Are mothers harder on sons or daughters?

Mothers are more critical of their daughters than their sons, according to a 2,500-strong survey by parenting website Netmums.

theguardian.com - Are mothers harder on their daughters – and if so, why? - The Guardian

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Mothers are more critical of their daughters than their sons, according to a 2,500-strong survey by parenting website Netmums. More than half said they had formed a stronger bond with their sons and mothers were more likely to describe their little girls as "stroppy" and "serious", and their sons as "cheeky" and "loving". The report warned that girls grow up with more self-critical issues, and suffer as a result. We asked three mothers if they agreed.

Jenny Colgan

Without wanting in any way to impugn my lovely mother, in my boy-heavy family I have always endeavoured not to fall into a canal at the exact same moment as one of my brothers. Now new research seems to bear out what many daughters feel they already knew: mothers are more critical of their female children than their male ones. Or, as a wise friend of mine once said: "Having sons wrecks your house, but having daughters wrecks your head."

With women of my generation, our mothers were born too late for the feminist revolution, and many of my contemporaries felt the weight of their mothers' disappointment in "squandering" chances they never had. With our own daughters, we are well aware of the sacrifices and difficulties of being part of that first "having -it-all" generation – are we too desperate to steer them towards the options we wished we'd taken, now we know how hard it is?

Of course, there's a Freudian bent – some little girls can be trickier because of how much time mummy spends in bed with daddy. And, unflatteringly, our beautiful girls remind us that we're getting older – even Gwyneth Paltrow's mother is reportedly always telling her to "stop slouching", and wash her hair. But in the end, this is really just yet another survey to make mothers feel bad about themselves. Now excuse me while I send my boys outside to break something . . . I need to spend some time with the best little girl in the whole wide world . . .

Luisa Dillner

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I like to think I treat my children all the same. But if I think a little harder, maybe I don't. I have one son, followed by four daughters. Do I expect my son to empty the dishwasher? Er, no. Do I rely on Sam to watch baby Flora while I have a bath? I'd be more likely to ask Flora to keep an eye on him. "It's not fair," my daughters have chorused. "You never tell Sam to do anything." That's partly because they, my capable girls, unlike their feckless brother, will do things properly. If Sam empties the dishwasher, I will find chipped plates and broken glasses. But what came first – the helplessness, or my slavishly doing things for him? I sat all the children down with books from an early age. The girls couldn't wait to learn to read. The one book Sam read, I had to pay him to do so. Did I go about it differently? I don't think so. But when an educational psychologist diagnosed his disinterest in learning at school as "an extreme case of being a boy", I was strangely proud of him. Oh, it's biological then. Mums beat themselves up anyway so here's another thing to ratchet up the anguish. Have I been harder on my girls, more critical? From early on I just expected them to work hard at school, to want to achieve. I'm close to them because they're like me – even down to the freckles. Sam doesn't have freckles. I may be repeating my own upbringing. My mother expected me to be a "good girl" and excused any naughtiness from my brother. At least baby Flora is only eight months old so I have time to take on board the Netmums survey.

Anne Karpf

We feminist mothers were going to change the world. We'd be our daughters' support group, their all-round encouragers. With us, they would always feel good about themselves. Sorry, girls (and I have two), but it didn't quite work out that way. For a start we didn't factor in the lasting consequences of our own experiences of being daughters. I made my peace with my late mother a few years before she died, thank God: if I hadn't, I'd have been left with the loving but highly critical mother I'd struggled with most of my life. It's hard to become an uncritical mother if you've never had one yourself. We also failed to recognise how much daughters present you with particular challenges around separation. Boys are obviously "other", but with girls there's a boundary problem: what's me and what's her? I desperately wanted my first child to be "not me" and she isn't, but when I see some of my less desirable parts in her I probably overreact. In criticising her I'm really criticising myself. On the other hand a daughter who rejects most of what you represent (and as teenagers they almost all do) can feel like a reproach – a re-run of your own mother.

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How do we counter this? With my oldest I started off praising her every burp and hiccup; as a result she now doesn't trust any admiring word I say ("You're only saying that because you're my mother"). More helpful, I think, is for mothers to try to learn to accept our own ambivalence – that we have mixed feelings about ourselves and our daughters – and give them permission to be different from us, their own person. It's a lifetime's task, mind.

Susie Orbach

This confirms what, as a psychoanalyst, I have been writing about for decades. Mothers unconsciously allow more latitude to sons, and open encouragement, and with daughters they treat them as they would treat themselves. As though they're teaching them to still their pain or their own distress. It's the way women are brought up. We are only a couple of generations from when mothers had to put their own needs second.

theguardian.com - Are mothers harder on their daughters – and if so, why? - The Guardian

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