I’ve been told that the experience of raising girls is a slightly different experience than raising boys. I never doubted that because Bridget and I have something like a thousand nieces (all wonderful girls), and we’ve seen the subtle and not so subtle differences over the years. Girls tend to be more verbal, more polite, and I think it’s safe to say, more complicated.

Recently, however, we got a glimpse of another huuuuuuuuuuge difference.

We went to a dinner party; five or six couples and their kids. Our boys were the only boys there. The rest of the kids were all girls, ranging in age from say 6 to 14.

After dinner, the boys went off by themselves and played video games somewhere. The girls, on the other hand, gathered in a room and started “working on something.”

Meanwhile the parents gathered in the living room and had nice grown up dinner party chat. In the midst of a discussion about some current event-type issue like health care, someone turned off the lights. A little girl with a Mr. Microphone announced her arrival.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places. The show is about to begin.”

I laughed, but when I looked around at the other parents, I noticed they weren’t laughing. They were adjusting their chairs for the show. Bridget gave me “the look.” I knew what the look meant. I was doing something wrong. I just didn’t know what.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The show,” Bridget said. Her tone of voice let me know that I was an idiot for not understanding, but in my defense, she has five sisters and knew what was about to happen. I have one sister, and she never did anything like this.

The music began, and the MC reclaimed control. “Is everyone in place?” she asked.

“Yes!” the parents exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Where are Tommy, Johnny, and Sean?” the MC asked.

One of the other girls dragged them out, and told them to take a seat. The boys looked at me for an explanation, but I could offer nothing more than a shrug. All the while the thumping music of some boy band (I was later told it was the Jonas Brothers) was playing at a fairly loud volume.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the MC began, “may I present…the Princess Patrol!”

Three little girls, about the age of Sean (he’s 7), came out in their princess outfits and began doing a semi-synchronized dance to a Jonas Brothers song. It was actually pretty good. When the song ended, we all clapped.

“The Princess Patrol,” the MC said. The clapping got louder, and they came back out to take their bows.

I looked at my boys, and couldn’t help but laugh again. You should have seen their facial expressions. It was like they were staring at some exotic animal just flown in from a previously deserted island. This was totally foreign to them. Bridget heard me laughing and gave me another look.

Right. Got it. No laughing.

The show went on for another twenty minutes or so. I kept waiting for one of the parents to say something like, “OK, girls. That was great, thanks for the show. What do you say we take a little break and maybe do the rest of the show later.” But no-one said that. We were all in this thing for the long haul.

I must admit, the quality of the dancing was surprisingly good. The music was a little “fingernails on the chalkboard”-ish, but the girls were really enjoying themselves. You could see the joy on their faces. When they all came out after the grand finale to take their individual bows, they received thunderous ovations.

After the ovations died down, I turned to the boys and said: “OK fellas, your turn.”

Now it was Tommy, Johnny and Sean’s turn to give me “the look.” Sean was their spokesperson. “We’re not girls, Dad,” he said.

Nope, you sure aren’t. If I ever had any doubts before, I don’t anymore.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.