Raising Boys

I guess, one of my hopes from this blog is to write about boys... well, more specifically, MY boys. I have always gravitated towards boys, not just because they were cute (which didn't hurt) but because girls were mean! Girls judge, they mock, they criticise... But boys, you could just have fun with. Believe me, I am, nor ever was a tomboy in any way shape or form... I just liked their company.

Well, God gave me boys of my own... 4 little ones and one big one, to be exact. And as it was back in the day, I didn't really understand them, but I liked 'em.

I am beginning to understand how boys tick, little by very little.

I recently read an article in Wondertime magazine. It was written by a woman who has 5 boys. You can find it here. The author, Jacquelyn Mitchard, wrote a very funny and accurate article called "Where the Boys Are".

One of my favorite observations that she wrote about, was called the Wet Paint Paradigm. Here's what she says:

My friends and I came up with an essential test regarding the difference between boys and girls: It's called the Wet Paint Paradigm. Girls, it seems, can learn from their own experiences and even, occasionally, from others'. However, if a boy sees a sign that reads Wet Paint, he'll touch the wall to determine it's not a joke, and then his friend — standing right behind him — will have to perform the same test with his own finger. Boys are not dumber than girls. They simply have a rugged and individualistic sense of discovery and wonder, untrammeled by prior evidence.

A boy's got to do it his own way. The sooner a mother learns this, the less time she'll spend on futile interventions and headache medication

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I see this day after day! You can say, "Ew... this stinks." One boy will inevitably come and smell the stink, saying "Ew! Stinky!". The next boy will run up and sniff... yep- still stinky. Aaaand... you guessed it, the 3rd boy will sniff the smell also.... Aaaaand STILL STINKY. Amazing. The amazing part is that all of the boys HAVE TO each smell the stinky smell. After one boy has started it, the rest HAVE TO FOLLOW. It's still stinky, WHY SMELL IT? STINKY>>. Doesn't that mean anything to anyone anymore???

But God love 'em. I sure do!