This BOY thing.

[flea]

I don't think I was too deeply annoyed by Casper's Year of the Princess (age 3). (I should go back and reread my journal). But Dillo's current explorations of gender stereotypes, which henceforth shall be known as Year Of I'm Gonna Punch You In The Face, are driving me nutty.

Yes, I'm gonna punch you in the face is one of his favorite phrases. He occasionally vows to punch people in the stomach. He occasionally punches himself in the stomach, which is counter-productive. He is all in favor of everything boy, as defined as loud, destructive, and using of ZoomSmashCrash sounds.

What's getting to me is how little wiggle room there is for boys. Girls can be girly but there's a fair amount of tomboy to be gotten away with for those who want to (maybe less in Georgia, but some). And while our society sends a lot of conflicting messages to girls, there IS a societal message of "Girls can do anything they want to, Girls can be anything they want to be." Not so for boys. I couldn't bring myself to dress my son in pink pajamas, though I dressed my daughter in blue ones with no qualms. The societal message for boys is, "Boys can do anything they want, as long as it is not girly, because girliness is next to gayness and that is bad, bad, bad." I mean, where are the societal messages that it is okay to be a kind boy, it is okay to be a boy who likes cats, it is okay to be a shy boy? There are none. There seems to be only one model for boys. And I hate that my son is feeling the need to conform to it this year, as he discovers gender roles. I want him to have more choices.

Comments

[sara]

...and again, as my kid spends hours being a cat and likes his toenails painted, I am SO glad we don't have public preschool here.

Have you seen the Alvin Ho books? They are v. good about non-traditional models for boys. I like them very much and so do the kids.

[loligo]

Our school district had to let one of the pre-K teachers go this year due to funding problems, so my son did not qualify for a spot in our public pre-K. Apparently, we're not poor or troubled enough... but neither are we so wealthy that the $220 a month we're spending on a cozy, nurturing preschool is trivial to us. Frankly, I would put him in the public school in a heartbeat if I could.

But then, my kid is more likely to be the one pressuring the other kids to do "manly" things, rather than the other way around. He has yet to meet a masculine stereotype he hasn't embraced whole-heartedly, not because he's in a developmental phase where he feels like he ought to, but because he genuinely finds that stuff soul-stirring. I still haven't figured out how to handle this. I want him to be happy being who he is, but I don't want him to buy into all the messages that say *other people* need to be who he is, too.

[vwbug]

We have a little boy who just started at our school this year. His older sister has been coming here for a few years. He is precious, and I adore him. He wears some of his sister's hand-me-downs (not dresses, clearly, but other things), and he loves them. He has a pink fleece that he prefers over his baseball one. So, being Montessori, we let him choose that, and his parents do.

But, a week ago, or so, one of my co-workers was looking through some playground pictures and saw him in the pink coat and said, "I really wish his parents would get rid of that coat. He looks like a girl. He's going to grow up with a complex!"

To which I replied, "He'll only have a complex if people respond in that way."

To which she said, "And they will!"

And I clarified, "Which is wrong."

It is absolutely maddening.