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Good Riddance

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

“Now, what I’m about to say is a really big deal coming from me, because I really don’t like boys. They’re too vigorous and frightening for me. So when I tell you how much I just love Martin, and how we just think the world of him, that means an awful lot. He’s such a nice boy, and so well-behaved. I never have to worry that my little girl is going to get run over or scared. And I can’t stress enough to you what this means coming from me, because I just don’t like little boys. I never have.”

-Parting words from a mother who is moving from my area to me, a mother of two little boys, who, fortunately, doesn’t make a practice of public brawling at children’s play areas

Posted in "Say What?", gender, parenting | 5 Responses »

Friday: Mothers, Jackasses, and Predators

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

Mothers:

Today my sister and I brought dinner to a woman who just had a baby. She lives in a giant house, brand new. The problems she speaks of the most, publicly at least, revolve around the new stove acting up and an incorrectly laid teak floor. On the way home, we stopped at the drugstore, and while waiting in the parking lot, I saw another mother, still in her fast-food restaurant apron, rushing into the store while clutching a two year old in her arms. Her hair flying, her face splotchy, her car dented and rusted.

Jackasses:

On the way home from the drugstore, we waited at a red light and watched two men in a truck try to get the attention of a woman in a convertible next to them. She glanced over at them as they leaned out the window and shouted to her, then she quickly looked straight ahead. They continued to yell to her, laughing and hanging out their windows over her car. She kept pulling up, trying to get away without escaping into a crush of speeding traffic.

Predator:

That evening, I went to the grocery store, the fanciest one in my little suburban bubble. But it was dark, and when I pulled into the parking spot in a distant part of the lot, I noticed a man sitting alone in the car next to me. I thought, ‘No way. Park somewhere else.’ Then, ‘Grow up. He’s just a man in a car.’ But he was a man sitting alone in a car in a dark parking lot, and when I made eye contact with him . . . he seemed creepy. I moved. (He was probably a saint–waiting to pick up a friend or partner so she wouldn’t have to walk through that same dark parking lot.) Why did I assume predator?

Posted in feminism, freedom, gender, mothering | 6 Responses »

“That’s the Difference Between Girls and Boys.”

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

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 . . .)

Posted in "Say What?", gender, mothering, parenting | 7 Responses »

You’ll Get So Bored Staying Home With Your Kids

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

This was advice from my dentist. I said, “I would be a lot more bored being a dentist.” OK, fine, I didn’t say it aloud. If he said it now, almost four years later, I would retort out loud. And probably, loudLY. Then, though, I just kind of shrugged. I was still pregnant, and I hadn’t really decided what to do. Maybe I would be bored. I sure thought I was going back to work after my maternity leave.

Fast-foward to the hospital room with the newborn baby in my arms. OK, now try to rip it from me. Impossible. Even doting grandparents had a hard time holding that baby. I’m not advocating these feelings as the healthiest or most desirable–evidenced by my first time out without the baby as I exclaimed to my sister, “Hey, look at us! Two girls out at night going to CVS! This is so awesome!”

Actually, I did get bored sometimes, especially when it was just me and nursing or sleeping baby hour after hour, but that’s not the kind of bored he meant. The message was loud and clear–that I was too smart, too capable, too into other things, to possibly give everything up to raise children full-time. I was too good for that.

And really, damn him and everyone else who think I live a soap-opera-and-sweatpants kind of life. But while I talk tough, I have to still admit that the stereotyping of mothers who are staying with their children gets to me. I got a publication from an academic honor society the other day, and at the back were car stickers, pendants, and key chains with their symbol. I have barely perused this magazine in the past; it’s from a long-ago college thing. I couldn’t care less about stuff like that. (I only remember the banquet because I was staring at my watch until the minute I could escape, then sprinting down the hall to make a Sarah McLachlan concert on time.) But now, I actually considered ordering some kind of key chain. With a sinking feeling, I realized that it would only be to say, “Hey, look, I’m smarter than you probably think I am! I could actually go back to doing smart and important things if I wanted to instead of being at this playground!” So even though I have not regretted giving up a paying career to stay home, and even though I am disgusted by insinuations that a parent taking care of children full-time is something to look down on, I guess I still let it get to me. Yuck.

Posted in education, gender, home with children, mothering, stereotypes, work | 4 Responses »