Unicorns, Bad Guys and Princesses, oh my!

The other day, my son started a random conversation over breakfast.

“Mom,” he said, “ I don’t like girly things.” He gestured with his hand for emphasis as he clarified: “I like girls, but I don’t like girly things”

I tried to remain calm as sirens began to go off in my head. Part of me wanted to react immediately and I fought the urge to step up on my soapbox and launch into a speech on how there weren’t ‘girl things’ and ‘boy things’ and how you could do or like or be whatever you wanted. Instead, my curiosity piqued, I took a breath and sought further clarification. Sometimes what you think kids are talking about is not what they actually are talking about.  “Like what?”

“Like unicorns.”

“Unicorns?”

“Yeah, you know they have that horn that’s pointy on top of their heads and it could stab me. I don’t like them”

Ok, let’s face it, it’s difficult to dispute that kind of logic. “And princesses. I don’t like princesses.”

This one was news to me, as I had it on good authority that, despite the fact that he had not seen any of the Disney movies to date, he knew every Disney princess by name and had, in fact, pointed them all out to me in the princess collection in the toy section at Target, having been schooled by the older girls in his mostly female pre-K class last year. “Why don’t you like princesses?”

“Because they wear dresses.”

Attempt to insert adult logic: “Well, Mommy wears dresses, does that mean you don’t like me?”

“No, I LOVE you. But they wear dresses ALL the time. There is one princess movie I’d like to see, and that’s The Princess and the Frog.”

Before I had a chance to pursue this line of questioning further, he pressed on: “I do like one girly thing, that’s horses, because I’d like to ride a horse.”

Now, I generally don’t think of horses as particularly girly, but again, in his class last year, some of the girls were into ‘ponies’ so apparently the whole equine line has been tinted pink.

Not to be one sided, he continued by providing ‘equal time’ to his own gender’s stereotypes. “There’s also some boy things I don’t like. I also don’t like bad guy boyish things.”

“No, I don’t like bad guy things either,’ I concurred.  In his current year at pre-K the tides had taken a decided turn, with a younger and almost all male class that tended to conform to the “typical” boy interests in guns, fighting ‘bad guys,’ wrestling, tackling, etc.

And then, just as it had begin, the conversation was over, and he’d moved on to finishing his breakfast and then heading into the living room to watch Martha Speaks on PBS while I got ready for work. I sat for a moment both amused and appalled at the inner workings of my child’s mind.  Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t upset with him in any way.  But it was somewhat startling how he had already so clearly begun to designate ‘girly’ things and ‘boyish’ things. I did take some comfort in the fact that he had chosen in his mind to allow himself to both embrace something he identified as feminine (horses) and reject something he’d identified as masculine (playing bad guys). It is fascinating. Having a kid is like observing a lifetime science experiment.

I’ve been fighting an uphill battle with society (and myself) against gender stereotypes since I got pregnant. When I first found out I was having a baby, I just assumed it was going to be a girl. As a single mother, I would raise her to be a smart, competent, kick-ass girl who would have strength and confidence and be full of ‘girl power.’ So finding out my feminist-in-training-to-be was a boy initially threw me off my game.  Of course I would love him with all of my heart, but was I really meant to have a boy? I knew so much about being a girl, how would I approach raising a boy?  Eventually it occurred to me that the idea was to raise a human being: a confident, caring, compassionate, upstanding member of society. Duh.  One of many lessons learned (learn-ING).

I was determined not to raise a stereotypical boy, or at least not surround my boy with stereotypical things, and at my baby shower requested guests refrain from gifts involving blue, cars, and sports. It’s not that I don’t like blue or cars or sports.  It’s that I didn’t want everything the child owned from birth to involve one or more of those things.  And that’s pretty much all that’s out there. It’s truly amazing how important it is to some people to know the gender of a child simply by looking at it. If a baby’s not in pink or blue, these people get downright cross—as if you were trying to trick them.  As if the infant in your arms was to suffer some irreparable harm if a total stranger could not readily identify whether the child possessed a penis or vagina by the onsie it wore.

Realizing that my request basically prevented anyone from purchasing newborn boy clothes from most mainstream stores, I set out to purchase the 5 items in existence in the apparently ‘universally neutral’ baby colors available: green and yellow. Shopping for boy clothes can be so utterly depressing.  There, in one part of the store, taking up nearly ¾ of the available space, are the girl clothes, in all manner of hue. In the other part, a few aisles wide, lie the boy clothes. Blue, generally navy and baby.  Red. White.  Perhaps some brown.  On a lucky day, there may be some dark green, dark orange, or brighter blue.  It will probably have a race car, basketball, or dump truck on it.  Or words like “All-Star” or “Team Captain” emblazoned across it. Or a big number, like a sports jersey. Ugh.

I thought it was bad when he was a baby, until I started looking for underwear when he was potty training. If you do not want a licensed character (which I did NOT), you have exactly two choices: pink or blue.  In extraordinary cases, a lone package of white may be found. By the time they’re ready to hit the bathroom, your little one’s booty better be color-coded, my friend.

In his daycare pictures one year, the boys held a football while the girls held a flower.  There weren’t any ‘neutral’ choices, like a book or a pumpkin.  Boy: football; girl: flower. Period. Beginning leveled reader books? Princesses or Spider Man. And try to find purple ANYTHING (my favorite color, and one of my son’s as well) for boys.  Until the last year or so, it was impossible (thanks, Old Navy, for sporting a plethora of purple this Fall!).

I work hard to fight against this stifling gender conformity and let my son have as many choices as possible.  When he chooses to play with dump trucks and train sets, that’s just fine.  And when he wants to paint his toenails, like he did last summer, that’s AOK with me, too. Mommy uses power tools.  Uncle is a gourmet cook. My son dons his green and blue apron to help make cookies (a gift from another Uncle). Happily, these are part of his everyday life, and not seen as ‘exceptions’ to gender-specific ‘rules.’

I have to admit that while contemplating my choices on one underwear-buying occasion early on, I nearly bought a package containing cotton briefs with pink flowers just for spite at the whole ‘system.’ I knew my son wouldn’t care—he was just excited to be wearing ‘big boy’ underwear instead of diapers (he’s still excited about that; in fact, he recently stuck his hand through the front of his newest underwear and said, ‘Look, Mom, it’s got a pocket!’ (lol!)). What stopped me was the thought of him being in pre-K and possibly being picked on by other boys (and/or girls) in his class.

And that is where I currently find myself negotiating the choppy waters

How do you balance the desire to instill in your child the courage to be his or her own self, and to embrace the things they like and to be who they are, with the real-life fear existing in our world today where bullies take our children’s lives, or make them feel so bad that they believe that taking their own life is their only option? These types of cases used to be extreme.  Now they seem to be the ‘norm’ and are occurring at younger and younger ages, all across the country.

To me, this is one of the great struggles of parenthood. Where the balance lies, I’m not quite sure.  Right now, I’m trying to roll with it.  And tell him every day, many times a day, that I love him.  Even if he makes me mad.  Even if I don’t like his choices. Always.  No matter what. Because Mommy’s love is like that.