Yes, [points at pie chart] I do believe, on average, little boys appear more emotionally fragile than little girls.
At a very young age our culture begins a masculine role indoctrination with boys, with one of the primary facets of this role being the repression of emotion. Emotions at this age are very powerful experiences for all children, and with the notion of "be a little man, be tough, don't cry" lurking in their young consciousnesses, the unnatural expectation of stoicism we project onto young boys can be rather confusing to them, and can magnify their struggle to process emotional events, ie, make them appear more fragile.
This being said [flipping the page to reveal a colorful bar graph], some children's essential emotional natures are more sensitive, and in their cases fragility bears little relation to cultural conditioning as a primary contributing factor (though this conditioning can exacerbate their fragility). Relatively speaking, some boys are simply born more "sensitive" than others.
Rick
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