Posted on: Monday, January 24, 2005

ABOUT MEN

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Raising sons is different than raising daughters.

I offer this anecdotally. I have no sons, only daughters.

A good friend, though, recently regaled me with a story about his young son. The boy's unflagging interest in toads had been replaced — instantly — when he spotted a chameleon in the hedge.

My girls would run shrieking from a chameleon.

Not my friend's son. He captured the slinky-tongued lizard and it wasn't long before father and progeny were hunting crickets in the back yard so they could force-feed their new favorite pet.

Such a boy thing. Boys love this stuff. Dads, too. No one says "eeewww" unless it is followed by hysterical boyish laughter.

Or snorts. Or a belch or two. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.

My friend delights in this, but apparently he drew the line at eating ants. His son did not. (Classic boy behavior.)

My girls won't even kill ants. They would have to touch them first. (Classic girl behavior.)

"C'mon, Dad. As if ... "

There are other differences.

I may be wrong, but I have a hunch that raising sons does not require fathers to paint toenails in day-glo colors, discuss women's underwear at dinner or debate the social worth of dyeing your hair pink.

Raising girls, I have discovered, requires finesse, patience and Tums. I guess I'm evolving.

One of the bigger stereotypes about fathers is they secretly want a son when they have a daughter.

That never applied to me. I had a sure-fire strategy.

I figured that if I talked enough about sports and other "guy" things, it would rub off on my daughters.

Their mother could teach them the finer points of life and I'd get the fun stuff. Good cop, bad cop.

They can belch like truckers, and we talk a lot about soccer, but beyond that, my strategy unravels.

More and more, I'm out of the picture. Believe me, they are not interested in how I feel about skirt length, high heels or make-up. (More. Less. Never.)

Still, Firstborn, on the eve of her 13th birthday, wanted my opinion after modeling a pair of sleek, black dresses for a school function.

Made me gasp, that's for sure. This is not like raising sons. I have no frame of reference here. A professor friend of mine would say: Your paradigm has shifted.

Dude, no kidding.

Ah, how it was once so different. When Firstborn was a few years old and we lived in a baked Southern California backwater, she and I would regularly visit the local reptile pet store. She loved the snakes, the iguanas, even the exotic chameleons.

No more.

But you know the most interesting thing about chameleons?

They can change color.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.