Friendships and the great gender divide

My friend Lilian wrote about her worries over her son Brian's ability to make friends, and how some other parents try to arrange playdates for their kids. Chalk it up to one more thing that never even crossed my mind as a parent - that I had to coordinate my kids' friendships!

Kenneth and I had decided early on that we would always welcome our kids' friends into our homes, but that was the sum total of our involvement. Brian was one of Lesley-Anne's friends who used to come over to play, but that was because Lilian and I are friends and we stayed at the same condominium estate, and our two kids were in the same school, same level and took the same school bus.

It also helped that Brian and Lesley-Anne are very alike in nature. Both are shy, sweet kids with relatively intellectual interests. Here they are playing Reversi, this was back in 2004 when they were in P1. Lilian, I finally got the photos of them together!










The only other friend of Lesley-Anne's that regularly came over to play during the holidays was a classmate of hers, Ryan. I have a soft spot for Ryan because he's the only child whom Lesley-Anne has been in the same class with since P1, so I've seen them grow up together. In P3, they were both streamed into the same class, and in P4, both of them went to the same GEP class. Like Brian, Ryan is a quiet, well-mannered and very cerebral kid. They would mostly play board games although he once told his mum, "Lesley is the only girl I know who doesn't mind playing with soldiers." True praise indeed!

For Lesley-Anne, it's the social aspect that matters, she doesn't really care what she's playing with her friends as long as they're having fun together (although she draws the line at Barbie dolls). And in my opinion, that's one of the differences between boys and girls. Girls, being more social creatures, care more about the relationship while boys care more about the activity. Maybe that's why it didn't really bother Brian that he didn't have a lot of friends in the beginning, he was perfectly happy going off on his own to do his own thing. When Lesley-Anne was in P1, she would often come home looking upset and when probed, she would say, "no one wanted to go to recess with me" or sometimes, "two friends wanted to go to recess with me and I didn't know who to go with". (Not popular got problem, too popular also got problem. Aiyoh...)

Whereas with Andre, it's all about the activity. As long as he gets to play catching or soccer during recess, he doesn't really care who he's playing with. Even in pre-school, the girls were more sociable. He would come home and complain to me, "the girls keep talking, the boys cannot sleep!" Here he is with a group of his male kindy classmates at the year-end concert. Aren't they sweet?

There was this girl in his kindy class who I think had a thing for him. She's the sweetest little chatterbox ever (here she is with the pink hairband) and whenever I went to pick him up, she would regale me with all of Andre's doings that day. The funny thing was when we occasionally ran into her and her family at the supermarket, she would chirp, "Hello Andre!" but instead of responding, Andre would hang his head and pretend not to see her (he had not quite embraced his Mr Personality role yet).

But while I find the girls have no issue mixing with the boys in the earlier years (P1-3), the boys quickly make that gender separation. Even at P1, many of boys don't want to be seen hanging around the girls. If they do, they are teased. I'm organising a birthday party for Andre next week and he only invited all the boys in his class and one girl, whom he said is not really a girl "because she plays soccer". (I'm a feminist! I didn't teach him that!)

When Lesley-Anne had her 8th birthday party, she invited a few boys and those boys kept asking if there would be any other boys attending. It seems they weren't too keen about being surrounded by girls.

By P4, this gender segregation becomes full-blown. Lesley-Anne says she doesn't mind talking to or sitting next to a boy, but she doesn't because she knows she will get teased mercilessly, mostly by the boys. In her GEP class, since there are only 9 girls, all of them go for recess together - they "chope" one whole table and sit together. While I'm glad they share this cameraderie, I'm also a little sad because this artificial gender divide means they could be missing out on some terrific friendships.

Ryan and Lesley-Anne hardly play at each other's homes anymore. Of course, this could also be due to evolving interests and personalities. And I'm sure once Lesley-Anne and Andre hit secondary school, I would be more than glad if they took a little less interest in the opposite sex! But for now, I'm just watching at the sidelines and trusting that it will all fall into place in time.