My kids and I were singing along, loudly, to “Run the World (Girls)” by Beyonce, as you do, when my 3-year-old son asked, “Can we listen to ‘Run the World (Boys)’ next?”

“That’s not a real song,” my 6-year-old daughter jumped in.

“Why not?”

I didn’t give them the obvious answer: There’s no song about boys running the world because boys actually run the world. Or mostly, anyway. I’m afraid they’ll ask me: Then why are we pretending girls do?

Just like we over-reassure our dateless friends that they’re totally, totally awesome, we oversell the “rah-rah, girl power!” to our girls but don’t entirely mean it. We’re overemphasizing how simply amazing and capable girls are by virtue of their gender and not much else. Isn’t that the opposite of what we should be doing?

Hollywood, of course, loves this pitch to girls. Ellen DeGeneres has a new lifestyle brand called ED that is meant to, what else, “empower” girls.

DeGeneres collaborated on a clothing line for The Gap and produced shirts for girls that had words like “Genius” and “Gifted” printed across them. I’m concerned that my daughter will feel we “doth protest too much” and ask, “Why am I wearing a shirt that says I’m a genius? Is it because I’m actually not?” “Why do you keep saying I rule? Is it because I don’t?” The result is more likely to be girls second-guessing themselves.

The language is the problem. Mainstream feminism tells girls they’re better than the boys but then has events like “Equal Pay Day” demanding equal pay. Demanding from whom? The men who dole out the pay? Weren’t girls just running the world? Which is it?

Writing in Mogul magazine last month, Chelsea Clinton claimed that “In 2016, it’s still true that in no country on Earth are women given equal rights and equal opportunities — to education, to health care, to equal pay for equal work — to men.” How can we tell girls that America doesn’t give them equal opportunities and at the same time tell them they should feel powerful? It doesn’t add up.

The way we talk to girls needs to change. We need to teach our daughters that if they feel they deserve higher pay, they need to ask for it. It sends mixed messages to tell girls they can do anything . . . provided boys help them.

And the idea that an American girl doesn’t have opportunities equal to American boys is foolish and can only discourage girls from even trying to succeed. Why bother if society is so stacked against her? Are girls unstoppable and amazing — or are they unlikely to succeed in our unfair world?

It’s especially jarring that we’ve decided boys don’t need the same encouragement girls get because, theoretically, they’ll be fine. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of data to suggest girls are doing far better than boys these days.

More women than men attend college, by a lopsided 60 percent to 40 percent, and the last recession hit men far harder than it did women.

It was nearly 15 years ago that Lesley Stahl reported for CBS News that boys were being left behind. She quoted Dr. Michael Thompson, author of a book about the academic problems of boys, “Raising Cain,” as saying: “After decades of special attention, girls are soaring, while boys are stagnating.”

That special attention has only increased since then. But no one seems to want to get into the business of turning things around for boys, or telling boys that they rule simply because they’re not girls. I guess “Boys rule!!” on a T-shirt just won’t sell.

Women have come a long way in just a few generations. If equality is the goal, why do we tell girls how perfect and special they are but don’t do the same for boys? And if pride and empowerment are the goals, why do we tell them they’re essentially helpless in modern society?

It’s hollow and hypocritical — and it needs to stop.