You are listening to Feeding the Mouth That Bites You with Ashley Parrish and Jessica Pfeiffer.

A weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world. As always,

we are joined by psychologist and author, Dr. Ken Wilgus.

Hey, everyone, and welcome back on today's episode. We'll be discussing mothers and sons, fathers and daughters. My name is

Ashley Parrish. I'm your host. I'm joined by my co-host, Jessica Pfeiffer. Hey there. And Dr. Ken Wilkes.

Hey, everybody. So parenting a teen that's the opposite gender can sometimes be difficult.

We don't really know and we're not aware of the needs that are significantly different than our own.

I feel like already I am going to have a difficult time parenting my teenage son just because he's a boy,

just because he's a son.

I feel like my daughter is so much easier because I know her

needs and I know her language, you know, in a sense, but boys, I just feel kind of lost. Is this

normal, Dr. Ken? It's funny because I found my daughter is much tougher to figure out than my son.

So yeah, I think it is. And as a matter of fact, I'm glad that you're asking those

questions because these are, for two reasons. Number one, this is a time where if you'll notice

the norm now is to really play down the whole issue of gender. We have a culture that's really

wanting to respect the individual. So we don't even use him and her

that much. And so to even bring up the topic is unusual. But secondly, it really combines two of

my favorite subjects. I get these things stuck in my head as a behavioral scientist and I just

look for it all the time. The first one is obvious, which is how

we translate our children into adulthood. And that's what this whole podcast is about. And once you

kind of start thinking about it, you just see it everywhere. But what we haven't talked about before is

my other favorite pattern is difference between men and women, male and female communication styles and

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