In an elevator, in line at the grocery store, waiting for the bus, it always goes like this: Strangers' eyes zero in on my belly first. Then they dart furtively to my face, as if to make sure I'm not a mutant, just visibly pregnant. After this, they ask, "Is this your first?"
"My third," I answer. "I have two boys at home."
And for the kicker, they unfailingly give me a sideways grin, and say: "Going for your girl?"
"Nooo, just going for a baby," I reply, gritting my teeth a little. "Another boy would be fine with us."
It's the truth. I love what I have, and I have what I love: boys. I understand them. I understand the clothes, the toys, and the Matchbox-car skids on my wallpaper.
Even before I had sons, I worried about having a daughter. I could handle boys, with their cut-and-dried needs, but girls were so much more complicated. Girls have elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate. How was I going to deal with that?
My sons sneer at all things princess, and so do I. We love to pore over the Birthday Express catalog so the boys can plan the themes of their parties through 2013. My role in this is to gasp, "Oh, I think you should have a pink-poodle party!" "YUCK!! That's for GIRLS!!" they shriek, and I laugh along with them. What will I do when I have someone who wants a pink-poodle party?
So it's up to me to psych myself up for this one's arrival. I figured one distinct advantage to knowing ahead of time that she was a girl was that she wouldn't have to wear yellow and green for the first six months like her mystery brothers had. I went shopping recently to stock up on girlie sleepers, Onesies, and Trumpette socks. But I was immediately overwhelmed. With boys, there are two racks to choose from. With girls, it's the rest of the store: a staggering array of ruffly, rosy frills. I couldn't breathe. I grabbed a pink sweater and two pairs of pink socks, got out of there as quick as I could, and buried my purchases in the back of the guest closet. (read the full article)
I just got this, via e-mail, from a friend. And I do understand a lot of what the author is saying. But mostly it just made my stomach hurt. And people wonder why I go on gender rants? The gender typing here is astounding, all the more for the fact that the author absolutely expects her readers to nod assent. The author doesn't seem to realize the extent to which she is creating and enforcing the gender roles among her children:
Girls are whiny and manipulative; so when her daughter whines and manipulates, is the author going to nip it in the bud as unacceptable behavior, or is she going to say, in a resigned sort of way, "See? It's just how girls are."
The author states that she doesn't like the Princess thing, but then goes out to buy "girlie sleepers and socks" for her unborn daughter. What's up with that?
What really gets me is the active gender-policing of her boys. Her "role" in the birthday party selections is to reinforce a stereotypical masculinity that heaps scorn on the feminine. Heaven help one of her sons if he decides he does want something deemed too "girlie": his mother has already made it patently clear that that sort of party is beneath him.
The author talks about how her children are "hardwired". I do agree that there is a certain innate sense of self that will manifest itself no matter what. But I wonder how much of her children's behavior is the way it is because of what she expects: if her daughter was playing shoot-em-up with the remote, would she just accept it? (On a side note: how is portraying violence with a remote control better than portraying it with a toy gun? A different plastic mold makes that much difference?)
There has been much written recently about gender-typing in the rash of gay-related teasing and its effects, particularly on boys. So I wonder why precisely it is that the author thinks boys are so much easier to raise? Girls can be tomboys, can be athletes, can be princesses - or can be all at once. Boys have less cultural permission to transgress their assigned gender, to be gentle and quiet and artistic. How exactly are they easier to raise?
This reminds me of when my cousin Jason was an infant, and my aunt said how glad she was that he was a boy. I was 15 at the time and was personally offended. She defended herself by saying that with a son she wouldn't have to worry about teen pregnancy. You can imagine my wry amusement/chagrin when, years later, when he was 18, he got a girl pregnant...
ReplyDeleteAh, lovely irony. Thanks for that, Deb.
ReplyDeleteI recently had this conversation with our friend Kate, who recently had girl #2. We were both convinced it was a boy, and when a girl arrived Kate said she was relieved. "I understand girls", she said. And what she said made sense from her point of view. Kate's a girl. Kate's a tomboy. Kate was into the signs of her teenage times. Kate knows what it's like to grow up that way and hopes to relate. It wasn't meant as an offense, just an observation.
ReplyDeleteI think the fear of this author was more about the unknown and a lament of her own identity than anything else. "I fear I won't know how to protect my child from a world that may often tell her that she's not good enough as she is. That, in order to get ahead, she's going to have to deny some part of herself." As a woman working in what is still generally a man's field (and looking to get out), I know that all too well.
Love Deb's comment... my dear friend Susie, mother of a very handsome son, said penises should be removable, from puberty until age of reason (whatever that might be!)
ReplyDeleteWhen I first got this,I responded to Jen about how I wanted Eliza to be a boy, because Jessica was so gol-durned perfect... and then found out that two girls could be beautiful and perfect in very diferent ways. I never wanted or would have tolerated princesses... but, would never have tolerated little testosterone princes either. Surely we're way beyond this stuff? As an example..."Pappap John" came to me earlier, and said "you have to read today's blog.. it's the best one ever!".
ReplyDeleteJen, I think you're right on. Somehow, to me, it's less offensive when the parent is relieved that the baby is of the same gender - I do think that I would better understand the pressures that girls face in our society. What concerns me more is the grass-is-greener undertone to the article, the sense that boys have it somehow "easier". Different, not necessarily easier. (Bearing in mind that Jen, despite all the difficulties of being a woman in a man's world, is doing fabulously in that world... Ms. Professional Engineer!)
ReplyDeleteThe complete lack of self-awareness in the author's comments was also irksome, I must admit.