Raising A Daughter

I wrote this about a year or so ago after I had made a post on a friends Facebook status. 

The other day I commented on a friend's Facebook page.  The thread was related to raising daughters in a nation that is so gender dominated.  My comment went something like "My daughter is so girly.  It's driving me nuts.  LOL!"  Someone called me out on it.  I'm glad that she did, too.  When I reread the comment I realized how negative it sounded.  It actually sounded like I hated those traits in her.  Not only did the comment sound harsh, it really wasn't true. 

I love those traits in my daughter.  I love to see the compassion in her face as she hugs or rocks her babies.  I love knowing that she is modeling behavior she sees in me so I must be doing something right.  I love how her eyes light up when she sees pretty necklaces and how she always wants a string of beads around her neck.  I love that puts her bags over her arm the way I do with my purse.  I even let her wear her shiny church shoes in the middle of the week because she gets so much happiness out of it.  I love knowing that she will likely change phases a million times and that I have the honor of being at each stage.  I can't wait to do all of the "girly" things that I did so rarely growing up.  I can't wait to share some of these experiences with my own mother as well. 

All of these thoughts made me pause to think about why I never did these things when I was growing up.  Truth is some of it was lack of interest, but a lot of it was fear.  I was a tomboy. I grew up with brothers and boys around the neighborhood.  The only way to fit in was to show how tough I was.  Never ever cry.  Hide all the dolls before they come over.  Blow up your Barbies with the army men.  Never ever cry.  Pretend that tea parties are silly.  Never ever cry.  Only wear a dress when you have to because you are not pretty like the other girls anyway.  Looking back, it seems I was much sillier than the girls with whom I thought I did not relate.

Ceirnan is lucky.  She lives in a world where, if validated, she can be a strong amazing woman and still embrace her femininity.  I want her to have that- if she wants it.  I know that I still struggle with this on a daily basis.  It's only been in the past few years, thanks to an amazing friend, where I really think I've begun to understand that.  Does this mean I'm not going to try to shield her from the hypersexualization and generalizations that society still holds for women and girls?  Of course not!  I want her to understand that these inequities still exist and that she will be fighting them just as all of us do.  However, I want her to the opportunity to try all kinds of things without having to equate them to a boys thing or a girls thing.   She can ride a bike, play baseball, and serve tea to her huge collection of babies if she would like. And yes, she owns a lot of high heels and princess dresses, but if you ask her about princesses the first thing she will likely say is that princess are smart.  We like to make up our own princess stories where the princess saves herself. 


For her brother this means, he can have his nails painted and put on a princess hat or carry a purse if he wants.  For Ceirnan, it means saying baby as one of her first words, but saying Varoom (for her cars) and Hi Ya! (for karate chop) quickly there after.  It means that both of them can grow up knowing that they are beautiful, smart, and confident.  It means allowing her to teach her old Mama a thing or two about accepting yourself.  Gender neutrality does not need to mean a complete role reversal or a denial of what makes an individual special.  It means that all children should have the opportunity to learn, grow, love who they want, and be exposed to all kinds of activities to find their passions.

A year after I wrote most of this and I must say I love raising a daughter.  I was so scared when I found out she was a girl.  I was worried we wouldn't relate.  I was worried I wouldn't know what to say to her or how to help her through all of the challenges that life was going to bring her.  I am still scare to handle those middle school years, the mean girls at school (and make sure she's not one of them), dating, heartbreak, sex, all of those things that break you down a bit while you are growing up.  I want to be a good role model for her and make sure that she understands her worth.  I want that bright smile to keep glowing. 

This is kind of rambling.  I will follow up more with our stance on gender neutrality in the next post.

Gender Neutral

So I've always planned on raising my children in a gender neutral environment. It's very important to me that they aren't forced to follow specific stereotypes simply because they were born male or female. I touted this philosophy to anyone who would listen before I had children and worked at integrating the philosophy after CJ was born. Recently, however, I've begun to realize how difficult that philosophy is to maintain. In some cases choices I made for toys or clothing colors or books were made simply because I liked them not because they "follow" my philosophy.

I've also noticed that when many people, myself included in some instances, talk of gender neutrality they really mean it more for girls than boys. I caught myself in this conundrum the other day and my reaction blew me away. We were at Kmart dropping in quickly to pick up a pail and shovel on our way down to the beach. We stopped by the clothing section to get a few things for CJ that could carry him until he's ready for spring/summer clothes as he just hit a huge growth spurt. CJ was running around, showing me things, and half paying attention. I was hurried because I wanted us to get the beach before sunset. He grabs a shirt, hugs it to him, and says something like, "Oh, Mama! This is my favorite. I love yellow. I really want it." I glance up from my rummaging through sales racks and say- "That's a girl shirt. Put it back." Then I stopped and thought what have I just said? Does that blow my whole philosophy out the window? I would never tell Ceirnan she couldn't have a shirt out of the boys section. I've been wearing boys clothes all my life. It would never cross my mind to say that to her, yet I'm telling CJ he can't have a girls shirt.

I honestly haven't been able to reconcile it yet or to decide whether to accept that now that he's in school I will be doing things differently or to go back and buy him the yellow shirt. I just know that my reaction surprised me and disappointed me a bit. In other aspects, we make decisions that we didn't even knew were gender neutral. We bought CJ a "Cleaning Caddy" and a little kitchen one Christmas. It never dawned on me that other people would think of these things as girls toys until a friend commented on them to that affect. I should have realized it when they were located in the "girls" section at Toys R Us.

The hard part is as much as we may want to make a difference and raise our children differently, the fact of the matter is they have to function in this society. Is imparting my believes that go against the mainstream going to jeopardize his or her happiness in the end or is imparting those beliefs going to make him or her grow into a self-sustaining, strong individual? Maybe it'll do both. I guess the best thing I can do is keep trying to balance out my kids' lives and try to hold myself accountable to my philosophy.