note, The Daddy has always lusted after one of those tractors. Why? Why? Why?
As a (brilliant, emotionally stable) woman, I just don't understand the appeal.
New layout!!!
If you think your women readers are all emotionally stable, you clearly haven't read my blog.
And, I have personally seen my own son be hysterical and inconsolable over a ninja turtle toy. For like, hours. So it isn't just a girl thing. Unless the boy turns out to be gay, but he's 16 now and really likes girls, so I'm thinking no.
Great post. One sidenote - wait until your daughter is 14, like mine. You want to see wierd? Teen girls take wierdness to a totally new level. Just wait and see ;)
I'm writing it off to age. My son is 6 and the biggest freakin' Drama Queen you've ever seen. So it's age or he's gay. One or the other. His joy in watching Bratz and playing with Barbies may be a clue. Or it could be his big sister's influence. Or I could just be crazy. Did I mention that right now, I'm a wee bit emotionally unstable and I want to punch someone in the head cuz I'm cranky?
Hmmm, I might have to revisit this post again when I'm sane.
females, of all ages, are crazy. that is all.
:)
Oh wow! I am so relieved to know that my darling Noodle is not the only freakish female that melts at the drop of a hat, whistle of wind, dog bump, stub of toe. Yet, you can play spank her and pull her hair all day long, while she giggles.
Pimp new digs, btw.