People like to congratulate us on our cleverness in having a perfectly split family: three girls, three boys. We planned it, naturally, and we like to sit around at night judging people who have gender disparity at their house. They really should have thought it through before they had three or four of the same kind of human in a row, you know? It’s only responsible. Sometimes I like to stop them on the street and point it out to them. I know they appreciate it. But I’m not here to make you feel bad about having a tribe of men, or a household of teenage girls with perfectly synced cycles. You are probably regretting that decision on your own. I am here to talk to people who are still planning their families, to explain the differences between girls and boys, so you can pick your poison when you’re deciding how to populate your household. You’re welcome. (Important side note: if you have gotten to this point and are still seriously under the impression people actually get to choose which sex they are blessed/cursed with when they get pregnant, I will give you free procreating advice: Don’t. At least not until you have backed slowly away from this website, read a few biology textbooks, babysat some actual minor children, and smacked yourself across the face a few times to let your folly really sink in.)

Now, before we get all huffy about gender stereotypes, let me tell you, I spent a lot of time sleeping in psychology classes in college, and I understand that individual differences are always vastly more significant than small statistical trends and generalizations. But that’s not very much fun, is it? It’s much more amusing to wildly speculate based on personal anecdotes and assume that everyone else is having the exact same experience with their offspring that I’m having with mine. So if your sweet little boy is a master drama queen who likes to torment his little sister until she clocks him in the face with a metal truck, we congratulate you on your impressive progeny with a firm handle on modern gender roles. We will all be sending our children to your house every day for 4-6 hour sessions to learn from your progressive little geniuses.

Now, on to business. Let’s talk girls. I had girls first and I got told many times how fortunate I was, and clever, to start my family with a couple little future babysitters for the rest of my brood.  So smart. Girls first really is the way to go, and here’s three excellent reasons why:

1. You will get a doctorate degree in emotion. All kinds of emotions. Anger, sadness, manic happiness, anxiety, horror, impossible to contain excitement, abject disappointment, transcendent joy. And that’s just the first 24 hours. Some people would have you believe the full brunt of it doesn’t arrive until puberty, but they are wildly underestimating the abilities of your budding prima donnas. If you haven’t experienced the onset of wild hormonal mood swings at least a dozen times by age ten, you’re not even trying.
2. You will also get a thorough education in classic debating skills, because you will spend 90% of your time practicing with your helpful little princesses. Let me be clear: You will never actually win any of the debates, but life’s about the journey, right? And the journey will be exhausting. So you are in for a treat.
3. Girls involve a ton of stuff. From the get-go there is just massive influx of random junk, probably because pink stuff is infused with addictive chemicals that force helpless bystanders to buy it for you. The conspiracy theorists should really look into THAT. Then as they get older the girls will start supplying the stuff themselves. They’ll fill purses and bags and baskets and backpacks and you will travel in a portable shopping mall. Case in point, I sent my children to have an overnight sleepover with grandma last week. My daughter packed a full luggage set, purse, extra bedding, stuffed animals, the royal jewel collection, and a three day supply of food, water, and lip gloss. My son brought a toddler backpack with a pair of underwear and pajama pants.

Which brings us to the boys. We have three and due to a momentary-several -year lapse in judgement, they are all right in a row, so we’re just mostly amazed that they are all still alive. Let me tell you what to expect if your boys are anything like the specimens we’ve been gifted with:

1.  Little boys can be extremely loving and affectionate, if you speak their language. After years of research, I’m fairly convinced their language is Sumo Street Fighting Tae Kwan Do. In this language, telling someone “I love you” means body slamming them onto the floor, and punching someone in the face means “Come here and see this cool thing”. Appropriate cultural attire may include helmets and protective padding. It starts at birth, so don’t be alarmed when your toddler is rolling the two month old across the floor. It just means they’ve accepted them into the tribe.
2. Closely related to our first point is this: Boys will thoroughly test the quality of your furniture, building construction, automobiles, playhouses, clothing, gardening supplies, child safety locks, electronics, and anything else you may like to spend money on. It’s much better than Consumer Reports in identifying quality products, although you’ll have to pass on your wisdom to someone else because you will be too broke to buy anything for about a decade after you replace everything you own once or twice. In fact, it’s probably best to just give away all your earthly possessions until your boys have left the house. It’s kind of like Marie Kondo except instead of holding something and questioning if it brings you joy, you ask yourself, “How can I destroy this or use it to destroy something else?” If you can think of a way, give it to Goodwill. If you can’t, you can bet they’ll come up with something, so give it to Goodwill. Goodbye, kitchen knives. Goodbye, stairway bannisters. Goodbye, butter. (Don’t ask.) Minimalism is very in right now.
3. Boys are a great way to get to know the medical system. You’ll get all the childhood diseases down very quickly, be an ace at broken bones and lacerations, probably even pick up some good tips for removing alien objects from various bodily orifices. The thing you have to remember with boys is that you will probably hear a noise at least ten times a day that makes you start rearranging your schedule to fit in a breezy sightseeing tour of the ER. A few of those moments will make you move from hypothetical planning to packing your bags. But unless there is loss of limb, spurting blood, or newfound contortionist ability, my rule of thumb is always to offer the magical effects of bandaids and ice, wait half an hour, and then place a chocolate bar on top of the highest bookshelf. If they retrieve it in less than ten seconds and promptly forget about you and body slam their brother, you’re golden. If they fall off the top and break both arms, you’ll feel assured it’s worth your time and money to head to the doctor. (Foolproof decision making tree right there that has saved me a few copays and only resulted in serious bodily harm on rare occasions. You’re welcome.)

So now you have the inside scoop, and you should be able confidently decide what’s right for your family. Personally, I think it’s fun to have a couple of each for diversity in your types of crises, but specializing is a smart choice as well. Choose wisely friends. And whatever you do, remember the most important thing is happy, healthy children who love their grandparents very much, so they’ll beg to go visit them every weekend. This is definitely the most important thing.