As a dad with two girls, I regularly hear, "Oh. You're in for it!" or "I'm glad I have boys. They're so much easier."

But, boys aren't easier to raise. They're just as challenging as girls. Society, however, has taught us to hold boys (and men) to lower standards than girls.

And this gives parents a free pass in thinking that boys will be fine with a light touch. "Boys will be boys" and mistakes are part of growing up. They are. But not for girls. Boys get in trouble and it's a learning experience. Girls get in trouble and it's a disappointment.

The emotional challenges of growing up are just as fraught and unknown to boys as they are to girls, but they're guided with a hand that steers them toward leadership and independence.

Boys need kindness, emotional guidance, boundaries, and teaching just as much as girls.

You even see this in TV shows for children. Shows teach boys how to be leaders, and girls how to be friends. https://twitter.com/adribbleofink/status/1283900674653032448

My brothers are two of the kindest, most generous, and most empathetic people I know. It's a credit to my parents, who raised us toward those traits, allowing us to step outside general societal expectations. We learned this just as much from my dad as my mom.

By saying, "Boys are easier than girls," parents are giving their boys the okay to centre themselves in the narrative, and slough off responsibility for others. To never learn empathy, or how to take care of others. How to be a friend.

I'm at an age now where all the weddings have stopped, and the divorces are starting to pile up. There are a lot of men who never learned how to be a partner, or a friend, or a caretaker because "boys will be boys."

Women are expected to raise children, keep house, work full time, & are then criticized when they burn out. Most men could not handle what women do day-to-day. Anything short of prison time is seen as a roadbump in a man's life. Something to move on from.

And even then. EVEN THEN. Men try to claim victimhood. https://globalnews.ca/news/2743580/20-minutes-of-action-stanford-rapist-brock-turners-dad-defends-son/

The key to stopping sexual assault is not to teach girls how to "be smarter," or "fight back." It's to start raising boys who will not sexually assault women.

Teach consent from birth. Teach boys to clean up after themselves, to offer help, to ask their friend's if they're okay after rough housing goes too far. Give boys all the same tools we give girls for navigating the immensely complex emotional world we live in.

Teach boys that emotions are a tool to be used, not a weapon to be hidden.

Boys aren't easier than girls. We've just been conditioned to believe the lie.

(I write about all sorts of things, including geek stuff, parenting, books, and more in my newsletter Astrolabe.) http://aidan.substack.com