A special thank you to Sherri Baer, who just sent me two fabulous little pink books by Ruth Vaughn: It’s Fun to Be a Girl (“in which she tells how ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ can be made a dream come true,” so says the cover) and the follow-up Dreams Can Come True (“because of her unquestioned faith in this fact, she reminds her readers that it is fun to be a girl”).
This little excerpt, titled “Boys are Different!” is from Dreams Can Come True. I find this fascinating. Who knew that girls and boys could be so different, yet still get along! This explains a lot.
~~
You will just have to admit that it’s true. Their whole thought processes are different. Their whole outlook upon life is different! Their interests, dreams, and ambitions are different.
Girls like security and warmth. Boys are freespirited. Girls want to leave quickly any scene of unhappiness. Boys can implulsively knock another boy across the room. Girls want praise, attention. Boys are happy just to have you in the same room with them while they devote all of their attention elsewhere. (It certainly isn’t much fun for you when Steve comes to see you and spends all evening discussing baseball talk with your father. But Steve is happy just because you are near!)
Girls love poetic, beautiful, dreaming things: orchids, very soft blue satin the color of the morning sky, “Rhapsody in Blue,” soft candleglow, bubble bath. Boys love plain, common, everyday things: baseball, the sports page, digging in the garden, greasy motors, carpenters’ saws. Girls always prefer a date with Steve to congealing at a girls’ party. Boys often prefer to just “be with the boys.”
~~