FISHINLADY
05-15-2002, 12:34 PM
If you want to stir up a hornet's nest, just ask mothers, "Who are harder
> to raise - boys or girls?"
>
> The answer will depend on whether they're raising boys or girls.
>
> I've had both, so I'll settle the argument once and for all.
>
> It's girls.
>
> With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a
> hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste
> can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated
> in Early Bus Station Restroom.
>
> With girls, everything looks great on the surface. But beware of drawers
> that won't open. They contain a three-month supply of dirty underwear
> and rubber bands with blobs of hair in them.
>
> You have to wonder about a girl's bedroom when you go in to make her bed
> and her dolls have a look of fear and disbelief in their eyes.
>
> A mother once wrote me to agree. She said that "after giving birth to
> three boys, I finally got a girl on my fourth try. At first, she did all
> the sweet little things I longed to see. She played coy, put her hands
> to her face when she laughed and batted her eyes like Miss Congeniality.
>
> "Then she turned fourteen months and she struck like a hurricane. When
> she discovered she could no longer sail down the bannister and make my
> hair stand on end, she turned to streaking. I'd dress her ever so
> sweetly and go to the breakfast dishes. Before one glass was washed,
> she'd strip, unlock the door and start cruising the neighborhood. One
> day, the dry cleaner made a delivery and said, 'My goodness, I hardly
> recognized Stacy with her clothes on.'
>
> "As she got older, she opened her brother's head with a bottle opener for
> taking her dolls and called the school principal a 'thug' to his face.
>
> "I'm pregnant again, and now I sleep with a football under my pillow each
> night."
>
> I knew of another mother who said, "Boys are honest. Whenever you yell
> upstairs, 'What's all that thumping about?' you get an up front reply,
> 'Joey threw the cat down the clothes chute. It was cool.'
>
> "When my daughter is upstairs playing with her dolls I yell, 'What are
> you girls doing?' She answers sweetly, 'Nothing."
>
> "I have to find out for myself that they're making cookies out of my new
> bath powder and a $12.50 jar of moisturizer.
>
> "Her pediatrician advised me to 'not notice' when she insisted on wearing
> her favorite outfit for four months. How do you ignore a long dress with
> a ripped ruffle, holes in the elbow and a Burger King crown? How would
> you handle it if you were in a supermarket and the loudspeaker announced,
> 'Attention Shoppers. We have a small child in produce wearing a long
> pink dress with a gauze apron, glittery shoes and a Burger King crown'?
>
> "Our third child was born recently. Another girl. I told the orderly to
> pass maternity and go straight to geriatrics. I rest my case. God knows
> it's the only rest I've had in six years."
>
> Girls mature faster than boys, cost more to raise, and statistics show
> that the old story about girls not knowing about money and figures is a
> myth. Girls start to outspend boys before puberty - and they manage to
> maintain this lead until death or an ugly credit manager, whichever comes
> first.
>
> Males are born with a closed fist. Girls are born with the left hand
> cramped in a position the size of an American Express card.
>
> Whenever a girl sees a sign reading, "Sale, Going out of Business,
> Liquidation," saliva begins to form in her mouth, the palms of her hands
> perspire and the pituitary gland says, "Go, Mama."
>
> In the male, it is quite a different story. He has a gland that follows
> a muscle from the right arm down to the base of his billfold pocket.
> It's called "cheap."
>
> Girls can slam a door louder, beg longer, turn tears on and off like a
> faucet, and invented the term, "You don't trust me."
>
> So much for "sugar and spice and everything nice..."
>
> to raise - boys or girls?"
>
> The answer will depend on whether they're raising boys or girls.
>
> I've had both, so I'll settle the argument once and for all.
>
> It's girls.
>
> With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a
> hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste
> can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated
> in Early Bus Station Restroom.
>
> With girls, everything looks great on the surface. But beware of drawers
> that won't open. They contain a three-month supply of dirty underwear
> and rubber bands with blobs of hair in them.
>
> You have to wonder about a girl's bedroom when you go in to make her bed
> and her dolls have a look of fear and disbelief in their eyes.
>
> A mother once wrote me to agree. She said that "after giving birth to
> three boys, I finally got a girl on my fourth try. At first, she did all
> the sweet little things I longed to see. She played coy, put her hands
> to her face when she laughed and batted her eyes like Miss Congeniality.
>
> "Then she turned fourteen months and she struck like a hurricane. When
> she discovered she could no longer sail down the bannister and make my
> hair stand on end, she turned to streaking. I'd dress her ever so
> sweetly and go to the breakfast dishes. Before one glass was washed,
> she'd strip, unlock the door and start cruising the neighborhood. One
> day, the dry cleaner made a delivery and said, 'My goodness, I hardly
> recognized Stacy with her clothes on.'
>
> "As she got older, she opened her brother's head with a bottle opener for
> taking her dolls and called the school principal a 'thug' to his face.
>
> "I'm pregnant again, and now I sleep with a football under my pillow each
> night."
>
> I knew of another mother who said, "Boys are honest. Whenever you yell
> upstairs, 'What's all that thumping about?' you get an up front reply,
> 'Joey threw the cat down the clothes chute. It was cool.'
>
> "When my daughter is upstairs playing with her dolls I yell, 'What are
> you girls doing?' She answers sweetly, 'Nothing."
>
> "I have to find out for myself that they're making cookies out of my new
> bath powder and a $12.50 jar of moisturizer.
>
> "Her pediatrician advised me to 'not notice' when she insisted on wearing
> her favorite outfit for four months. How do you ignore a long dress with
> a ripped ruffle, holes in the elbow and a Burger King crown? How would
> you handle it if you were in a supermarket and the loudspeaker announced,
> 'Attention Shoppers. We have a small child in produce wearing a long
> pink dress with a gauze apron, glittery shoes and a Burger King crown'?
>
> "Our third child was born recently. Another girl. I told the orderly to
> pass maternity and go straight to geriatrics. I rest my case. God knows
> it's the only rest I've had in six years."
>
> Girls mature faster than boys, cost more to raise, and statistics show
> that the old story about girls not knowing about money and figures is a
> myth. Girls start to outspend boys before puberty - and they manage to
> maintain this lead until death or an ugly credit manager, whichever comes
> first.
>
> Males are born with a closed fist. Girls are born with the left hand
> cramped in a position the size of an American Express card.
>
> Whenever a girl sees a sign reading, "Sale, Going out of Business,
> Liquidation," saliva begins to form in her mouth, the palms of her hands
> perspire and the pituitary gland says, "Go, Mama."
>
> In the male, it is quite a different story. He has a gland that follows
> a muscle from the right arm down to the base of his billfold pocket.
> It's called "cheap."
>
> Girls can slam a door louder, beg longer, turn tears on and off like a
> faucet, and invented the term, "You don't trust me."
>
> So much for "sugar and spice and everything nice..."
>