Outnumbered by opposites
Linda Szymanowski watched her teenage sons and their friends play with Airsoft guns, lining up with their backs facing the gun holder to serve as human targets. “They would go, ‘Oh, ouch, that hurt!’ and then just start cracking up,” said the Spokane mother. “I’ve just learned to laugh and kind of roll my eyes at what they enjoy.” As the only woman in a house with four males, including her husband and three sons, ages 18, 16 and 11, Szymanowski has become used to living in a household raging with testosterone. “Sometimes I feel a little sad or isolated because they don’t get my thinking, but that’s OK, I’m a mom – I can handle it,” Szymanowski said. “Any mother of all boys definitely needs her girlfriends.” Of course, moms are not the only ones who sometimes find themselves outnumbered. Charlie Fletcher shares his Spokane home with his wife and four daughters, ranging in age from 9 to 19. He also has a 22-year-old son, but he is attending graduate school at Campbellsville University
in Kentucky, leaving Fletcher alone in a house full of females.
“I never had a sense of ‘Oh darn, another daughter,’ ” Fletcher said. “I feel like I’m a very lucky guy to have five healthy, intelligent children.”
And while the mothers of sons are quick to note the noise level that comes with raising boys, Fletcher claims that girls are not as quiet as some think.
“Girls tend to scream – I would say they’re louder than boys,” Fletcher said. “When we started having daughters, the house got filled with screams and giggles.”
Having all boys or all girls can challenge the parent of the opposite gender to find ways to connect.
Szymanowski said she has read a number of books, such as John Eldredge’s “Wild at Heart,” to help her better understand her boys.
“If I had a girl right now in my family, I probably wouldn’t try so hard to learn about boys, because I’d have her to be girly with,” Szymanowski said.
The physical nature of her sons has taken some getting used to.
“I want peace, but it’s so much in their nature to just grab and wrestle,” Szymanowski said.
Jenny Egly, also a Spokane mother of three sons, agreed that life with a house full of boys is lively.
“When the kids were smaller, there were many times when I would wish I had girls for the quietness,” Egly said. “It’s a never-ending wrestle party. Personally, I think it’s how they show their affection.”
Sometimes, the boys’ activity becomes destructive.
“I had a wonderful Precious Moments [figurine] collection and they could not stop bouncing the basketball in the house,” Egly said. “The basketball hit the shelf and all the figurines went flying.”
Lynn Caruso, a Spokane mother of three boys ages 7, 4 and almost 2, can also attest to the high noise and energy level of an all-boy household.
“At times it’s difficult to live with that much noise and activity,” Caruso said. “I think we’ve had eight trips to the ER.”
Caruso said having sons has also taught her to play differently.
“Nobody’s sitting around here having tea parties,” Caruso said. “But I’d rather pitch a baseball in the backyard than sit and have tea.”
She and her husband, Patrick, have sought to encourage their boys’ interests and activity, while also teaching them to be compassionate. Their efforts seem to be coming to fruition. She once found one of her sons clad in his Spiderman costume while gently rocking a baby doll in his arms.
When Egly’s sons were growing up, she shared her home’s only bathroom with the boys and her husband.
“That’s a horror story,” Egly said. “It was never ending cleaning around the toilet and wall.”
Now, Egly is single and her oldest son, David, lives in Japan, but she’s still outnumbered. Her 20-year-old twins, James and Thomas, live with her as they attend Eastern Washington University.
“You don’t really have anybody to do your chick flicks with. You have to go to your women friends for that,” Egly said. “My boys to this day have not forgiven me for dragging them to the movie ‘au Chocolat.’ “
Szymanowski said she sometimes misses having a daughter around for fashion advice, such as whether her earrings match her outfit. But her sons’ disinterest in fashion does help the clothing budget.
“Having all boys, I save money on buying clothes, but I spend more money on food,” Szymanowski said. “I’m constantly at the grocery store, but I’m never at the mall.”
Fletcher agreed that expenses add up differently for girls and boys.
“Art supplies just aren’t as expensive as guitar equipment,” Fletcher said. But he added, “I think boys and girls will allow you to spend as much money on them as you will spend.”
Brigid Krause of Spokane grew up with three sisters, so having three sons came as a bit of a shock.
“In order to do things with them, I had to be willing to be sporty and watch shoot ‘em up movies,” Krause said.
However, there are perks to being the only female in the house.
“It’s rather nice actually because they kind of take care of me and I don’t have to share my clothes,” Krause said.
Her sons are now 19, 18 and 15 and she thinks boys are easier to raise, compared to the emotional drama she remembers her mother dealing with when she and her sisters were teenagers. Still, sometimes Krause misses “girly” things. When her youngest son was 1 year old, she and her sisters once put barrettes and lipstick on him, to the chagrin of her husband, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.
Mallur Nandagopal of Spokane raised three daughters, who are now all adults. He never had a son, but he said he never felt alone.
“We considered our second daughter the boy of the house because she helped me with outdoor activities,” Nandagopal said.
Mathew Rawlins and his wife, Kristin, have four daughters, ranging in age from 8 years old to 6 months.
“I don’t necessarily feel isolated or outnumbered,” Rawlins said.
His daughters enjoy skiing and rock climbing with him.
“The only difficult part of having four girls is the assumption people make that we were going for a boy,” Rawlins said. “Every time we had a baby, I was thrilled that we had a girl because I like the other ones so much.”