I was supposed to go to this parent event at Mateo's preschool last night. Every month, they have something called Journey of Learning, in which the director chooses does a presentation on a topic and parents show up to learn and discuss. I've never been to one, so I thought I would go this month. This month's topic was on gender differences in preschool, which certainly covers a lot of ground. Unfortunately, I didn't end up going after all, because I have the cold from hell (which the rest of my family also has, although to lesser degrees, by this point) and, last night, it decided to add a fever to the rest of my other lovely symptoms.
Anyway, I've been mulling over the topic of gender and kids for the last, oh, three and a half years, and I was hoping the preschool event might help me organize my thoughts. However, since the kids are napping and I can't seem to nap even when I'm sick, I thought I'd write down some of my perspective even though I didn't make it last night.
When I was in my social work master's program, I did one of my internships at a center that worked with homeless youth and transgender adults. It was a bizarre combination of populations, although there was some overlap, but that experience, combined with knowing other trans people and possibly growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, has led me to some fluid ideas on gender. While there are obviously differences between men and women and boys and girls, I think that the differences within groups are just as great, if not greater, than the differences between groups. I also think that the messages people get from society, from birth and even before, play a huge part in their gender expression.
I say this knowing that Sacha and I have played into many gender stereotypes with our kids, both consciously and unconsciously. We've tended to dress them both in mostly gendered clothes ("boy" clothes for Mateo, "girl" clothes for Natalia). We try to stay away from the most egregious offenders (ie, "little football star" or "mommy's princess" outfits), but it's still obvious that they're a boy and a girl from looking at them.
We also keep Mateo's hair mostly short and Natalia's hair longer, although they'll get to choose this in the future and Mateo has already expressed a preference for short hair. (We had a long talk about how some girls have short hair (ie, Mama) and some boys have long hair, and how he could have whatever length of hair he wanted, at which point, he said "I like short hair. Can we go get my hair cut?")
At least for me, a lot of this gender stuff is influenced by being a two-mom family. I seem to put extra pressure on myself to make sure my kids look normal, because our laws say that Sacha and I aren't normal, and because otherwise people might think that gay parents just don't get it or that we're not raising them to be good men or women or something.
With that said, we've tried to approach the idea of gender consciously, and have tried not to assume that Mateo or Natalia will like or not like something just because of their gender. They both like to play with various toys (trucks, puzzles, stuffed animals, musical toys, etc) and look at all kinds of books. They both like to ride their bikes, go to gym class, go to music class, play at the park, etc. Neither one of them seems like a stereotypical "boy" or "girl" to me. They just seem like kids.
I have been surprised by the comments we've gotten on gender, though, since the kids were born. These have come from people of all walks of life, and from our very progressive city to other places farther afield. First, there were the comments that people use almost unconsciously when you have a new baby: "What a big boy!" or "What a sweet little girl!", or "Look how strong he is already!" or "Look how delicate her fingers are!"
Then, there are all the ways in which people identify and encourage the ways in which our kids are doing things that associate them with being a boy or a girl. "Look at Mateo playing with that truck! See that truck, Mateo? We should take him to a construction site sometime." or "Oh, Natalia just picked up a cute shoe! She must love shoes! Watch out for that one when she's 13!"
And, finally, the most common conversation of all, the one in which someone tells us that there's no use in trying to raise kids to determine their own likes and dislikes without regard to their gender. It goes something like this: "Well, boys and girls are just different. They just are! I know. I tried to raise my son/daughter to be
gender neutral (always said in a funny tone) and he just took the dolls I got him and started shooting things with them/she just took the trucks I got her and tried to feed them a bottle!"
Obviously, people will believe what they want and there's nothing I can do about it, but that last statement gets me every time. Yes, of course there will be kids that fit the stereotypes about their gender. I just think the whole question of gender is far more complicated than just tossing a doll to a little boy, who is already swimming in a sea of gender expectations and messages, and then judging the whole thing to be a failure if he doesn't immediately start putting it down for a nap. And, to then take that one example and use it to make assumptions about all of humanity.
It reminds me of this brief talk I had with a dad I had just met when Mateo was about 20 months old and Natalia was a newborn. This dad went on and on, telling me about how his son was just "all boy." Normally, I go out of my way to avoid confrontation, but I was feeling cranky and sleep deprived and so I said, "oh, well our son loves the color pink and flowers right now!" (Which was true.) The dad looked at me and then said that, actually, his son was really obsessed with pink, too, and that it seemed to be his favorite color. He had been just going with the social norm of emphasizing the parts of his son's behavior that said "boy" while attempting to ignore the ones that didn't fit his vision of having a son.
This is why I've generally avoided conversations on gender and kids. I just get frustrated and have a hard time expressing myself. And, it's why I was looking forward to going to the event last night, because I thought it was high time that I practice talking about these things instead of just fuming about them!
Here at home, though, I feel pretty happy with how we're raising our kids in terms of gender. We're just learning as we go, but I hope we're sending them the message that they can act and play and be how they want to be.
Lately, I've been working on letting go of a lot of my preconceptions about what boys should wear. Girls, I have no problem with. I like the idea of Tali wearing a wide range of clothes. With Mateo, it's been more of a struggle to let him wear some of the clothes he obviously loves, which include a lot of clothes we have for Natalia when she gets older. I go back into the "boys should wear this" thing in my head very easily. However, I've been working on letting him choose what he wears and on being okay with what he chooses. After all, whether he wears a striped shirt or a pink butterfly dress, it means nothing about what kind of man he'll grow up to be. He's going to be a great one, no matter what he's wearing.
