The recent "Like a Girl" campaign by Always has inspired today's post. Having been raised on a dairy farm with three sisters and no brothers, I (along with my sisters) had the privilege of growing up in an environment relatively free of the narrow-minded "like a girl" view of the female gender. Now, I can't speak to whether or not my childhood would have played out differently had I had brothers, but I can tell you that the cows couldn't have cared less whether that human walking towards them had a penis or a vagina (or both!), so long as they were pitching hay, carrying a milker or tending to whatever needs/wants they had at the time. Sometimes I wish my fellow members of society were more like cows.
As I reflect on discussions/comments/general encounters I have had with a people since finding out and sharing K's gender, I have come to realize that this siloed way of thinking with respect to gender is still very much alive. While many of these comments are seemingly harmless, over the past year, they have really started to bother me. Here's a sampling of said comments, along with my accompanying (outrageously sarcastic) internal dialogue.
"Well, you have to put him into hockey, his dad played after all..."
- Yes, I will blindly put my son into everything and anything his father did, because that what perfect little boys do. I will completely disregard his interests and avoid expanding/broadening his horizons because everyone knows the only thing little boys are good at/want to do are sports. I completely acknowledge that putting him into activities that I enjoyed as a child like; dance or voice lessons is completely absurd, because he does not have a vagina. It's not like I would have ever done "boy" things like play sports, or drive a tractor, or clip cows, or been waist deep in mud and cow crap, oh wait... "
"You took him wedding dress shopping (he was 8 weeks old at the time)?! There's no way he enjoyed that, a boy in a dress shop it's so girly in there..."
- A) My baby is 8 weeks old, I could've taken him to the freaking moon and he would've been completely oblivious to that and B) I will expose my young son to all sorts of "girly" things because maybe that way when he's 15 and has a knack for sewing/designing and wants nothing more than to pick up a sketch book and design wedding dresses/Broadway costumes/fancy hats he will do so, as opposed to detrimentally suppressing his desires/interests/dreams to satisfy society's need to see him shoot a hockey puck.
"You let him play with a purse? Well I guess that's OK, he'll have to learn how to hold it for his woman someday anyway..."
- Are you for real right now? For one thing, murses are in. Second, maybe he will hold a purse for his partner someday, but it will be his choice and that person may or may not be a "woman". What decade are we living in?!
Now all that being said, I openly acknowledge that I will, in fact, put my son in sports. This is not because I think all boys need to play sports, but because I think everyone needs to play sports. Sports teach discipline, teamwork, how to win and lose gracefully, problem solving, basic motor skills and so much more. They also keep your heart healthy. However, I will also put him in dance, music, orienteering, 4-H, book club, painting, beauty pageants or whatever his little heart desires because I want him to grow to become a respectful, happy and fulfilled human being.
Sometimes I think it might have been easier if K was girl, because then I could just pump her so full of confidence and self-assurance that she would be a beacon for all other girls. I could show her first hand how a girl can do it, and society wouldn't fight me nearly as much for it, because it would be perfectly understandable that a girl grows up to be like her mum. But then I look at my amazing, bubbly, outgoing little boy, and I understand that I have been blessed with this perfect little penis-bearing being for a reason. I was raised with the understanding that girls can do anything boys can do and I believe that to the core. It will by my job to pass on that value to our little man, and I am more than up for that challenge. Bring it on society.
Until next time my friends!
-A
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| "Doing dishes" at IKEA |
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| Cuttin' up a rug on the dancefloor |
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| Hanging with the Ladies |
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| DJ Kelly J |
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| Kellen and his Murse |
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| Shopping with Mummy |
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