It was the spontaneity of the whole thing. Here we were, shuffling through Toys R Us - me with a Fozzy Bear muppet on my hand, when my son spots a Kermit-the-Frog doll from another isle. He launches himself toward Kermit, Fozzy and I in tow, while I'm still trying to conjure up my best "Fozzy/Bert" laugh 'cause I'm out of rated G jokes to tell and I've already done the "Wonka Wonka..." thing way too many times.
They saw each other... Their eyes met... Two different worlds... One from the aisle themed the "Street" and the other from a "Muppet Show" extravaganza, ...yet we knew these two belonged together. Unable to think of any one thing to say to sum up the gravity of such a reunion, I guided Fozzy toward Kermit to do the most natural thing I could think of: I had Fozzy kiss Kermit hello.
"Mom, Fozzy's not a girl!"
Dumbstruck in a toy store by societal norms infiltrating my private oasis, a million thoughts reeled behind my eyes like a Vegas slot machine, but looking down at my innocent 4 year old, they somehow all stopped on 'What? They're puppets! It wasn't a French kiss!' - but I didn't even say that to him.
Amazing though! What are the odds? - justifying my worldview to a kid who's grown up in a home headed by two mommies. He learned to wave when he was 7 months old at Pride parade! How is his conception of the Heterosexist Machine being constructed under my regime? Where is the break in the ranks? Heads must roll for this - but who's? Surely there will be some moment of pause between now and his first gay bash!
But it alerted me. Something has changed in the past six months. My boys pour through the giant electric "car" asles. The 2 year old is slower, gingerly interacting with each vehicle from red Mini Cooper to Barbie's Dream car. The 4 year old muscles out the ones he's interested in. The aisle fills with Jeeps, police cars and fire trucks, dune buggies, and dark Corvettes. He's racing them, crashing them, and checking under their hoods with some kind of blank authority. We've had relatively new cars since he was born. I don't think he's ever seen me check the fluids.
When did he become so genderized? Why isn't that a word on my iPhone's spell check? Will life ever be free of such unpenetrable questions? Your advice and comments would be most appreciated. I'm just too busy right now dumbfoundly shaking my head.
Kids will gravitate toward what piques their interest. For many boys that is more "boy toys" and for many girls that is more "girl toys," resulting in the stereotypes that our society embraces and pushes. For others, they'll be attracted to toys expected for the other sex, and for many, many more, they'll like some of both. I think the job of parents (and society, though it is not doing its job currently!) is to make sure kids know all their options and can choose what they're drawn to without any sense of guilt, shame, or pressure. And for many boys, that will be trucks. It's just their personality and who they are. My parents tried to get me into sports as a kid, they thought it'd be good for me. And I certainly had enough female classmates that played softball and soccer so it wasn't something out of the ordinary. But I just HATED the very idea of it. I had no desire to sweat, figure out my role in a team, do something with a ball, etc. I'd much rather be playing with my Barbies and acting out stories and emotional lives. It's just who I was and what I wanted. When my brother begged me to play cars with him, I had the cars marrying each other and making baby cars. When I begged him to play Barbies with me, he had the Kens at war and killing each other.
ReplyDeleteI think if we saw all boys being raised by parents who try to bring them up gender neutrally embracing dolls and rejecting trucks (to make it simplistic), that would be odd too - because it's just not likely that all kids will like all types of toys and play. We have to let kids be who they are, and that's not just based on what's modeled for them. There are inborn interests and personality traits, and what they're drawn to doesn't always have a causal explanation.
Now the Fozzy and Kermit thing....that's a whole different can of worms because it seems to be about him mirroring what he sees as the norm around him. I worry myself how we will escape that, and I don't know that we'll be able to.