What Are Little Boys Made Of?
Posted By Tough Cookie Mommy on September 4, 2010
Why do little boys always have to be so rough when they play? I hope some of you have the answer to this question because I am completely baffled by it. It has certainly been a learning experience being the mother of two little boys and the aunt of 5 more. Yes, you read correctly, we have no little girls in my family. My parents have a grand total of 7 grandsons ranging from the ages of 11 years old down to 10 months old. They all have different personalities but, the one thing that they all have in common, is that they like to play rough.
When I say, “play rough”, I don’t mean that they like to hurt each other or anything like that. What I mean is that every activity that they partake in usually involves running, jumping, climbing, swinging, racing, karate chopping, boxing, or wrestling. Also, if they have enough time, you can catch them pretending to be Jedi knights with their lightsabers or battling each other with their Pokemon cards. Their playtime is worlds aways from what I remember my playtime to be when I was a little girl. I also have seen that little girls, at the park, have a totally different way of playing with each other and socializing than boys do.
Unfortunately, since all of these activities are physical, sometimes things in the house get broken or damaged accidentally. One such example would be the towel rack in my bathroom that was ripped off the wall during a pretend session of circus play when my boys were swinging off the rack like acrobats. Another such example would be the chunk of sheetrock in the livingroom doorway that was accidentally knocked out during a would be karate lesson. The list of these kinds of mishaps is endless when it comes to raising little boys.
According to someone that I know, he states that this kind of behavior is instinctual and that boys have a predisposition for being rough and for horseplay. He went on to say that this kind of behavior is an outlet for them to let out some of the pent up testosterone that is coursing through their bodies. I’m not sure how accurate his theories are but I do agree that there is something psychological and physiological that makes boys behave differently than girls. I’m no doctor or scientist so I can’t really tell you what the scientific explanation is for all of this.
What I do know is that I am in a house full of men and sometimes I feel like I am on a different planet. Between the jumping off the top bunkbed, swinging from one couch to another, racing across the livingroom, water fights in the bathtub, and rolling around on the floor, I feel like I am on Animal Planet. The men in my family, and my husband, tell me to get used to this because this is how boys have always been. Maybe they are right and that poem, by Mother Goose, is right after all…
A Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme
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