"He's All Boy"

I hear this phrase a lot, even though it usually applies less to Asa than to many of his friends.  And, as you can probably imagine, it makes me cringe every single time.  Mostly because I'm still not quite sure what it means.  On a cultural level, of course, I get it - I understand the context nearly every time: he's running around the room at top speed?  "He's all boy."  He tries to climb up onto a chair and then the table?  "He's all boy."  He likes all modes of transport - cars, trains, trucks, boats?  "He's all boy."

Of course, the deeper meaning is that boys are all fast, that boys all climb, that boys are genetically predisposed to like things that move.  And, implicitly, that girls like none of these things.  Both are stereotypes, although not often recognized as such because they are so deeply ingrained in our culture.  As is so often true with stereotypes, they can be terribly damaging for the very limits that they impose on those who ought to be the most free to be themselves, in a way that we adults cannot really imagine.

Asa and I go to a couple of playgroups each week.  Some of his friends there are boys, some are girls.  And it's an interesting thing to observe how the kids are treated differently by the adults in the room, even from this young age.  Because if the girls are running around the room and climbing on things, no one says a thing.  (Which, as a side note, is slightly hopeful: at least the girls aren't being forced to sit still and be quiet and "ladylike".)  When Asa, or any of the other boys join in the running, however, it's because that's what boys do.  Boys run.  Nevermind the fact that most of the time, the girls started it.  It's the same thing with the toys they pick: all of the kids pretty much play with all of the toys - plastic food, cars, the tool bench, the puzzles, the play house - but it's only remarked upon when they are playing with "gender-appropriate" toys.

I wonder if adults don't realize the subtle messages that they send with these little comments.  Subtle messages about how each gender is "supposed" to be expressed.  If we don't think that the kids pick up on the approval in adults' voices when they say things like "Oh, he's all boy!", then we're just fooling ourselves.  So I think it's perfecty valid to wonder if at least some of the patterns we see in little boys' (or little girls') behavior (boys run, boys climb, boys like making noise and hitting things with hammers, etc.) isn't due at least in part to the implicit approval that they sense from the adults around them when they conform to gender expectations.  And/or because it is what we have been culturally conditioned to expect - "all boys like to hammer" because we expect that they will hammer, so we see it when it happens, whereas we might not see it when a girl hammers because it doesn't match our expectation.  (In my months of watching Asa and his friends, it strikes me that, when left to their own devices, little girls like toys that move and toys that make noise every bit as much as little boys do.)

In one of the blogs that I often read, the blogger talked about her son's passion - from a very young age - for soccer.  Now, at nine, he's happiest on the field, and the mom delights in both his enjoyment and his abilities.  There was no gendering involved - just a kid who loves soccer.  Likewise in the comments there was no gendering, even from the woman who talked about her son's own time in soccer - and how his mind was much more on the apricot tarts that he wanted to bake later.  No questions of soccer-for-boys, baking-for-girls.

That's what I want for Asa.  I want him to be able to follow his passion, whether it's for soccer, or for baking, or for underwater basketweaving.  He should not have to wonder if his chosen activity is "boy" enough.  None of us should have to conform to someone else's notion of who we should be.