boys will be boys

Children can be expected to act childishly. As might be expected, the observation is far from new. A Latin proverb held, Pueri sunt pueri, pueri puerilia tractant, translated variously as “Children/boys are boys and do childish things.” The emphasis on boys in the English language probably reflects the sexist view that boys are essentially more mischievous and active than girls. The statement appears with increasing frequency in nineteenth-century literature (Bulwer-Lytton, Thackeray, Mark Twain, Shaw, et al.), when it already must have been a cliché.