THIS ARTICLE IS FOR MICHELE31 WHO IS GOING TO HAVE A GIRL
Life Story
The joy of boys
By Susan Freinkel
When the fantasy of having girls meets the reality of raising boys
Not long ago I was on the phone with a friend, describing the challenge of being the mother of two young boys. Suddenly, the line went dead. I wheeled around, and there was one of my sons, 5-year-old Eli, scissors poised in mid-air, a sheepish look on his face, and the neatly snipped phone line coiled by his feet. As I hunted through the house for a spare phone line, I wondered: Do little girls pull tricks like this?
Like many women I know, I never imagined I'd be raising a family of boys. What fantasies I had about motherhood were always decidedly girl-centered: I would read my daughter the books I had loved, like The Secret Garden and Harriet the Spy. We'd spend rainy days making elaborate houses from shoe boxes or turning buttons into jewelry. We'd shop together (a bonding ritual more than one mother of sons has told me she misses). I'd be her ally and confidante for all the major childhood milestones. In turn, she could provide me with that female affinity, that quick click of connection, that I have always enjoyed with my women friends.
How much simpler and satisfying I assumed child-rearing would be if my child and I shared the same chromosomal starting point. The sexes to me seemed separated by such a wide chasm that I couldn't imagine that I'd conceive something so different, so other, as a boy. And so, I confess, I was a little disappointed during each of my pregnancies when I discovered I was carrying a boy. All my mother-daughter dreams went out the window as I contemplated the prospect of being the lone female in a family of males, the one always having to lower the toilet seat. Despite the contrary example of my husband and men friends, the worst stereotypes filled my mind. My sons would be hulking jocks, crazy for cars and weapons and all those other 'guy things.' My sons would go to their father, not me, for consolation or confirmation of all those important milestones. At bottom, I feared being lonely within my own family, perpetually cut off from some shared current.
You can't always get what you want
But, I am discovering, the Rolling Stones had it right: Sometimes you get what you need. Raising boys has forced me to rethink my long-held assumptions about gender and confront some of my ugly prejudices. I still believe that there are fundamental differences between males and females — indeed, my convictions if anything are stronger. But being the mother of boys has made males familiar, endearing even, in a way that simply growing up with a brother or living with my husband had not. In short, my sons have brought me a wealth of unexpected pleasures and insights that a daughter never could.
Not that being a mother of boys has been easy. My sons, now ages 6 and 4, are what the parenting books euphemistically call 'high energy.' They are not the kind of guys who will sit peacefully for an hour or more with a book or a puzzle. No, my boys are driven by a kind of aggressive energy that I don't even begin to understand. When we get out the blocks to play, my instinct is to build towers for the sheer pleasure of construction; Eli and Isaac just want structures that can be wrecked with maximal noise. Four-year-old Isaac cannot walk through a room without swatting at some object in it. Both boys have gone through the gun-lust phase where any long, thin object from a Popsicle stick to a baguette is aimed and pow-powed. This despite the fact that the only firearms we've let them have are whale-shaped squirt guns. They've never been willing to play house, or, for that matter, displayed a whit of interest in any of the quiet relational games that engage the little girls at their school.
I used to think that such preferences were wholly socialized. Increasingly, I'm open to the possibility that some are actually hardwired into my boys' personalities. What has changed my thinking is not any scientific research on the subject, but what I see firsthand every day. When Power Rangers mania hit our preschool, for example, all the 3- and 4-year-old boys began shadow-kicking and punching their way around the yard, chanting, 'Go, Power Rangers.' At that age, boys need to feel powerful, one of the teachers patiently explained to parents like myself, distraught by their little darlings' surges of aggression. Most of the girls, meanwhile, stood aside, watching with disdain, seemingly baffled by the boys' constant combat.
Pink high-tops!
I realize, of course, that gender is a complicated product of nurture and nature. And time and again I have been forced to confront my embarrassing complicity in reinforcing the kinds of divisions that intellectually I abhor. Shopping for shoes not long ago, Eli picked out a pair of pink high-tops — not a borderline shade like neon pink, but the delicate pink of bunny ears and baby blankets. 'Wouldn't you rather have these?' I heard myself asking, as I dangled before him an acceptably boyish black pair. I'd like to say I was being foresighted, trying to protect him from the inevitable teasing. But my grab for the black sneakers was automatic, driven by my sexist reflexes. 'No, I like these ones,' Eli insisted. Pink at that time was his favorite color, and these had the added bonus of a Power Rangers emblem on the side. He proudly wore the shoes out of the store.
The triumph was short-lived. The next morning, Eli came running over to me in tears, 'The kids say these are dumb shoes, that they are girl shoes.' My husband and I tried to tell him and the other kids that there is no such thing as a boy color or a girl color. My husband even paraded around in a pink shirt the next day. But by then pink was old news, and the teasing had passed. Eli, however, never again had the same passion for the shoes — or for the color. Even if I could have found a way to keep my sexism in check, I realized, I can't control the rest of the world.
Sweaty snuggles
But just when it feels as if the social and biochemical pressures are too immense, that boys simply will be boys, my sons surprise me. I'd just about given up on Eli ever taking an interest in drawing or painting or doing any of the kinds of artsy projects I'd loved as a girl, when last year he agreed enthusiastically to make Valentine's Day cards. My wild boy — the same one who had been shouting 'kill, kill, kill' when chasing his friends — gripped the crayon tight and on each heart drew unbearably sweet happy faces: round eyes, a nose, and a squiggly smile.
Much as my boys' wildness exasperates and perplexes me, it is, after all, just one part of who they are. I see the ways they slide from aggression to tenderness in the space of a nanosecond — crashing trucks, then rushing over for a sweaty snuggle — and I know that sweetness is there to be nurtured. If part of my job is encouraging this gentle side, it strikes me as an easier, or at least less complicated, task than preserving little girls' assertiveness in a society that too often wants them to be docile and nice. For in this culture, growing up female still seems tougher.
I know many men — not least my husband — who are kind, compassionate, and respectful of women; in short, men who have transcended the cultural stereotype in the way I hope my sons will. But while I know many women who have done the same, I don't know any who have not felt damaged to some degree by the effort.
Liberated by my boys
I had imagined it would be harder to raise sons than daughters. Now I think it may be liberating — in the same way that you feel freer traveling in a foreign land. Dealing with beings so different from me has lifted a certain burden from the hard-enough job of being a mother. With sons, there's so much less danger of blurring boundaries, of losing sight of my children's autonomy. Precisely because I cannot fully identify with them, it will be easier (I hope) to respect who they are, to let them be.
Sure, my boys can still seem like little strangers to me, as mysterious as the neighborhood boys when I was a girl. I remember playing four square with my girlfriends, watching the boys tear around the playground, stopping every so often to huddle conspiratorially. What are they talking about? I'd wonder, What do they think? I used to wish I was invisible so I could sneak into their huddle to eavesdrop on that other world. Now, hanging out with my boys and their friends, I'm privy to that world. I get to hear their jokes, their fears, their hopes.
'Guess what I dreamed about last night,' Eli asked me the other day. Once, if asked what a little boy dreams, I wouldn't have had the foggiest notion. Now I know. 'Dinosaurs?' I ventured. He nodded, pleased, and we shared a smile.
The joy of boys
By Susan Freinkel
When the fantasy of having girls meets the reality of raising boys
Not long ago I was on the phone with a friend, describing the challenge of being the mother of two young boys. Suddenly, the line went dead. I wheeled around, and there was one of my sons, 5-year-old Eli, scissors poised in mid-air, a sheepish look on his face, and the neatly snipped phone line coiled by his feet. As I hunted through the house for a spare phone line, I wondered: Do little girls pull tricks like this?
Like many women I know, I never imagined I'd be raising a family of boys. What fantasies I had about motherhood were always decidedly girl-centered: I would read my daughter the books I had loved, like The Secret Garden and Harriet the Spy. We'd spend rainy days making elaborate houses from shoe boxes or turning buttons into jewelry. We'd shop together (a bonding ritual more than one mother of sons has told me she misses). I'd be her ally and confidante for all the major childhood milestones. In turn, she could provide me with that female affinity, that quick click of connection, that I have always enjoyed with my women friends.
How much simpler and satisfying I assumed child-rearing would be if my child and I shared the same chromosomal starting point. The sexes to me seemed separated by such a wide chasm that I couldn't imagine that I'd conceive something so different, so other, as a boy. And so, I confess, I was a little disappointed during each of my pregnancies when I discovered I was carrying a boy. All my mother-daughter dreams went out the window as I contemplated the prospect of being the lone female in a family of males, the one always having to lower the toilet seat. Despite the contrary example of my husband and men friends, the worst stereotypes filled my mind. My sons would be hulking jocks, crazy for cars and weapons and all those other 'guy things.' My sons would go to their father, not me, for consolation or confirmation of all those important milestones. At bottom, I feared being lonely within my own family, perpetually cut off from some shared current.
You can't always get what you want
But, I am discovering, the Rolling Stones had it right: Sometimes you get what you need. Raising boys has forced me to rethink my long-held assumptions about gender and confront some of my ugly prejudices. I still believe that there are fundamental differences between males and females — indeed, my convictions if anything are stronger. But being the mother of boys has made males familiar, endearing even, in a way that simply growing up with a brother or living with my husband had not. In short, my sons have brought me a wealth of unexpected pleasures and insights that a daughter never could.
Not that being a mother of boys has been easy. My sons, now ages 6 and 4, are what the parenting books euphemistically call 'high energy.' They are not the kind of guys who will sit peacefully for an hour or more with a book or a puzzle. No, my boys are driven by a kind of aggressive energy that I don't even begin to understand. When we get out the blocks to play, my instinct is to build towers for the sheer pleasure of construction; Eli and Isaac just want structures that can be wrecked with maximal noise. Four-year-old Isaac cannot walk through a room without swatting at some object in it. Both boys have gone through the gun-lust phase where any long, thin object from a Popsicle stick to a baguette is aimed and pow-powed. This despite the fact that the only firearms we've let them have are whale-shaped squirt guns. They've never been willing to play house, or, for that matter, displayed a whit of interest in any of the quiet relational games that engage the little girls at their school.
I used to think that such preferences were wholly socialized. Increasingly, I'm open to the possibility that some are actually hardwired into my boys' personalities. What has changed my thinking is not any scientific research on the subject, but what I see firsthand every day. When Power Rangers mania hit our preschool, for example, all the 3- and 4-year-old boys began shadow-kicking and punching their way around the yard, chanting, 'Go, Power Rangers.' At that age, boys need to feel powerful, one of the teachers patiently explained to parents like myself, distraught by their little darlings' surges of aggression. Most of the girls, meanwhile, stood aside, watching with disdain, seemingly baffled by the boys' constant combat.
Pink high-tops!
I realize, of course, that gender is a complicated product of nurture and nature. And time and again I have been forced to confront my embarrassing complicity in reinforcing the kinds of divisions that intellectually I abhor. Shopping for shoes not long ago, Eli picked out a pair of pink high-tops — not a borderline shade like neon pink, but the delicate pink of bunny ears and baby blankets. 'Wouldn't you rather have these?' I heard myself asking, as I dangled before him an acceptably boyish black pair. I'd like to say I was being foresighted, trying to protect him from the inevitable teasing. But my grab for the black sneakers was automatic, driven by my sexist reflexes. 'No, I like these ones,' Eli insisted. Pink at that time was his favorite color, and these had the added bonus of a Power Rangers emblem on the side. He proudly wore the shoes out of the store.
The triumph was short-lived. The next morning, Eli came running over to me in tears, 'The kids say these are dumb shoes, that they are girl shoes.' My husband and I tried to tell him and the other kids that there is no such thing as a boy color or a girl color. My husband even paraded around in a pink shirt the next day. But by then pink was old news, and the teasing had passed. Eli, however, never again had the same passion for the shoes — or for the color. Even if I could have found a way to keep my sexism in check, I realized, I can't control the rest of the world.
Sweaty snuggles
But just when it feels as if the social and biochemical pressures are too immense, that boys simply will be boys, my sons surprise me. I'd just about given up on Eli ever taking an interest in drawing or painting or doing any of the kinds of artsy projects I'd loved as a girl, when last year he agreed enthusiastically to make Valentine's Day cards. My wild boy — the same one who had been shouting 'kill, kill, kill' when chasing his friends — gripped the crayon tight and on each heart drew unbearably sweet happy faces: round eyes, a nose, and a squiggly smile.
Much as my boys' wildness exasperates and perplexes me, it is, after all, just one part of who they are. I see the ways they slide from aggression to tenderness in the space of a nanosecond — crashing trucks, then rushing over for a sweaty snuggle — and I know that sweetness is there to be nurtured. If part of my job is encouraging this gentle side, it strikes me as an easier, or at least less complicated, task than preserving little girls' assertiveness in a society that too often wants them to be docile and nice. For in this culture, growing up female still seems tougher.
I know many men — not least my husband — who are kind, compassionate, and respectful of women; in short, men who have transcended the cultural stereotype in the way I hope my sons will. But while I know many women who have done the same, I don't know any who have not felt damaged to some degree by the effort.
Liberated by my boys
I had imagined it would be harder to raise sons than daughters. Now I think it may be liberating — in the same way that you feel freer traveling in a foreign land. Dealing with beings so different from me has lifted a certain burden from the hard-enough job of being a mother. With sons, there's so much less danger of blurring boundaries, of losing sight of my children's autonomy. Precisely because I cannot fully identify with them, it will be easier (I hope) to respect who they are, to let them be.
Sure, my boys can still seem like little strangers to me, as mysterious as the neighborhood boys when I was a girl. I remember playing four square with my girlfriends, watching the boys tear around the playground, stopping every so often to huddle conspiratorially. What are they talking about? I'd wonder, What do they think? I used to wish I was invisible so I could sneak into their huddle to eavesdrop on that other world. Now, hanging out with my boys and their friends, I'm privy to that world. I get to hear their jokes, their fears, their hopes.
'Guess what I dreamed about last night,' Eli asked me the other day. Once, if asked what a little boy dreams, I wouldn't have had the foggiest notion. Now I know. 'Dinosaurs?' I ventured. He nodded, pleased, and we shared a smile.
