Gender Part 1

I named this Part 1, just because this story has so much to it to fit into one blog post...

My job as a parent is to support my child’s self-realization, to nurture her character and facilitate the flourishing of the soul. I decided from the get go to avoid, as much as possible, genderizing my daughter. Genderizing is my term for the act of socializing a child to gender norms. I will admit that, though I often dressed her in gender neutral clothing, I also often dressed her in girl clothes, while skipping the boy clothes. It never bothered me when people mistook her for a boy, as it does some people, who like to neurotically dress their babies in super pink ruffles and lace and strap bows to the head, since there isn’t actually any hair tie up with a bow. Well perhaps some babies like that stuff, but mine liked to play and crawl and climb, not be dressed like a little doll. I often received compliments on how present and alert Ramona was, sometimes the admirer would use the word “he.” I always found it curious that if I corrected the admirer (which I only did a few times then though “what for?”) rampant apologies would ensue. I found it troubling that people care so much. After complimenting my child for her presence of mind and spirit, they find it necessary to apologize for calling her a he, when there are little or no gender clues to pick up on? “It’s a baby,” I would say, “Yes, she is very present.” Babies have no use for gender.

All through the baby and toddler years, Ramona could put the majority of boys to shame when it came to being rambunctious, often covered in dirt and scabs, hanging from any object that jutted out from anywhere. But from the very beginning, in the playground, I would hear parents of boys telling their sons “Be careful of the little girl,” and then they would turn toward me and say something like, “Boys can get kind of rough.” Okay, so there they are telling me in front of our children that girls are fragile and boys are rough. These are the comments of everyday life! You can only shelter your child from genderization for so long…well not long at all. I mean…you can’t. It happens the instant you go out in public. People want to know if it is a boy or girl. Gender is so important in our society. The comments are relentless, and people just spout them out, oblivious to the fact that children take their cues from adults as to what is the proper way to function in society. I can not tell you how many times people have told me in front of Ramona that boys are just “like that,” that boys are uncontrollable or that girls are so nice.

What makes it worse, is that having a rambunctious toddler (remember more rambunctious than the average toddler) that is a girl, you get no sympathy. People just assume it is easy to raise girls. My parenting skills mean NOTHING! I have brought Ramona almost everywhere with me besides work (and she has even gone to work with me at times), even to graduate school. It is this experience of living and growing in public spaces that has taught my daughter to function in public spaces. We are mother and daughter and also good friends and she wants to go to the places that I go to and knows what is expected of her. At one volunteer meeting I took Ramona to, she was sitting on the couch doing coloring and art (because we had an agreement that that is what she would do while we talked) while a couple brought their son, who was sitting in a chair playing a video game. The mother turned to me and said, “Wow, your daughter is so good. You’re lucky, girls are so easy. I wish our boy would be happy just sitting on the couch with some crayons.” I couldn’t believe my ears! People say the darndest things! I am not going to go into every bit of my parenting philosophy, but I will say that children learn to be in society by being part of society, not being ushered off to children’s spaces most of the time. Children also learn about what is expected of them [about gender] by observing what we do and say. I have made plenty of sacrifices to parent the way that I think is right in my soul. To just have my child’s ability to be quiet and work on her art be degraded down to the fact that she is a girl (biologically) is offensive to me, especially since she is probably be more spirited than the kid sucked into the video game.

When I have spent time in indigenous areas in Mexico and a bit in parts of Central America (i.e. where western culture is not prevalent) both boys and girls know how to be in public spaces without running rampant and throwing tantrums. That isn’t to say those things never happen, but it is very obvious that 1) children exist in public and 2) they know how to behave and 3) boys and girls both do it. I am comfortable to say that our rambunctious rowdy misbehaving boys are a construct of our American style Western society and culture. I mean we start buying boys things and girls things from the moment they are born. Why!?! Is there no other reason than our societies preoccupation with gender and making sure babies with penises act like boys and babies with vaginas act like girls? I can’t think of one. Most babies I know like cars better than dolls. So why do little girls always get dolls?

I have expressed my frustrations to friends about peoples assumptions about how boys and girls behave, and usually, if they have boys, they will tell me that there really is a difference, and then give me some example of some boyish thing their boy does. Only once has it been something that doesn’t describe Ramona…in this instance I was told of boy’s natural desire to know the scores of football and baseball games. The other day as I was waiting with some other mother’s to pick up Ramona from preschool, two mothers were talking about how dirty their kids were. One mother caught my eye and said, “Don’t mind us, we have boys.” She turned to the other mother, “Boys are always dirty,” and laughed. The other mother shuddered, “Ahhh, boys,” she said uncomfortably (yay, I’m not the only one who thinks these gender comments are crazy), “yeah boys…their clothes...are expensive…at least the ones I like.” We changed the subject.

I acknowledge that male and female children do have tendencies, but also there is a great range within those tendencies. A girl can be more physical than a boy. And a boy can be more nurturing than a girl. And both can be both rambunctious and nurturing. Children can be both physical and intellectual (which is a false fragmenting binary that has also always annoyed me). The truth is that the majority of gender is a social construct. Those who aren’t properly molded to societies gender constructs are pegged as abnormal. Yes, they are abnormal…but let’s not confuse normal with natural, abnormal with unnatural.

Any thoughts?

To be continued…