..and brothers

    OK, guys, you knew you were going to come in for your share, right?
    Given the makeup of our family (G,B,B,B,G,G,G,G) I no longer feel that I can say I am raising boys; rather, I have raised boys, and now have the peculiar pleasure of being the mother of grown men.
   I don't think anyone will be startled at this date to hear that boys and girls are not the same.
   There was a time, some years back, when I said that those who believe boys are easier to raise than girls are overlooking all of those trips to the emergency room.  I don't retract the statement altogether, but I'm not sure I would make it today... possibly because the last time we had to take a boy to the emergency room was a while ago.  Wait.  It wasn't all that long ago.  It was Christmas, the lad in question was nineteen, and he had just discovered the hard way that the pocketknife he'd received in his stocking did not have a safety catch.
   See, this boys-vs-girls thing is a question anyone fortunate to have both sons and daughters is bound to encounter.  As families have gotten smaller, it's become more common for parents to have the experience of raising sons or daughters, rather than sons and daughters.
   Generally speaking, we all feel we have the toughest job, and do not like to be told otherwise.  Parents like credit, which is understandable, but resent being told that they have it easier than anyone else.
   Who has it easiest?
   Cloistered Benedictines would be my best guess.
   After one lively birthday party, given for a girl and attended largely by girls, my husband remarked, "At least with boys, you know where they are!"
   Indeed.  You do.  Boys tend to stay in a group.  Boys are in your living room, breaking your furniture.  Girls, on the other hand, will scatter through your house, delving into closets and cupboards and trying on clothes and earrings.
    Girls, bless them, will let you know how they feel.  Sometimes at dinner, when you are tired; sometimes at 2 a.m., when you are exhausted.
  Boys are often a bit tougher.
  Our son Duthac moved from a cherubic babyhood and cheerful boyhood to a silent adolescence.  It was anybody's guess what was on his mind.  It's told of President Calvin Coolidge that a lady seated next to him at a dinner once told him, "I've made a bet I can make you say more than two words," and Coolidge replied, "You lose."
   Duthac made Silent Cal look like a chatterbox.
   The one safe bet, those teen years, was that the thought of food was never far from his mind.  At 12, he accompanied me on an anxious trip to a medical center with his baby sister.  As a thank-you treat, I took him to a fast-food restaurant afterward; after checking to make sure that he could (really?  really!) have anything he wanted, he ordered a meal with a side of a second meal.
   A couple of years later, I needed to take him on a clothes-shopping expedition, probably because of the way boys will sprout up several inches right after you have done your "back-to-school" shopping.   I took the precaution of taking him right after dinner, on the theory that he was full.
   He gazed wistfully at the Taco Bell across the street, and said, "I'm hungry."
   I do believe it was on another occasion that I went into Taco Bell with him for lunch, and discovered the real reason that men are traditionally entrusted with the task of placing orders in restaurants.  This had previously been a bit of a mystery; I mean, women do generally seem to be better at multi-tasking (sorry, guys, but keep in mind that being compared with a computer is at best a dubious distinction).
   But who captures the waitress's attention better?
   Duthac ordered some kind of taco party platter thing, and the girl at the register (about his age; perhaps a bit younger) gazed at him with the kind of fascination traditionally associated with snake-charmers.
   "Are you going to eat all that?"  she cooed. "That's a lot of food."
   "Yup," replied Duthac, with a brevity Gary Cooper might have envied.
   "I mean," she persisted, "that's, like, ten tacos and it's really for a few people...."
   Could we ask for a better illustration of the difference between boys and girls?  Name me a girl who would be flattered by the implication that her appetite is as the appetite of ten.  Or even five.
   Mom de Duthac, meanwhile, was leaning pleadingly against the counter saying, "Um, could I have a Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme?  Please?"
   Taco Bell, as of this writing, had done away with the Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme.  Tant pis. Car-driving mothers of sons, I salute you.