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Boys and Their Toys
Being pregnant is making me hyper-sensitive about questions of gender, and especially gender-based statements like the above. Especially when they come out of the mouths of friends and family.
I was raised a tomboy feminist. If I have a boy, I want to raise a feminist boy; likewise if I have a girl. And I find I'm facing head-on the inherently different treatments of boyhood and girlhood in our society and especially language.
I'm not talking about expectations on the clothes they wear (though if you ask me if I know the gender of the baby and link it to the question of what color or style of things to buy, I will point out that any child I have will spend time in both legless sleepers and t-shirts and overalls, and my favorite colors for baby clothes and accessories are blue, red, purple, orange, green, and rainbow, regardless of gender).
I'm talking about societal permissiveness.
Permission to have fun, to want and play with toys, to get dirty, to break things, to mess up and recover from it. "Boys will be boys" -- they have that permission reinforced until an eventual age when they will be expected to "grow up" -- except that a "boyish grin" will still be looked on fondly.
What about a "girlish grin"? Does that even mean anything?
If I have a girl I want her to grow up grinning easily, to know it and be unashamed about it if she wants and enjoys high-tech toys or running around outside -- and if I have a boy I want the same for him except I also want him to openly anticipate that female friends might like the same things (and that male friends might not, and that's ok too), and I don't want him to believe that the permission to express those aspects of his character is inherently due to his gender and genitalia.
Nor would I want a son of mine to believe that "girls can't" play sports or goof around with action figures, go fishing or mess about in a mudhole, or that "guys can't" dance, play dress-up, play with babies or cook or do anything that they want to do, for that matter, and enjoy those things and still be ok, as guys.
We were visiting friends recently whose 3-year-old son has been fond of pink partly because his best friend, a girl, really likes pink, but who's realizing it's not considered a thing for boys. He watched me folding my laundry to re-pack and noted that I didn't have any pink clothes. I replied that I like pink but I don't wear it as often as I did when I was younger. "I guess girls often like pink," he said. "A lot of people like pink," I answered, my heart breaking a little for this little boy facing what may be the first in a long line of episodes of making his desires and affinities conform to gender expectations.
So if you say something around me like "Boys will be boys" and see me wince, this is why. Kids will be kids, I would rather say. Both boys and girls need time when they are expected to be responsible, and time when they are expected to play. Those expectations have a serious impact on what we become as adults, too - what we permit ourselves to want (or realize we want) and do.
And regarding "boys and their toys," as I recently reminded Brian, I'm the one who has the iPhone in this relationship. I'm sure I sounded like I was just teasing when I said that. While inside, I was thinking, "Please don't say such sexist things around my baby."
Because I think things like that mess with kids' heads, I really do. And with all of us, in ways we don't even realize. I can't stop my kids from hearing such things, I know, but I will tell different stories, and provide different messages, like a counterspell, and I would appreciate it if those around me would think about doing the same. For all the kids in your life, including each other.
I was raised a tomboy feminist. If I have a boy, I want to raise a feminist boy; likewise if I have a girl. And I find I'm facing head-on the inherently different treatments of boyhood and girlhood in our society and especially language.
I'm not talking about expectations on the clothes they wear (though if you ask me if I know the gender of the baby and link it to the question of what color or style of things to buy, I will point out that any child I have will spend time in both legless sleepers and t-shirts and overalls, and my favorite colors for baby clothes and accessories are blue, red, purple, orange, green, and rainbow, regardless of gender).
I'm talking about societal permissiveness.
Permission to have fun, to want and play with toys, to get dirty, to break things, to mess up and recover from it. "Boys will be boys" -- they have that permission reinforced until an eventual age when they will be expected to "grow up" -- except that a "boyish grin" will still be looked on fondly.
What about a "girlish grin"? Does that even mean anything?
If I have a girl I want her to grow up grinning easily, to know it and be unashamed about it if she wants and enjoys high-tech toys or running around outside -- and if I have a boy I want the same for him except I also want him to openly anticipate that female friends might like the same things (and that male friends might not, and that's ok too), and I don't want him to believe that the permission to express those aspects of his character is inherently due to his gender and genitalia.
Nor would I want a son of mine to believe that "girls can't" play sports or goof around with action figures, go fishing or mess about in a mudhole, or that "guys can't" dance, play dress-up, play with babies or cook or do anything that they want to do, for that matter, and enjoy those things and still be ok, as guys.
We were visiting friends recently whose 3-year-old son has been fond of pink partly because his best friend, a girl, really likes pink, but who's realizing it's not considered a thing for boys. He watched me folding my laundry to re-pack and noted that I didn't have any pink clothes. I replied that I like pink but I don't wear it as often as I did when I was younger. "I guess girls often like pink," he said. "A lot of people like pink," I answered, my heart breaking a little for this little boy facing what may be the first in a long line of episodes of making his desires and affinities conform to gender expectations.
So if you say something around me like "Boys will be boys" and see me wince, this is why. Kids will be kids, I would rather say. Both boys and girls need time when they are expected to be responsible, and time when they are expected to play. Those expectations have a serious impact on what we become as adults, too - what we permit ourselves to want (or realize we want) and do.
And regarding "boys and their toys," as I recently reminded Brian, I'm the one who has the iPhone in this relationship. I'm sure I sounded like I was just teasing when I said that. While inside, I was thinking, "Please don't say such sexist things around my baby."
Because I think things like that mess with kids' heads, I really do. And with all of us, in ways we don't even realize. I can't stop my kids from hearing such things, I know, but I will tell different stories, and provide different messages, like a counterspell, and I would appreciate it if those around me would think about doing the same. For all the kids in your life, including each other.
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My kids didn't wear gender-specific clothing until they were a couple of years old (this is confirmed by my recent task of sorting and cataloging photos). They wore "onesies" in one form or another for the first year. Then they wore stretch pants and tshirts until they graduated into "school clothes" - which to this day are pants and tshirts. (G will only wear soft cotton/poly pants now; K will only wear jeans.)
They got to play with the full range of toys; K is a LegoManiac while G is all about video games. K loves to cook (he's been cooking his own eggs since he was six and I wasn't feeling well and talked him through it).
My dad was frustrated by not having sons and took it out on us. :-) We had to learn to do all the things that the missing boy would have had to learn, like fixing our bikes and changing oil in the car and mowing the lawn. This was also true of my dad's brother (4 girls), plus their sister had a dairy farm where everyone did chores regardless of gender, so we were well along before we found out it wasn't the usual thing for girls to know about wrenches and hammers and how to fix the toilet.
Re girls and clothing: I reply to people who comment that way that a sexual attack is ALWAYS the perpetrator's fault. Sorry, they have to resist the perceived provocation, just as they'd have to resist the urge to punch someone if they were taunted. We wish we could control other people's behavior by how we dress, but we can't.
I don't like skirts; there's too much fabric and they never fit right - but I know lots of guys who like kilts. My kids don't like them, but I probably should have dressed them as little Scotsmen when they were younger, just to be ornery. :-)
I say, Kids Are Kids. Teach them whatever they need to know, whether they're boys or girls. Oddly enough, kids listen to their parents more than they listen to Society.