It's official: mums are harder on their daughters and let sons get away with more.
At least that's the picture painted by a survey by parenting website Netmums, which found mothers were twice as likely to be critical of their daughters than their sons. "More than one in five of the mums surveyed agreed with the statement that they let their sons get away with more, turning a blind eye to behaviour for which they would reprimand their girls," reported the BBC News website. The poll of more than 2,000 also found mums were more likely to attribute positive personality traits to their sons than their daughters. "Boys were more likely to be described as funny, cheeky, playful and loving, while girls were more likely to be described as stroppy, eager to please, serious and argumentative," reported the BBC. But do girls really suffer as a result? Not according to psychologist Terri Apter in The Guardian. "There's nothing like seeing you've rattled a mother to give a girl a boosting dose of self-efficacy."
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