We’re taking a 10 day blog break and will be back to blogging March 19. Thanks for reading – y’all are the best blog readers in the whole wide world!
Segovia would roll over in his grave, Katy Perry would be proud;
Michael Jordan would give a thumbs up;
Cinderella wink.
My apologies, I did nothing from an editing standpoint, it’s totally raw.
When I was pregnant and found out I was having a girl I was ecstatic. My whole life I had always imagined myself having boys—but with two of them already, I was thrilled to add a girl to the mix. I had (and have) lots of hopes for an incredible, life-long, mother-daughter bond, but unlike many mothers I know, I never imagined mother-daughter-time spent playing dress-up, or talking about make-up, or getting pedicures together. That is just not my thing and never has been. As a child I was never very “girlie,” never read or saw any of the princess books/movies (let alone dressed up like one!), and never played with dolls. I don’t remember ever wearing a tutu, I know I steered clear of anything pink, and I didn’t have a professional pedicure until I was well into my twenties. I recently asked my parents what they remember me doing with my time as a young girl. They said that I spent most of my time outside playing in my treehouse. That is exactly in-line with my memory of my childhood too.
In the months leading up to Meera’s birth, fully expecting that I’d be having a “tomboy” of a girl, I carefully stored away box upon box of Kyle and Owen’s old clothes. I loved the idea of dressing our little girl in her big brothers’ hand-me-downs. And to be honest, there is nothing that I think is cuter than a little girl in well-worn overalls.
It wasn’t long after Meera’s arrival that I began to realize that I did not have the tomboy that I had imagined I would. Meera was probably about ten months old when she began making it clear what she wanted to wear. She’d point to certain shoes in her drawer, or specific dresses in her closet, and with all of her might she’d let her preferences be known. These early dressing demands came as such a shock to me (especially since Kyle and Owen still, to this day, barely show any preference for anything in regards to clothes and shoes), that, stunned, I immediately started to basically give in to her every whim. Never did I actually think it would stick for the long haul… and of course nothing is set in stone where kids are concerned… but Meera is now a 2-year-old going on 12-year-old with a mind of her own and a strong sense of her own tastes and preferences especially where clothes-fashion-style is concerned. Her tastes and preferences can easily be described in two words: “Girlie Girl.”
Anyone who knows Meera knows that she is quite the “Girlie Girl,” and despite any efforts I’ve made, she basically rules the roost where her clothes-shoes-jewelry-and-all-accessories are concerned. At this point my strategy is to basically let it be – without pushing it or encouraging it all too much, but also without making a big huge deal out of any of it either. I’m attempting to do a gentle dance with her in the Girlie-Girl culture of pink-frilly-princess-etc. that she so embraces.
Today, for better or for worse, I took Meera for her first professional pedicure. I get a pedicure about 3-4 times a year, I was going to get one today, I knew Meera would love it, and so I decided to bring her with me. It was probably – no kidding – one of the highlights of her life to date. I know my daughter, and let me assure you, she loved the nail salon. She chose pink polish – of course – and she enjoyed every single second of the entire experience. I must admit, it was – for me – probably my most favorite pedicure experience to-date. Like Meera, I enjoyed every single second of the entire experience. On the drive home I kept looking at her in the rearview mirror. She was happily looking out the window and chit-chatting-away to me about fairies and princesses and “pink finger polish at salon!” All I could think was how grateful I am for having my girl in my world, how much she has already changed me, and “what on earth would I ever do without her?”
Everyone who has read any of the books on parenting twins knows that designating devoted one-on-one time to each twin in the pair is strongly recommended. Before Kyle and Owen came home – when we were reading everything we could get our hands on related to the subject of raising twins – we had grand plans for all of the ways that we’d spend time alone with each kid. Of course, once they came home reality set in, and, for all sorts of reasons, we ended up basically ditching every grand plan we had ever made to spend time alone with them. Over the past six years we’ve gone through phases of really being determined to make “alone time” happen. When we have succeeded, even in the smallest of ways, we have all greatly appreciated it. But then we always lapse back into getting lazy about it again. There are lots of reasons for this, but I’d say that the biggest reason is that the obvious time that we’d be able to devote to one-on-one time is the weekends— and after a long week of work and school and childcare, by the time the weekend comes, Braydon and I want nothing to do with separating our family, and we want only to be all together.
Lately though, we’ve been really talking a lot about how badly we’re missing the boat on any “alone time” with our twins. Meera gets plenty of one-on-one time, but the boys don’t. And we know deep down inside that this isn’t right. And so, after a lot of thinking, we’ve come up with a plan that we believe will really work long-term as a way to devote at least a little bit of designated one-on-one time for each of our kids.
Our new big ‘thing’ is Our Family First Friday: the first Friday of each month one parent and one child will go out to dinner while the other parent stays home with the other two kids. Each month we’ll rotate, so that over the course of the year each child will go out with each parent twice. Last night we started it. I was worried that it wouldn’t work exactly as we were hoping it would, or that it just wouldn’t feel like it was actually worth it. But, as it turned out, it was an over-the-top roaring success. And we’re about as confident as we ever could be that this is really going to stick this time.
Last night for our first First Friday, Kyle and I went out to dinner in Doylestown at one of my favorite restaurants, Domani Star. It is a really nice, tiny, all-from-scratch, excellent food, Italian restaurant that is family-friendly-enough but also very nice. Kyle thought he had died and gone to heaven. Not only did he have an amazing meal, but he got his mommy all to himself, and was treated like royalty by the wait-staff. He ordered ginger ale to drink, and then ate an entire basket of homemade bread dipped in olive oil. Next came one of the best Caesar salads on earth, a plate of gorgeous hand-made raviolis with marinara sauce, and then a scoop of pumpkin gelato for dessert. All of his favorites, all in one meal. We had great conversation and both enjoyed every minute of it. The photo at the top was taken with my phone while Kyle ate his dessert. It is a terrible photo, obviously, but I think you can see in Kyle’s eyes his contentment. Afterwards we went to Gap Kids and Kyle got to pick out some new spring clothes. He’d never been shopping alone with me, and it was such a treat (for both him and me).
We got home to find a very happy Owen and a very happy Papi (Meera had been put to bed long before). Everyone was in a good, good place, all filled up from that precious treat of alone time. We all vowed that this time we’re going to really stick to it and make this happen for the long haul.
Meera and I had to run some errands this morning. We had a long list and I was rushing her from one place to the next. Our last stop was the grocery store. Toward the end of our shopping Meera found a special shelf of spring lawn-ornament-type-things, and was absolutely smitten with them. I had to force myself to slow down my rushed pace, but I very deliberately did – and I just let her play while I stood there in the aisle with her a few feet away. She carefully took them all off the shelf, delighting in each one, and lined them all up on the floor just so. Her ‘line-up’ was almost totally blocking the aisle, and most of the people who walked by (especially the seniors, of which there were several) just got such a kick out of watching her. Despite so many looks, grins, chuckles, and sweet comments from people, Meera was in her own little world, totally oblivious that anyone even noticed her. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I told her that we had to go. The only way I could lure her away was with the promise that I’d buy her a donut.
Kyle and Owen had nothing but great things to report about their day at school yesterday. They came home happy and beaming– just as they had been as they left the house in the morning. They got exactly the remarks they expected from some of their peers. And according to them, they responded just as they had planned. The unexpected was that several of the teachers, and also the Head of School, went out of their way to comment on Kyle’s hair and say how “gorgeous” it was! From all reports, a great day was had by all.
P.S. When I went to pick up the boys at the After School Program they were all in free play. I couldn’t help but notice that in the back corner of the room Kyle and a bunch of kids were playing “Barber Shop” together. I got a chuckle in seeing one little girl desperately trying to pull a boy’s hair (a boy with short, thin, blond hair) into a ponytail! 😉
I snapped this picture of Kyle right before he left for school this morning. For the past few days he has been planning this day: Wednesday—the day he was going to wear ponytails to his new school for the first time. On a few occasions K & O had gone to school with ponytails in their hair at their old school, but they were much younger then. The older they get, the more deeply engrained gender is amongst their peers; the more firm the gender divides; and the more established the unwritten rules, roles, and expectations become around gender. So, when Kyle first started talking about wanting to wear ponytails to his new school (now, at age 6.75), I was nervous for him. We talked about it quite a bit, and quite often, over the past few days.
Me: “So, you know some kids will make fun of you, right? What will they say?”
Kyle: “They’ll say, ‘Boys can’t wear ponytails! Only girls wear ponytails!”
Me: “And what will you do when they say that?”
Kyle: “I’ll say, ‘Boys CAN wear ponytails! Because SEE?!! I’m wearing ponytails!!!!!! And I’m a boy!!!!!!!!”
Both Owen and Kyle were fully on board with this. Owen ended up wearing purple nail polish to school today instead of ponytails… with the same intended point to make to his peers. We talked and talked about it, mainly with me playing devils advocate, verbally hypothesizing all the possible scenarios, and them explaining in detail how they’d handle each one. And I also asked questions. Throughout they were self-confident about their plan, calmly excited to do it, and determined.
Me: “Why do you want to do this?”
K & O: “We don’t know! We just want to!”
I’ll admit— it makes me both proud of them, and anxious for them. There is a part of me that—at this point (as they are almost 7)—wants to frantically prohibit them from doing it, in a panicked desire to protect them from possible damage that might result. They are, after all, black boys in a fairly diverse, but still, majority white school. Their new school is a Quaker Friends School – we’d like to hope it would be the place where gender bending could safely happen – and yet we know the reality of the situation: gender bending is a social risk for boys in virtually any arena… even the most liberal of mainstream spaces. And so, I was tempted to try to convince Kyle to not wear the ponytails. I was tempted to try to convince Owen to not wear the purple nail polish. I was tempted out of my fiercely protective motherly instinct. But another part of me felt really proud of my self-confident, self-assured, playing-around-with-the-rules, and questioning-the-status-quo boys.
As their sociologist mother, I am sure it is no coincidence that their chosen day to make their big statement was a Wednesday. I am not sure if they are fully cognizant of it or not, but there are two reasons why Wednesdays are significant for this: 1) Every Wednesday is an all-school assembly, so they will be seen by everyone, and thus get the biggest possible reaction, and 2) Wednesdays they have basketball after school.
Kyle and Owen are, by far, the best basketball players amongst their peers. They are, unquestionably, superb athletes. They are too young to play for the school’s real team, so basketball for them is the once-weekly-basketball-intramural-program for the kids younger than 4th grade. It is sort of the “Junior Varsity” of the elementary school set, if you will. The coach quickly noticed what good players Kyle and Owen are, and established a rule that they needed to be separated onto different teams for any scrimmage or match (because otherwise they will ridiculously dominate). Yesterday when they played basketball outside during recess Kyle and Owen somehow managed to get themselves onto the same team, and they won 22 to 1 (according to them, they “let the other team get that one basket,” because, “they felt sorry for them”). According to Kyle and Owen, the other kids “told on them,” saying it wasn’t fair, that it was no fun to play if K & O are allowed to be on the same team, and in response the teachers apparently set a new school rule that even at recess Kyle and Owen must always be on separate teams. This is all just to say: they are really good at basketball. And this is important. Because, of course, for boys, athletics and masculinity go hand-in-hand.
Kyle and Owen’s athletic superiority is unquestionable. And thus, Kyle and Owen have that extra-special-privileged shield of boyhood: the shield of unquestioned masculinity. And thus, they can get away with wearing ponytails and purple polish to school. Even on an All-School-Assembly day where everyone will notice.
Kyle and Owen also have a deep, core, forward-presented self-confidence. While as their mother I intimately know the vulnerable places of their fragile souls, the world sees them as unabashedly self-assured. I don’t think they are perceived as cocky (at least not yet, thank God, and we’ll need to continue to work on making sure that doesn’t develop as the years go on), but their self-confidence and social extrovertedness is unmistaken. This, for sure, only adds another layer to the unquestioned masculinity which gives them the gumption to do the “crazy” things that they do where gender is concerned.
In a strange coincidence (or maybe it isn’t a coincidence?), we are reading Barrie Thorne’s Gender Play in my undergraduate Sociology of Children and Childhood class right now. Yesterday I had the students come to class prepared to read aloud their favorite quotes from the book and then explain why they had chosen the quotes that they had. It led to the best discussion we’ve had this semester. As I listened to my college students talk about gender and childhood I couldn’t help but think of Kyle and Owen. As the discussion turned to gender-bending I told the class about my boys’ ponytails-and-purple-polish-plans for today. One of my favorite students of all time (I’ve had him in several courses), happens to be in that class. He’s a smart-as-a-whip, incredibly-nice-and-polite, gorgeous, very popular, huge, dark-skinned, black super-star football player from Nevada. He spoke articulately about the social power of boys who excel at athletics, about their unquestioned masculinity, and about how he himself used to wear pink sneakers and carry a pink backpack during high school. And then he said, “Don’t worry Heather, they’ll be just fine!” And in that instant I truly was assured. While I knew it to be true intellectually (from Gender Play and a hundred other studies I’ve read on the matter), it took that moment in class to allow me to know it to be true emotionally.
And so, this morning as they left for school, at my intellectual, moral, philosophical, and emotional-motherly core I was more than o.k. with the ponytails and purple polish. While I could write a whole other post on the fundamentally problematic complications that all of this raises in regards to the privilege my boys carry that other boys don’t (etc., etc., etc.), for now I am alright with savoring this moment of watching my boys use this part of their privilege to question the power structures of gendered masculinity and femininity. It is a first step in one of the most basic things we’re trying to convey to them in our parenting: that with great privilege comes great responsibility, and we must use our privilege to question the power structures. As they walked out the door, I was, in my mind’s eye, jumping up and down in the bleachers, ecstatically cheering for them on the court of this gender game. Just like I scream, “THAT’S MY BOY!” when they shoot the ball into the hoop, I was screaming “THAT’S MY BOY!” watching them head off to school.
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