Girls, Girls, Girls

As you know, I have two boys: ages 3 (4 in two weeks) and 7 years. They both have boy friends they’ve made at school (or preschool), but they’re otherwise completely surrounded by girls.

Next door neighbor: two girls, 2 and 4 years old.

Across the street: two girls, 3 and 6 years old.

Cowgrit’s best friend: two girls, 7 and 8 years old.

Cousins (close enough in age and geography to count): two girls, 7 and 9 years old.

We have the Calfgrits’ boy friends come over to our house to play occasionally, and they sometimes go to the friends’ homes, so both calves get boy play. But they play a lot with girls, too. Interestingly, none of the children seem to care about the others’ gender. When the genders are mixed, the play tends to be “neutral.” I think this is good. Maybe neither of my boys will grow up shy around girls.

But there is definitely a distinct difference between boy-boy play and boy-girl play. Last night while getting the boys out of the bath tub, Calfgrit3 showed us how he had assembled a “gun” out of the foam letters and numbers bath toys.

“This is what I use to shoot them,” he proudly proclaimed.

“Who is ‘them’?” asked Cowgrit.

“The bad guys and robots,” CG3 explained.

We chuckled, and I said to Cowgrit, “I bet [neighbor] has never heard this kind of conversation.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com