We were walking through a wooded park the other day, Martin covered in mud from his waist down, Chris from his neck up…and in his mouth…oh, and in his nose. They tore around in circles, careened down hills, clambered up trees, and toppled into the creek. I pushed an empty double stroller for when they got tired. That’s never yet happened, but I’m ready.
Another woman passed. Walking serenely next to her was a girl, about 3 like Martin, but spotless and wearing a lovely mint-green skirt. The child pushed a stroller where her little sister sat with her own fluttery skirt and hair bow. A friend walking next to me nodded from the little girls then to Martin and Chris battling through a bush to get to a caterpillar and commented, “That’s the difference between girls and boys.”
No.
It’s the difference between two sets of siblings at one moment in time.
My perspective on whether gender differences are innate or cultural or what those differences might be changed when I looked at my first newborn baby boy. I did not want him told, outright or furtively through advertising and other cultural and social pressures, that he was supposed to play with trucks or throw baseballs unless he wanted to. Just as much, I did not want him to think that his girl friends or siblings (should one arrive) should not be up in tree. I certainly want to stay informed and analytical about the pressures of gender roles and stereotyping to maintain my vigilance and do my best to keep it out of my home and my parenting, but these are two individual boys I’m mothering, not a gender. Studies cannot convince me to accept that they are supposed to do anything because they are boys.
I am guessing that the fluttery skirts that those sisters were wearing ended up spotted with mud by the end of their walk–they, after all, were just getting started and the woods were filled with puddles.
(By the way, the point of this post is communicated in a much more fun way by blue milk in her account of playing at the park with a friend and her daughter: “The better the day, the dirtier the child.” The children in that post happen to be girls . . .)
Oh, thank you for this. When I saw the post title in my reader, I was bracing for a literal entry, and I was sad!
So happy for your story — and my 4 year old daughter is often all grass stained, and loves to play like a nut…
Many daus, I actually have to say – “you smell like dirt – why don’t you go wash up!”
Well said. My son likes the color pink and his dolls (his babies, he calls them) just as much – sometimes more – than dirt and trucks. So much more fun than strict gender divisions.
Perfectly said! My boys played Barbies and Pretty Pretty Princess with my daughter and my daughter played cars and trucks in the mud with her brothers. I think it helps boys better able to relate to females and vice versa. And that’s always a positive thing.
My Lu is more often than not dirty and rough but also incredibly loving to her ‘babies’ and animals. I think young kids are what they are and that’s part of what makes them so wonderous to me – ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ come much, much later.
Well put, Kris. And I’m wondering when the “boy” and “girl” part will come for them–or what they have already internalized. I don’t watch my boys when they are pretending to cook a dinner or cuddle a doll and rock it to sleep and think–oh, good, a stereotypical girl behavior, and they do it, too. It’s just what they do–along with all of these other children described in the comments. Thanks for telling me about what all your kids like to do. It’s nice to think about all of these kids able to do anything they enjoy together, regardless of gender. I am apprehensive about when and how my kids will figure out what’s “boy.” Maybe by hearing a comment like my friend’s at the park? Ugh.
(Sorry I scared you with the title, mom.)
i too was really nervous about the title. in fact, i was gearing up to rant and rave in your comment’s box. yay that i don’t have to! thanks for being an informed mom, because a lot of us actually buy in to gender-typing our children even if we know better.
I totally get the instinct to rant and rave when you saw the title–I felt the same way when she said it. And just today–a mom watching our boys throwing balls together said, “It must be a boy thing, huh?” Tell that to the little girl who had been throwing balls with them all morning. I mean, really…