Young mothers - girl mothers
In the bushes of a primary school in Munich, three seven-year-old boys tie a classmate to a tree. They kiss the girl, it has to kiss back and later clean up the "camp" of the boys in the bushes. Her mother is horrified, as are some mothers of classmates. They are outraged: where did the boys have the violent, misogynistic behavior? What's wrong at home?
"If a little boy does something to a girl, that is very quickly equated with the violence of men against women", knows the educator and sex educator Melitta Walter, director of the nationwide only specialist advice for "gender-equitable pedagogy and violence prevention" in Munich. "That's overkill and wrong." Still, an ugly number, the guys are undocumented. But it happens differently. On the next parenting evening, the maligned mothers of the wrongdoers go on the counterattack and find broad support: "You girls mothers makes the boys bad! What our sons have done is normal at this age, we will do nothing." Crying, the mother of the small bondage victim leaves the room. Victory for the young mothers.
Girl mothers against young mothers, mothers against mother daughters: The number of families with only female or male children in Germany is not recorded. One clue: Alone 20 percent of the total of 14 million underage children are considered single children. Added to this are the countless mothers, who have several children of only one sex. By no means all of these women participate in the new variant of the gender struggle, and yet there are noticeably more conflicts than before: women with daughters are annoyed by the fact that female mothers often seem to have no control over their offspring - to the detriment of the girls. They in turn feel attacked by the pattern girl mothers, lack understanding and support.
Another parents evening, a high school in Dusseldorf. The word goes to Thea Radovanovic, philosophy student and mother of two daughters. "I'm against girls being put between two boys for peace in class, and the loud, wild boys just hindering them from learning." Pushing girls into the role of a fun brake for male classmates is common practice in school life. "An absurdity," scolds Melitta Walter. "The girls are abused to take on the role of educators, namely, to keep disturbers at bay, which is an overstrain on their costs." Young mothers rarely have anything against it, after all, their offspring benefit from it. Radovanovic smiles: "The vote showed that the girls are allowed to move if they want, we daughter-parents were in the majority." Triumph of the girl mothers.
"There is a growing front", confirms Melitta Walter. The expert has stated in parent seminars: "Solidarity no longer exists." It used to be different. No one doubted that "tribe members" count a bit more and real boys are bullies. In the course of emancipation, old gender stereotypes have dissolved. While women have long used this as an opportunity, in many places there is hopeless confusion about a new definition of contemporary masculinity. For fathers, but above all for those who are still the main ones responsible for education: the mothers. They want to attract strong guys, but of course no chauvis. But how does it all work together?
Girl mothers, on the other hand, have gained through emancipation, above all self-confidence. What gives them a boost: their daughters have long been regarded as the strongest sex, the new elite. And every sense of cohesion is with the devil. On both sides. And in all countries. In Scandinavia and the US, a debate over whether mothers should suggest to their sons to pee on unisex toilets in schools sitting down. The trigger is a refusal of a Finnish mother to do just that. Should the girls squat in the wet because of the lack of accuracy of the boys? The mother, in any case, sees the son's masculinity and her style of upbringing questioned by mothers. A few years ago such discussions were unthinkable.
"In the old days, mothers helped each other," explains expert Walter. "Today, each fight for itself." Even with the ever-increasing demands on one's own perfection. Household, career, appearance, child - everything has to be the finest. "What an imposition that we women should always have everything under control!" Scolds Melitta Walter. Instead of protecting themselves, women put on their shoes.And evaluate - the principle is always the same - other mothers to value themselves. Those who then assign themselves to a camp are completely protected: "from attacks, doubts and feelings of guilt", says Melitta Walter.
As a rule, boys and girls have little to do with each other. They cluck among themselves, just as their children do. Mothers and daughters follow the TV episodes of the mother-daughter duo "Gilmore Girls". Mothers and sons are pulling in the action series "24". This is the harmless variant of the new split. The spirits are more resolute when films become the model. Millions of times cool guys and casual girls are in their enthusiasm for the "wild guys". Of course, not your mothers. "Girl mothers often accuse me of breeding machos," says Joachim Masannek, creator of the bestselling series and director of the films. "The baby mothers are happy about the wild guys because their sons can finally identify with real boys."
But not the cinema is the main scene of the current maternal feud, but the school. Without a good education, there are hardly any opportunities in the labor market. It means: buffle, cramming, aspire. Girls are better able to cope with this. They adapt more easily, are calm and conscientious. In terms of education, they are now ahead. At the beginning of the 1960s there were two-fifths girls and three-fifths boys at grammar schools. Today, over half of high school graduates are female.
The boys are only at the top of the leavers, account for 72 percent of graduates without a school leaving certificate. Twice as many boys as girls stay seated, since the 80s, the school performance of boys have continuously decreased. Girls, on the other hand, even include science and computer science. In addition, the Alpha students shine with social competence. Even in mixed classes, they are increasingly the class representative, get involved in the school medical service or as a tutor.
The envy factor for boy mummies is high. "The girls are the bar for what's possible", knows the state school psychologist Beate Sitek from Starnberg. "The young mothers feel humiliated because the others are the seemingly better mothers - because their children work." Boys, on the other hand, often make themselves unpopular. They bob, disturb, beat. At the end of the flagpole anyway, in the behavioral disorders, boys are clearly in the majority, hyperactivity occurs especially in them. No wonder that about 85 percent of the sedative psychotropic drug Ritalin is given to boys. And the subject of violence is less a youth than a boy problem.
The call came at lunchtime. "A woman scolded that my son had beaten her daughter up at school, so we should go to the parenting office." Eva Knauer from the Bavarian town of Scheuring, mother of two boys, pulled the floor away. The director was already on, he demanded an apology from the 13-year-old.
Then the Nutritionist listened: All of the classmates agreed that the argument was from the girl who had been molestering until the patience of the student was torn and he was scratching the nerve. "Girl mothers like to exaggerate, protect their daughters beyond measure and usually claim that the boys are aggressive and uneducated." Girls are now automatically there as innocence angel, "said Eva Knauer. "Good that there were so many witnesses in this case." Her son did not apologize. "And I was so relieved that it was clear he was not a thug."
Pedagogue Melitta Walter is convinced: "Mothers of sons have a harder time, as women, they have more of a cleavage to the son, not an instinctive closeness like a daughter." This unsettled. "Young mothers are under unbelievable pressure," says Beate Sitek from counseling talks about students who cause trouble. "The women already have a word on the lips when they come in, want to explain, gloss over, dodge. They feel much more guilty than girl mothers do." They can do less for the misery than they fear.
Boys, so at least the opinion of some experts, are disadvantaged in the school system. On the one hand because of the proven larger urge to move, which makes them constantly tick, on the other hand by the early sorting out in the fourth grade. Boys develop more slowly. Moreover, they urgently need what girls automatically have: a same-sex role model. This mothers can not offer the best will.
But the fathers are sitting in the office longer than before, because the pressure to perform grows in the workplace - or make themselves from the dust: "I have the impression that men are even less there than in the past," explains Beate Sitek. And there are hardly any other male models, educators or primary school teachers. Meanwhile, girl mothers continue to be unforgiving."There are more and more complaining that the class is lagging behind in the syllabus because of the boys." The further development sees the expert completely illusionless. "The fronts will continue to harden," says Beate Sitek. "Because our society is always more performance-oriented."
Among those who are naturally impartial in their mother's disciplines is literary scholar Elena Kilian. She has a twelve-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter. And contradicts the experts. "I find it harder to raise a girl today," says the 39-year-old. "My daughter is much more interested in the substance, perhaps because everything is intuitive, but do I really want to be the role model?" The perfectionism, the competitive spirit: Perhaps many girls have taken over from mother to child?
Even the girls are suffering. Their mothers know the price they often pay: headaches after class, fierce battles for better grades, and the threat of anorexia or other forms of self-destruction. Educational advantage of good girls: Not even with their suffering they are unpleasant, do not annoy anyone. But many mothers of girls bleed the heart.
