teaching past "gender"

Son, on how he can have babies~ Age 7
"Okay, I'm half you and half dad. And when an adult male sexes with an adult female, then the baby's half me and half her."

Simple. Too simple.

Crafting the perfect pregnant woman
shell for her brother

I dreamed about how life would be between myself and my child when I was pregnant, but it was the first time I caught myself saying or doing the things I hated most as a child that I had to sit down and truly consider what sort of parent I wanted to be. No, what kind of child I wanted to raise, rather. Left in passive mode, I realized that I would simply become my mother, with a lot of my father mixed in for good measure. Was this what I wanted?

To understand what my children are thinking and feeling, as completely different people than I, I can only compare what they’re experiencing to my own childhood and try to analyze whether I think my own experience on such subject created positive, or negative, responses to this day in myself. But in this method there is a flaw, which is that in parenting reactively to my own upbringing–and trying to be the opposite on issues that I feel affected my own upbringing negatively–I still don't address what made me grow up inclined to be the "opposite" of what my parents wanted for me.

The quandary comes into play in trying to find the balance between raising a daughter who knows without a doubt her own worth–by reiterating this point in as many ways possible–and raising a daughter who then sets out to be as different from you as she can. What’s making the point, and then what’s belaboring the point? When I think back, I realize most of my unconscious social construction was taught by example, rather than words, while the conscious construction is always under construction, thank you very much.

Words are dismissible. Learned behavior is much, much harder to shed.

“Did I put too much love in that hug?” 
Son, after finally releasing me from a long hug that included hanging on me and sound-effects ~ Age 7

Johnny is dungeon master for the kids
and their cousins

I eventually had a daughter, and a son. And it took time for me, years actually, to be able to set off the idea that I was a bad human being for behaving as though my own needs were equally important as my family’s needs. But to raise a daughter who has no question of her own worth, I decided that I must be an example of it. As a woman who constantly struggles to believe in her own worth, this is the role of a lifetime. It began with trying to weed out my own destructive behaviors and self-hating thought processes, so that I wouldn’t unknowingly pass them on to her, or my son.

I despair sometimes, thinking about how partially effective I may be:  does that mean my daughter will only partially believe in her own worth, and should she succeed in instilling in her daughter a little more self-worth than she has, then can I expect to have a great-granddaughter or two who truly believe in their own inherent self-worth? I want to succeed in this so badly:  the thought of my own daughter struggling as I do infuriates me. Because I believe it would be a personal failure should I not be a true reflection of her awesome little self. When she looks in my eyes, I want her to see complete belief and acceptance, and I fear that with all the personal issues I struggle with, that what she sees reflected is instead my own doubt.

Example is damned hard to fake.

John, amused: “Get some pants or shorts on, boy.”  
Son: “Why?”  
John: “Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  
Son, in complete seriousness: “I like my body.” ~ Age 6

Son rather impatiently suffering
to be dressed as a girl by
his sister. The topknot really
didn't impress him.

Raising a son is an equal quandary:  less example, and more words. My partner works closely with me to be his example, but I find that as his mother, for the most part, I am here to challenge him when he appears to accept without question all the world wants to lay at his feet.

All I can do is challenge his assumptions, and encourage him to actually think about what he’s saying, and attempt to justify it. Can he, or is he just aping something he’s seen? Between John and my needling that he not accept everything he hears blindly but that he must be able to identify justification, and John's atypical social example as a man who stays home with the children while I work outside the home, we hope to see him and his sister develop into people who thinks for themselves.

quotes from the babes (iii)

Jude: “Isn’t TV really helpful?”

Mae: “Not really.”

Jude. “Hmm. I guess you’re not really interested in entertainment.” ~ Jude, age 7, Mae age 9

~ * ~

“There’s a fortune to be made here!” Jude declared out of the blue.

I laughed. “You’re so weird! A fortune to be made of what?”

“Dad’s butt!” ~ age 7

o.O

from the mouth of babes II

“Look at my baby!”  Mae (5 years old) lifts her dress to show her underwear is stuffed with a shirt or two.

“I’m a mermaid. Can somebody stick me back in the sea?!”  Tori (4 years old) mourns so despairingly, a big pillow case around her legs and waist as she sprawls on the kitchen floor.  Fascinated, Mae comes over.  First she shows the mermaid her baby, and adjusts the clothes stuffed in her underwear.  But the mermaid just wants to go in the water. So Mae grabs her under the arms and drags her almost a whole foot.

“There, that’s the sea.”

“No it’s not!”  Tori admonishes her.  “The Sea.... The sea is down there!”  Points downstairs.  Mae tries to lift and drag her again.

“I can turn into a mermaid too, you know?”  Mae isn’t sure whether to make that a demand or a request, so the last words sound remarkably like a question.

“You can?”  Tori sounds wonder-filled.

“Yeah!”  Mae declares, and my head is full of visions of obscenely misshapen, pregnant mermaids.

“But where are your fins?”  Tori asks, bumping toward the stairs.

“Yeah, I got to go find some.”  Mae releases Tori at the top of the stair, and Tori slides down them, yelling ‘Byebye! Byebye!’  “I’m gonna go find some fins.”   ~2000

teen angst

Less than 24 hours before I am scheduled to undergo a cortisone shot in my hip joint (to help with the pain caused by the labral tear in my right hip from being hit by a truck last June), I find myself chasing my 3---I mean, 14-year-old daughter Mae through the park on the beach at dusk. Dodging dogs and joggers, neighbor folks and skateboarders, as she tries to lose me by darting up hills and down paths...

Who thought this little cutie would end up trying to do me in? Teenage angst, what did I do to deserve you?

~*~

"I'm full of music, huh?" --Mae, 5 years old

I had just undergone my first acupuncture treatment for the pain yesterday, and for the last 24 hours had definitely felt some relief. So much for that.

I am pretty nervous about tomorrow's cortisone shot. Reading different people's experiences with it last night was definitely a mistake. Not to mention, the arthrogram I underwent a week or so ago was pretty painful, and I humiliated myself by crying like a baby when the needle punched through the tender ring of (muscle? tendon? I don't even know) surrounding the joint. And this procedure is supposed to be basically the same thing... with a bigger needle.

Gah.

a shameful english paper

I wanted to share my son Jude's English homework-–one page composed in hand-writing.

Across the top of the page is the usual banner of people drawn with bazookas blowing up other people, and knocking people off their sky-rockets, etc., titled “Target Test.” Below that, his homework:

Ok! I am starting my school work now. Ok? But. Before I begin. Something to clear out. And now we start talking about it. And the first one shall be… I will NOT do a secondary page after this piece of paper. Oh, and. The second: I WILL DEFINITELY NOT do any form of school work after said writing. And 3: I will be allowed access to all electronics in the house hold. 4: I will NOT be bothered to -- -- Wait. Never mind well. I told cha everything. Now. You. Now that you’re all bug-eyed. I guess now I will have to... um... (stalls) (stalls) (stalls again) (stalls) (stalls once more) Ok, I’ll sto – Oh. Too late! <3

End of page was successfully reached. All <3's are his. Age 10. Of course, I laughed my ass off.

From the mouth of babes

Husband: “Mae... why did you steal mom’s chocolate covered gummy bears?”
Mae: arms folded across her chest, bottom lip sticking way out: SILENCE.
Husband, stern: “Mae... why did you steal mom’s gummy bears?”
Mae, in extreme petulance: “Because I can’t resist chocolate.”

The truth is that women cannot resist chocolate, even at age 6.

Because you made me

Husband: “Jude, why are you a boy?”
Jude (son, 6 years old): “Because I’m a kid and my name is Jude.”
Husband: “Mae, why are you a girl?”
Mae (7 years old): “I don’t know!”
Me: “What makes you a girl?”
Mae: “Because you want me to?!”
Me: “What makes you a boy, Jude?”
Jude: “Because you made me!” ~ early 2002

Even at such a young age, my son communicates in emphatic statements and my daughter in questions, and appeals for approval. Without a doubt, their personalities play a part in this. But even while the little snippet above illustrates their ignorance about sex and gender, it also showcases its effect on them at such a young age.