Holidays and gender

I'm up later than I should be completing holiday-oriented tasks.  I've addressed Christmas cards, which I designed and ordered.  I've also done most of the decorating, shopping, and menu-planning.  As I was addressing envelopes, it struck me how much of the holiday is gendered.  Archer decorated the outside, set up the tree, and hung lights.  He has done some shopping with me, and we did discuss what we would buy for the boys.  I bought all the "extra" gifts--for teachers (4 in total), friends, nieces, and nephews.  In fact the only gift Archer has bought entirely on his own is the one we're getting for his mom, and that is because I told him I wasn't doing it.  To be honest, more than half of the stuff I do isn't essential (I mean we didn't have to decorate a gingerbread house last weekend), but it is fun for the boys and helps make the holiday special for them and us.  That said, Archer just wouldn't think of a lot of stuff--like sending Christmas cards or buying gifts for the boys' teachers.  I know that women do the bulk of relationship building, but still I find it frustrating.  When I put the Christmas cards in front of him to sign, he'll ask why we aren't sending cards to about half a dozen or so people.  In the past I've just added them to the list.  This year I'm going to tell him if he wants to send cards to his old friends and family he can address the cards.

Wild Man, Pink, and peer judgement

Wild Man loves pink.  In fact, pink is his favorite color.  He frequently laments the fact that boys' clothes aren't pink.  You see, he doesn't want to wear skirts or dresses.  He is quite happy in his cords and polo shirts, but he wants his polo shirts to be pink.  Or he wants a few of them to be pink.  Archer has several shirts that have pink in them, and Wild Man is having a tough time understanding why his father has pink shirts, but he doesn't.  (As an aside, I have a hard time with this myself.  Why is it okay for a grown man to wear pink, but not okay for a five year old boy?  I'm sure it has something to do with parents not wanting their sons to be too "girly" whereas an adult male has already established his masculinity, but I have no hard evidence to back this up.)  So Wild Man makes do.  He often wears a pink headband to school, especially on days he wants to dress up, and he wears his one pink shirt on any day he deems special.

Recently I've been putting juice in Wild Man's lunch bag for SK rather than water (this is a long story, but suffice to say, he doesn't drink the water and was saying he wasn't feeling well; I decided he was dehydrated, so I started sending juice.  He drinks the juice).  One day he asked me to put his juice in his pink sparkly insulated cup (like this one, only pink and sparkly).  I said sure, thinking "a cup is a cup is a cup," and began putting that cup in his lunch bag every day. 

A few days ago, while I was volunteering in Wild Man's SK classroom, one of the little girls in his class walked over to me during snack time.  She tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Wild Man's mom (this is what all the kids in the class call me), why do you let Wild Man bring a pink cup to school?  Don't you think that it is weird for a boy to have a pink cup?"  While she asked me this question, I looked over at Wild Man, who was sitting 2 tables away, happily drinking his juice and eating the strawberries I had packed him.  He hair was, as usual, hanging in his face, and he had green and pink paint on his pants from an art project he'd worked on earlier in the day.  I turned to his classmate, who was dressed head-to-toe in pink and silver sequined Mary Jane sneakers.  I said, "Well, Wild Man really likes pink, so no, I don't think it is weird.  Why do you think it is weird?"  She said, "Boys aren't supposed to like pink."  At this point, Wild Man overheard our conversation and walked over to us.  He said, "I like pink a lot, so I wanted a pink cup.  Pink is my favorite color.  I think anyone can like pink."  The girl looked at me as if to say, "Um, no, that isn't right," but she returned to her table and resumed eating her snack.  Wild Man continued his conversation about Star Wars, and I returned to the list of tasks Wild Man's teacher had asked me to complete. 

I am very proud of how Wild Man responded, and I'm really proud of how confident he is.  He likes pink.  He doesn't care what anyone else says, and he is clearly capable of handling such comments on his own.  I do have to admit that I was more than a bit surprised that a girl not a boy expressed discomfort with Wild Man having a pink cup.  I've been waiting on one of the boys in his class to say something about his pink shirts, his ties (yes, he occasionally wears a tie to school), his pink headband, or his pink cup.  I wasn't prepared for the girls to say something.  Now I'm wondering what that says about my own conceptions of gender.

Boys and Girls, Celebrity Parents, and Stupid Tabloids

I've frequently blogged about my determination to bring Wild Man and Bear up to be who they want to be, even if that means they want to be boys who wear dresses (for the record, I'm too lazy to go through my archives to link to these posts, but they are there). So, even though I try to stay away from tabloid stuff, I was really bothered by recent headlines like, "Is Angelina Jolie Turning Shiloh into a Boy?"

I am upset by this article for a number of reasons. I mean, first, who cares? (And yes, I get the irony of that statement, since clearly I care enough to read the article online). Second, the headline really gets to me. Why do must the author assume that the mother is to blame? Seriously, why is the mother who has all the control when it comes to dressing her daughter? I mean, obviously, the mother is the one making all the fashion choices in the family. Clearly neither the father nor the child have any say in what the child is wearing. And there is absolutely no way a little girl would ask to have her haircut short. Nor is there a possible logical explanation for the haircut other than the fact that her mother wants her to look like a boy (um, I don't know, these people do have 6 kids. Maybe they don't want to brush the kid's hair every single day.). Beyond that, the language really bothers me. Yes, I know it is all subjective, and it is a tabloid--or sort of. The blog I link to often includes some decent articles on parenting. I'm not surprised to see this sort of thing on "Life & Style," but I am a little bit on this particular blog (although perhaps that says something about my own naivete).

That said, I really dislike how we continually have to point out when a "boy" doesn't look like a "boy" or when a "girl" doesn't look like a "girl." I also think the evidence the authors offer is just odd. So Shiloh likes to be called John? I have a 3-year-old, and Wild Man routinely announces, "Mommy, we're playing a game today. Now you must call me X." Typically he wants to be Gloria, the hippo from the movie Madagascar, with whom he is completely in love. He had everyone call him Gloria for an entire month last year. And he also likes to wear my high heels with C's ties and occasionally he asks to wear "sparkles" (make-up). I've also painted his nails, at his request. Do I think this means he wants to be a girl? No, I don't. But if I did, would I care? Only insofar as I would see it as my job to help him make that transition so he could be a happy and fulfilled individual. Here's the thing: kids experiment. One day, Wild Man wants to be a mommy and nurse his dinosaurs, and the next day he wants to be a superhero and fight the mean guys. So I applaud Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for allowing their kids to be who they want to be, knowing that they and their children will have to deal with stupid articles like this one.

Princess Fever

Gender is always on my mind, it seems. It is a big concern of my research, and I think I probably pay more attention to issues of gender than the average parent (no doubt, as do most of my readers many of whom are also academic moms). Since giving birth to Wild Man, I've thought a lot about gender roles and how they will affect my son. At 2 1/2 Wild Man is slowly becoming aware of gender and sex. He knows, for example, that he has a penis and that I do not. He knows that I wear a bra but that C does not. As he has found various feminine products in our bathroom cabinet the closer we get to Z's arrival, he is also starting to understand that certain things are for "ladies." Per our pediatrician's instructions, we're focusing on providing simple answers to his questions and offering more information when he asks for more. Mostly though, Wild Man is satisfied with simple answers about the differences between his body and my body. We have recently had some trouble answering questions that are clearly related to gender.

C and I recently took Wild Man shoe shopping. He is now at the age where he offers an opinion, and we're learning how to validate his opinion while buying clothes and shoes that we think are appropriate. On this particular shopping trip, we explained to Wild Man that he needed new sneakers, nothing else. My kid likes shoes (can you blame him? So do I!), so it was important that he know we were only buying sneakers. Well, at the shoe store, Wild Man was drawn immediately to a pair of pink sparkly sneakers. He looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I please have these?" The pair he had chosen were reasonably price, were well made, and were a brand that I know will last. Moreover, they were designed in a way that would easily accommodate my son's wide foot. I figured, what the heck? They weren't obnoxiously pink and only the velcro straps were sparkly. But C took one look at them and said, "I don't think we should let him have pink shoes." I raised my eyebrows, and he then said, "I know we're trying to be progressive parents, but I really don't want to have to deal with all the comments we'll get about letting him wear pink shoes. I'll compromise. We can go buy him some pink, glittery play shoes at the toy store when we're done here." To be totally honest, I think C's reasoning is a bit of a cop out. Wild Man likes pink, plain and simple. But he also likes trucks, tractors, and dirt. I understand that we'd probably get a few odd looks about his shoes, but whatever, right? I mean, pink shoes are the least of my worries. That said, I wasn't in the mood to have a long drawn out debate about gender in the shoe store. C was able to suggest a pair of navy blue sneakers with red and silver trim that Wild Man liked. They fit so we bought them. We never made it to the toy store for dress up shoes, but he still wears my heels around the house. All is well in our house.

Then I ran across this article on Princess Fever this morning. I freely admit this is my biggest fear about having a daugther: that she will come out of my womb loving all things pink, glittery, sparkly, and princess-y. All things that I really don't like. In fact, part of the reason we haven't bought Wild Man dress up play shoes is that I can't find any that aren't connected to the Disney Princesses. I think I'm pretty good a negotiating gender choices for my son because I'm trying to seek a balance. Ideally we'll be able to provide a similar balance for Z, but after reading this article I am now imagining us in the same shoe store arguing with her about pink sparkly sneakers emblazoned with princesses and trying to steer her toward the navy blue ones. Is it possible in 2009 to raise a daughter who is not enamored by princesses?

Fancy Shoes

Wild Man has recently become enamored of my high heels. He loves to put them on and clomp around in them when we're getting ready in the morning and right before bath time. He particularly enjoys this black, pointy-toe pair. He enjoys them so much, in fact, he insisted upon wearing them last night as he went to the bathroom. Given all my posts on boys and gender, I had to share this one!

*Please note: this photo has disappeared.

Pink Dresses and Boys

I subscribe to a magazine called Cookie, and it is essentially Vogue for mommies. A typical issue includes articles on absurdly priced cashmere sweaters for toddlers and interviews with designers who make outrageously priced baby furniture (are there actually people who pay $250 for a high chair?!?). Aside from these things I actually like the magazine because every month there are a few really well written essays that I like so much that I read them aloud to C, and we end up talking about them for a while. Yesterday morning I was reading an article entitled "The Pink Dress" by Sarah Hoffman. I was so moved and upset by the essay that I made C stop what he was doing and listen as I read it to him. We were both speechless for a few minutes, and I asked him: what we would do if Wild Man announced "I'm going to wear dresses to school"? We talked about it for awhile, and we decided that we'd try our best to be as understanding, supportive, and just plain cool as Hoffman and her husband.

Despite our agreement on the issue of letting Wild Man wear a dress to school if he wants to and if he feels wearing a dress is a true expression of himself, I find myself still thinking about the article and what we would do if Wild Man really wanted to wear dresses. C brought up a very good point: our geographic location will likely affect how willing we are to let Wild Man wear a dress to school. Although Hoffman doesn't say where she and her family live, based on the fact that she writes for a magazine based out of New York, I am assuming she lives in the city or in a suburb of the city (I freely admit that this assumption could be completely wrong; she could live in Small Town, USA for all I know). I am also going to assume that if she does live in such a location that the people in her community are likely somewhat more liberal than the average American--again, I could be wrong. While we don't live in Small Town, USA, we do live in Small City, USA in a very conservative state. The kids at Wild Man's school routinely wear big cowboy belt buckles and cowboy boots, and while I'm not assuming anything about their parents' political or parenting beliefs based on how their kids are dressed, I am assuming (I know, I'm doing a lot of assuming in this post . . .) that most kids and parents in our area wouldn't know what to do if Wild Man showed up at school in a dress. Given the culture of our current city, I'm not altogether certain I would be comfortable letting Wild Man wear a dress to school.

Which takes me to my next point, this article made me face some of my own gender hang ups. After reading the essay, I had to ask myself "Do I think it is ok for a boy to wear a dress to school?" As much as I've read and as much as I really do believe that gender is largely learned, I have to admit that I don't know how I feel about this. Part of my hesitation and my concern comes from the fact that in our society boys don't wear dresses. Hoffman writes about her 4 year old son wanting to wear a dress to school, and as she describes it, 4 year olds seem to be fairly accepting of such differences; none of her son's classmates really see anything wrong with him wearing a dress. The 5 year olds on the playground, however, are the ones who give her son a hard time, telling him he isn't a boy and that he is a sissy. While Hoffman and her husband did a great job preparing their son for such things and he responds positively, their experience, as positive and enlightening as it is, is limited because their son is 4. What happens when he turns 5, 6, 7, and so on. How will he be treated if he wants to wear a dress to high school? How do you prepare your child for the ridicule s/he will likely endure for wanting to go against our cultural norms? I'm worried and anxious about issues like these because I don't want to Wild Man to be ridiculed for wanting to be himself. But I do want him to have the freedom and to develop the confidence to be himself, even if that means wearing dresses to school.

Umm, What do I do with this?

*I've deleted this post because I've realized I spend a lot of time griping about my mother-in-law, and I really don't want to be the sort of daughter-in-law who does nothing but gripe about her m-i-l. I'm sure I will gripe again, and I'm sure I will do so in the blog. For now thought, I'm going to try to focus on the things about my m-i-l that I like, such as her generosity, her love of travel, and her love of books.

Make-up and Wild Man

Wild Man and I have a "grooming" routine every morning. He plays in our bedroom (rearranging books on a bookshelf or chasing the cats under the bed) while I get ready in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. In the past few weeks, he has become seriously interested in watching me blow dry my hair and put on what little make-up I wear. The day he started reaching for the blow dryer while it sat on the sink was the day I started pretending to do his hair and make-up. I pretend to put mousse on his hair, and then I actually do blow-dry it. He loves feeling the warm air in his face, which totally cracks me up. A few days after we started this routine, I noticed he was intently watching me while I put on mascara and a bit of blush. So I broke out a spare (and make-up free) brush and swept it across his cheeks. Wild Man threw his head back and giggled. Now, every morning, I give him the full treatment--everything that I do to my face I pretend to do to his, and he loves it.

Yesterday morning, C witnessed this routine in its entirety for the first time; he'd seen me do Wild Man's hair, but not do his make-up. My normally liberal husband was a little taken aback. He point blank asked me if I thought the routine was a good idea. I point blank asked him why he asked that question. He said it seemed a little odd. When I asked him to elaborate on odd, he couldn't. I then pointed out that Wild Man has no idea what make-up is or why I wear it but C doesn't. I then reminded him that Wild Man has stared at C with the same intensity when C shaves. I think Wild Man is just trying to figure out what it is we're doing. I don't think it has any gender/sexuality implications. Wild Man doesn't even know he is a boy, for crying out loud. My dad used to cover my face in shaving cream and give me a razor (minus the blade) and let me shave my face while he shaved his; that didn't have any adverse affects on me (although I have no idea what such adverse affects this could have on a little kid). I said all of this as I mimed applying mascara to Wild Man. When I was finished, Wild Man toddled off to pick up his newest toy: a truck that he picked out himself.

The conversation made me realize something: my husband has some gender hang-ups. Although he didn't say it, he was clearly thinking "boys don't wear make-up." Wild Man has carried my purse around, played with dolls, and tried to put on my shoes. None of these activities bothered C. But he was troubled by me pretending to put make-up on Wild Man--or was he bothered because Wild Man clearly enjoyed it--although I think he enjoys my undivided attention more than anything.

(Rethinking) Gender . . .

. . . is the title of a compelling article in this week's Newsweek. Gender is something I think about a lot, both professionally and privately. Professionally, my dissertation focuses on the way American women writers of the 19th century approached space, both literally and metaphorically. Implicit in my argument is the idea that men and women approach space differently. I argue (or I will argue) that the differences are largely due to cultural and, thus, learned differences. I firmly believe that most aspects of gender are learned, although I am beginning to think that some are biological.

Privately, I think about gender mainly as it pertains to my son. Although many of my family members disagree with me, I don't believe S's gender is fixed. Sure, he is a boy, and he has a penis. But aside from that, S has no idea what that means. What he learns about gender he will learn from C and me. We've spent a lot of time talking about gender construction and what we want to teach him about gender. After reading this article, I started considering some of our more unconscious decisions. Does he have a lot of "boy" toys, for example? He has a few, and some, like his hammer that lights up, are his favorite. But as I thought about this, I also realized that rather unconsciously, C and I have only bought S toys that are gender-neutral. He has blocks, an activity center, lots of books, a few stuffed animals, and that is about it. He does have a few trucks and some "tools," but all of those things were purchased by relatives and friends. We both play fairly rough with S--he loves to jump and to be tickled. He throws himself at C and tries to wrestle. But I do think we would have treated a girl the same way as we both played this way with our niece. I will admit that we dress S in "boy" clothes. He has lots of blue, and there are not dresses in his closet (although I've thought more than once that dresses must make for easier diaper changes).

I want to raise my child in an environment that is welcoming of all genders--and, as Anne Fausto-Sterling among others suggests, I do think there are more than two genders. I want S to choose his own way and to understand that he doesn't have to do things the way his parents have. I want him to have the freedom to explore his body and his sexuality and his gender. But in all honesty, I am not entirely sure how to accomplish that. And as much as I want him to make his own way, I'm also wary of the real world. What is acceptable in our home won't necessarily be acceptable in the real world. And as progressive and liberal as I like to think myself, I have no idea how I'll react if my little boy announces one day that he wants to be a girl.

Sexuality, Gender, and My Son

After Sarah's post on RB and the infamous Judith Butler, I've been thinking a lot about S, gender, and sexuality. For several weeks now, C and I have been commenting on S's fascination with women. My 3-month-old son will bat his big blue eyes and flash his charming smile at any woman he sees, but he will only smile for C and a few close male friends. He really seems to prefer women. Yesterday a good friend and I took S to a coffee shop, where we sat near a pretty undergrad studying macroeconomics. S immediately began smiling at her and "talking" to her; he only stopped when she finally acknowledged him. For the entire 45 minutes we were there, he made eyes at this attractive young woman, and quite honestly, he gave me the dirtiest look when we left. Does this mean anything? I certainly don't think so, but when C relayed this story to his mother last night, she expressed relief that "S isn't gay." Apparently since her youngest grandson is growing up with academic parents who vote Democrat and don't go to church regularly, she feared he would be gay. When C told me of his mother's comments, I rolled my eyes and went on with my nightly routine. But the comment bothered me. Frankly, I couldn't care less if my son is homosexual or heterosexual or bisexual; he can be whatever he wants to be so long as he grows up to be a caring, thoughtful individual who is considerate of other people. So why is my son's gender and sexuality so important to so many people?

I don't believe S has a gender right now, and I've read enough theory (and more to the point, I actually buy into a lot of the theory) to know his sex can change too. But to be honest, I'm not so progressive that I dress him in dresses or put bows on his head. I buy his clothes in the boys' department, and after he was born I was very happy to be able to do so rather than buying one more yellow sleeper, as yellow is apparently the only gender-neutral color. That said, gender seems so irrelevant at his age. He doesn't know the difference between a truck and a doll (and yes, he has both, and right now, he prefers the doll, although he doesn't know what a doll is), and he won't know the difference until C and I explain it to him. So why did my mother wait to begin making him a baby quilt until he was born? She wanted to know if she could use pink or blue. Why did my mother-in-law put aside the Madame Alexander catalog once S was born? Boys don't like dolls. If RB can realize that gender is malleable and ever-changing, why can't most adults? I think I'll invite RB over to play with S so she can begin to explain the complexities of gender to him.