Boys will always, always be boys  

A mother of three boys, Sasha Blake, is not surprised to discover that, even aged four, girls are vastly ahead of boys in just about every skill there is.

I peer over my son's shoulder to see how his English homework is progressing. He has doodled a perfect Clone Wars trooper in the corner of the page. The exercise on 'oo sounds' is untouched. "Come on," I say.

"This is so boring," he says, with cool, seven-year-old disdain.

"So is working in McDonalds," I snarl.

He scribbles violently all over the paper, scrunches it up and stamps out of the room. I feel like cutting off my head.

After seventy minutes of shouting and begging, my eldest son completes one measly page of work. Meanwhile, the four-year-old has coloured his face brown with a felt tip in homage to the cat, and the two-year-old has unravelled three rolls of toilet paper and is now bouncing on the top bunk with the hook of a metal coat hanger dangling from his mouth.

"That one," observes my husband, with fond regret, "is not going to be a professor of mathematics at Oxford."

I must be the least surprised mother in Britain to discover that even aged four, girls are vastly ahead of boys in just about every skill there is apart from idiocy.

The Government has published, for the first time, a gender breakdown of the basic assessments carried out on every pre-school aged child. Among the many horrific revelations is the fact that 26% of five-year-old boys cannot spell their own name, compared with only 15% of girls. I am reminded of a birthday card a girlfriend sent to Oscar, aged five. "Have a fan-diddly-tastic day!" she wrote, in exquisite handwriting. I put the card in a cupboard as it made me feel sick.

The report states that girls also trump boys in social development, emotional development, creative development, and – get this – physical development. So boys can't even claim superiority in running in large pointless circles around fields.

Pupils were assessed in 13 areas, from linking sounds and letters to knowledge and understanding of the world. The assessment on "dispositions and attitudes" included observation of personal hygiene. Girls outperformed boys in seven of the nine points. Of course they did. In our house, personal hygiene is a luxury.

Yesterday, I heard the four-year-old crying on the toilet. Closer inspection – "what is that?" – revealed that after dropping his stomach contents into the pan, he had also dropped his Fireman watch. I put on a plastic glove, and fished it out. Then I boiled it. It stopped but so what? He can't tell the time, and chances are he won't be able to for another ten years.

I cannot feel guilty about dirt – there is too much else to feel guilty about. One dear elderly man once told me in a supermarket – shortly after my eldest failed to catch a bottle of tomato sauce he had mistaken for a ball – "there is a special place reserved in heaven for the mothers of boys." Each day is filled with challenges, beginning at six, when the two-year-old escapes from his cot, speeds downstairs and lets himself into the garden.

Shortly after, the others start a scooter race across the living room. I fantasise about it one day being composed of exercise, laughter, green vegetables and intellectual stimulation. Alas, most days are composed of fighting, crying, ice cream and The Simpsons.

That said, in contradiction to Government statistics, the two-year-old communicates beautifully. Naturally, he cannot compete with his female cousin, also two ("Auntie, you don't say "pillar", you say "pillow") – but, apropos of nothing, yells at his brother: "Shut up, idiot!" Instantly, the strawberry blonde four-year-old – renowned at nursery for his gentle disposition – turns into Paul Bettany in Gangster Number One. And the seven-year-old, to my eternal surprise, really doesn't know better.

Last week, he squirted the neighbour's rabbit in the face with a massive water pistol.

"Why?" I demanded.

He replied, "I thought it was thirsty."

Yesterday, to boost them a few points in the physical development stakes, I took the elder boys pony riding. The baby passed the time jumping in puddles of horse urine. Soon he was sodden in it up to his waist. Some definitely went in his mouth.

I felt anxious that he'd catch a brain-eating disease that would retard him even further than being male. Another recent report consoled me: shortly after he's learned to link his sounds and letters, chances are he'll pinch a top job (plus better pay) from a more deserving female.

Girls, have a fan-diddly-tastic day!

* Betrayal by Sasha Blake (Bantam) is available from Telegraph Books for £6.99+ 99p P&P. Call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk