Do we bring up our boys and girls differently?

From times immemorial, men went out of their dwelling to hunt and women took care of the home. Even though millennia have gone by, this mentality hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is that women have become more empowered, they know how to multi-task, and they take care of their homes and also go to work. 

Men go to work and then flop themselves on their beds, exhausted from the whole day's activities. It not the fault of the men, it’s the way they have been brought up. We need to bring up our sons differently. We need to teach them how to cook, do household chores, run errands etc and not teach them that all that is what a woman is supposed to do? These life skills are as necessary for bringing up a boy as it is for bringing up a girl. They need to be taught to respect not just the elders in the house but the women as well. 

These boys should respect their mothers, sisters, girls at school, and all the women in their lives. These boys will grow up to be men who are kind and treat women with a lot of respect and will not objectify women. If we bring about this change in the home, that is how society will change and mentality of men will change. These men in turn will become husbands, who will work with their wives as a team at home and at work-place.

 Like how our boys need to be brought up differently from how they are stereotypically brought up, so do our girls. They need to be convinced that they are equal to boys and can do anything that boys can do. And that it is not right to take any form of abuse, mental or physical from any man; if they are subjected to it, they need to take firm action for it to stop. Girls need to be capacitated with every skill that boys can possess. Girls need to learn that no 'prince in shining armour' will come to rescue them. They need to get on their feet and do it themselves.

So boys and girls need to be brought up the same way, irrespective of their gender. There is nothing that girls cannot do and there is no work that is only meant for girls. The end result would be that the society would be safer for women, and women would be respected in the house and at the workplace. Men would stop thinking they are superior to women and would help their wives at home.

 We need to stop blaming women for the way they dress and that "they are asking for it”. They are not asking for it, and our boys need to know that. We need to instill this ideology in our boys as they are growing up. It is our responsibility, to change our society. The change begins with our children. Children learn by example, they imbibe and replicate what’s happening around them. My son is 6 years old and I am already grooming him towards that ideology so that he grows up to be a man that every woman says that his parents did a good job of bringing him up.

There are times when people make comments like if a boy is crying; they would say “stop crying like a girl” or if a boy isn’t running too fast then “stop running like a girl”. I have almost gotten into a fight with a lot that it is extremely derogatory to women. When people with such ideologies have offspring they emulate the exact same thing and it becomes a vicious cycle of regressive ideologies.

 There are times when my son says that pink is for girls and blue is for boys or girls play for dolls and boys with cars. I tell him there is no such thing, there is no girl specific or boy specific colour and infact I tell him I have friends who are aeronautical engineers/automobile engineers and happen to be girls as well. My son’s stance is exactly how society wants him to think but I am not letting that happen. I want my son to know we are all equal. But the smarty pants that my son says that if boys and girls are equal but they are physically different. To that I tell him that boys and girls are equal but not same. No two individuals are same, two brothers from the same family are different but parents would treat both children as equal. I think he got my point.

Tips to ensure that your boys respect women:

·        Involve your son in the kitchen and make him do household chores.

·        Don’t make any male chauvinist remark, children learn by example.

·        Give them a lesson in history and women had no rights at all and boys can help girls to get equal rights.

·        Teach older kids to speak when they witness casual misogyny.

·        Everyone should be on the same page regarding gender equality, if not; you can explain to your child that the concerned adult may be ignorant about certain facts.                    

Children seldom misquote you; in fact they repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said- anon