While walking into the grocery store last week, I passed four little male monkeys each holding onto a cart their mother was pushing. Inside the cart, grocery bags were piled on top of one another and there was a baby girl strapped in the basket. Staring at the family, I thought about how stressful a trip to the grocery store must be for that mother. I sympathized and thought she was crazy until it clicked that my own mother looked like that about 10 years ago with my siblings and I. With four mouths to feed and eight hands to wash, my parents had their arms full with us kids.

Growing up with all boys was a lot of fun and extremely convenient, but sometimes I found myself questioning if I was living with humans or if was I actually sharing a house with dogs. My childhood was filled with snot rockets on the bottom of the bathtub, dirty socks that were inside out laying around the house and raw knees that always had grass stains.

Although living with "dogs" my entire life was annoying, it had its perks. Here are five reasons why growing up with all boys isn't always a bad thing.

1. The majority of food in our house was midnight snacks.

It never failed that there were Zingers and Hostess cupcakes of some sort in the pantry. Dad had a Mountain Dew for breakfast every morning – so that set the tone for the genre of food that filled our pantry.

2. You get to experience what it's like to be both genders.

If you grew up with all boys, it was inevitable that you would have a tomboy phase that lasted your entire childhood. I don't think I had gotten my first hair cut or started to seem even somewhat female until I was far into seventh grade. This also meant that I never had to worry about growing out of clothes – hand-me-downs came from the bedroom next to you, so you always knew where that brown stain on the right sleeve came from.

3. You always had someone to play with.

For someone like myself, where I was the only girl with all hoodlum boys, it meant that I always had someone to dress up and practice make-up on – once I started to slide out of the tomboy phase, of course. But even before make-up existed in your world, you never became bored.

4. They'll teach you how to put someone in a headlock.

Self-defense was taught quickly around our house. If you didn't know how to wrestle by the time you were 7, you might as well have started digging your own grave. Although the arguing and bickering at home never ended, the bullying at school definitely did. Having all boys as siblings meant you never had to worry about getting picked on by anyone besides them.

5. They'll make patience one of your virtues.

As deceiving as it sounds, boys hog up a lot of the bathroom time and take much longer with their morning bathroom ritual than I did. The older I became, the less I wanted to deal with their silly games and pranks throughout the house. They taught me more than just how to fight and stand up for myself. Growing up with three brothers formed my personality, values and virtues in life, and there's nothing in the world that I would trade for those three boys.