My Son and a Dishwasher

Hooray, it is slowly changing, but there is often still an assumption daughters will care more about their mums than sons.

But …. all my dishwasher tells me this morning, is we should not assume this as fact.

Feeling unwell, I went to bed exceptionally early last night; I abandoned all my jobs and went to lie down. When I came downstairs this morning, without even a nudge, my 14-year-old son has gone out of his way to empty and pack the dishwasher for me ✨

No one had asked him to do it. I hadn’t left him a sticky note or sent him a message. He’d just done it.

It’s such a small thing in the grand scheme of busy family life; there are always so many jobs that all need doing at the same time. But Fraser just doing that one little job made everything feel lighter and filled my heart (sadly it didn’t unblock my nose or clear my head, but that’s what lemsip is for, right!).

It reminded me that kindness doesn’t need to be grandiose. In fact, research tells us quite the opposite: that the small gestures often have a greater impact than big things. Especially if they are done without prompting and because something has been noticed.

So many of the parents I work with talk about the social assumptions that surround sons and daughters. That daughters ‘do the caring'; they are intuitively connected to their parents, especially their mum. Moreover, in a way that is simply impossible for boys.

My research shows us how these deeply embedded social assumptions around sex and gender can silently shape the hopes and imagined future that many parents form in their minds, even before pregnancy. For some parents, a daughter represents emotional closeness, shared experiences, and future connection. When that imagined future changes, and a daughter isn’t born, the loss can be complex and intense, even though it’s rarely understood or openly acknowledged. And this can lead to parents googling things like “how do I fix my ‘gender disappointment'?"

But these social assumptions are just that: assumptions. Boys can be thoughtful, attentive, and kind, and sometimes they show us in the most ordinary of ordinary ways, like a dishwasher.

So, here’s to noticing all the many small acts of love, the everyday kindness, and the ways our children, sons and daughters alike, show kindness and care for us, even when we least expect it.