"Girls are Bleh!"

Last month a story came out about a couple who refuses to share the gender of their 4-month-old baby with anyone.  That's right.  Even the grandparents don't know if they have a granddaughter or grandson.  The child's name is ambiguous (Storm) as well as their first two children's names and they have chosen to let the child decide for itself what gender it is.  They are leaving everyone in the dark with the hopes that their child will be spared the messages that place him or her into gender specific boxes.  They said "parents make so many choices for their children.  It's obnoxious."  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps
I love stories that make me laugh out loud.  The idea that I am making the choice for my boys to actually be and act like boys is totally hilarious to me.

Earlier this week our morning devotional was about God providing everything that we need.  To expand on the topic I asked the boys what we have and enjoy that we don't particularly need. 
Here is the conversation that followed:
Sam:  "Toys."
Me:  "Yep, we don't need toys but we still have them and get to enjoy them.  What else do we have that we don't really need?" 
Sam w/ a silly little grin:  "Penises."
Me:  "Hmm...I'm pretty sure you need your penis Sam."
Sam:  "But you don't need one."
Me:  "Yeah, but I have what I do need.  I just don't have a penis."
Sam in a neener-neener voice: "Yeah, boys have more than girls!"
And...there ends our time of reflection.

Whenever possible, they choose to pee outside.

This is every day.  I don't know where it came from, but the boys have decided that all things "girl" are lame, dumb, ridiculous and shameful.  They are even adamant that the baby growing inside of me is a boy.  The root of this insistence?  Sam practically spat out at me, "We do NOT want girl toys in this house!  Especially a DOLL HOUSE!  I do NOT want one of those here!"  Of course Ben follows everything that Sam says up with agreement, "Yeah, no doll house!"

They hate pink, anything with pink on it, any character in a book or on a program that wears pink.  If you want immediate dismissal, tell them you like pink.  You'll be out and probably laughed at. 
They call each other "princesses" as an insult (although...I get that one.)
Ben saw Dora the other day in Target and said, "OH Dora!  I don't like Dora!  She's a girl!" 
Sam constantly calls things "girly" as a put down.
He has also successfully taught his sweet, innocent, mother-lovin' brother to respond, "Girls are bleh!" whenever the topic comes up. 

Here's the thing... they don't dislike girls.  Their two closest friends are girls of course.  But they have been clear to me that they would prefer to have those friends come to our house so that they don't have to play with "their girl stuff".  Of course once we are actually in their house, those girls own them and they'll do whatever they tell them to do.

Here's another thing... I am confident that this new phase has not come from Jonathan and me.  In fact we have challenged it thoughtfully with questions and reminders of truth.  Jonathan and I share responsibilities pretty evenly in our home.  I'd say more evenly than a lot of people we know.  And we speak highly of each other to our boys.  There are never put downs or generalizations made of each other.  Ever.   Regardless of our efforts to communicate true, healthy, balanced messages about men and women in our world, my boys are "typical boys".  Yep, they fit right into the boy box the parents previously mentioned are dreading for their child. 

Last summer.

We named them Samuel and Benjamin.  Strong, male names.  We told people they were born with penises right away.  I didn't dress them in yellow every day.  You could say that I "chose their gender for them".  But I also learned about trains, trucks, and football because that's what they are interested in. Not because I wanted them to be.  I didn't even know who Thomas was before Sam practically had seizures over him in a book.  We got Sam a baby doll when we were expecting Ben and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it no matter how hard I tried to make him love it. 

Now what this doesn't mean is that they are insensitive, violent, aggressive little tyrants running around without feelings or compassion.  Although my boys have no use for a baby doll, if there is a real baby in the room, grab your camera.  They melt.  They kiss and love and talk sweet just as they should.  For example, their newest cousin was born a week ago to their Auntie Nellie and Uncle Aaron.  As you can see, they are in love with "Baby Andrew".


 


 



If there is a toy kitchen in the room, just sit down and let them bring you all of their creations.  They are going to be awesome and inventive cooks just like their Dad.  If they get a bonked head or hurt feelings, let me just get back to you in a bit because they don't "act tough" and I'll be comforting them and kissing on them until we're back to good. 

Despite their recent opinion that anything "girlie" is of-the-devil, I refuse to believe that we have confined them to a strict, role determining system of beliefs about themselves purely because we announced their sex at birth.  I am not thrilled with this current disgust of pink and girls but I'm confident that we'll get through it without neanderthals for sons.  They are who they are because they were born that way and I'm doing my best to learn about what they love so that I can keep up. 

Oh and this just in: Last night at dinner with their two best friends present (both girls), Ben announced that he might like pink now.  See?  It won't be us that influences their opinions.