Boys

I have one boy and two girls. Being fairly openminded I have tried to raise them the same (Richard could have had dolls if he wanted - never did, Rose gets to do any "boyish" activity she wants...etc.)

But let me tell you, boys are definitely hardwaired differently from girls. (DISCLAIMER: this means MOST boys, not ALL boys, savvy?)

A two hour car drive listening to a converstaion between 10 and 11 year old boys has convinced me - they are a strange and wondrous species, alien to me.

I can't remember the whole conversation, and frankly, I tried (oh how I tried) to tune them out. But here are a few choice snippets that give you a gist of it:

"blah, blah....disruptor....shields...blah, blah....generator....attack...enemies.....cloak....destroy
....blah, blah..." with appropriate sound effects (of course!). Bys seem to excel at sound effects, especially of things blowing up.

TWO HOURS of this nonsense! And they were thrilled! Exalted! To talk nonstop about computer games is the next best thing to real computer games I suppose.

The scary thing to me is that maybe to them it IS real. Not like I think they are crazy or anything. Just that some boy-part of their mind clicks with the seek & destroy nature of their games. Maybe it is building patterns in their brains. Yikes. Do all boys do stuff like that? (Don't even get me started on the way boys have to take everything apart and play with (ie. lose) the smallest parts.)

At least when girls (over the age of, say....7) talk, they talk about real things. Reality, you know? Girls got it down.