There is no denying that I am a girly girl. Growing up in the 90’s I really wanted to be the girl in the Little Rascals gang, that liked to play in the mud, and always wore overalls, and was great at sports. But I just wasn’t. I was definitely more of a Darla. I wanted to dance and sing and have people look at me and tell me how pretty I was, and wear bows and play with Barbies and pretend I was Pocahauntus. I was a cheerleader growing up. Always around girls, and while I rarely liked the girls that I was cheering with (I spent several years on a team with no friends because I liked what I was doing so much). I participated in musical theatre and always had a blast, hanging out, singing and dancing...with the girls. I always had very close girl friends, even now I would consider myself a girls girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love football. But thats basically the only “traditionally male” thing that I like.
I never liked boys growing up.
I didn’t think they were fun. They were dirty and sweaty. And rambunctious, and gross. And MEAN. The boys I went to school with were mean to a little girl that wasn’t willing to put up with any of their crap, who wanted them to be nice to everyone, and was really smart. I never really had any guy friends, with the great exception being my cousin. I really liked to look at them, I had a lot of crushes, but in general, I thought boys sucked. Even in college, I hated our brother fraternity, with one very notable exception. I had casual guys friends who I consider wonderful friends, but even then the most important players on my stage were women.
Where am I going? I lived in an incredibly feminine world until about 18 months ago. Then came married life. And a Pickle. And suddenly, I was in the minority. Okay, Pickles probably doesn’t count, but William certainly does. Even while William and I were dating I was still constantly with my girl friends. One of my best friends lived across the hall from William and I would always be between their two apartments. But here,it’s a different story. Its me and William. All the time. Just us. I went from flowers and friendship bracelets to a life full of baseball, beer, suits, and ALOT of pizza.
In some way I think that my reluctance to be around “boys” is a direct result of the glorification of women. I distinctly remember the chant “girls rule, boys drool” being an integral part of my childhood. As the chant “Girls rule, boys drool” had affected me and I expected boys to suck, they began to expect the same thing of themselves. We were always pitted against each other. Maybe as a young girl it was better for me to live in a more feminine world. But I see a lot of negatives.
As William and I inch closer towards being parents, I realized that I did not want to have any sons. William and I had always joked about how we were going to have 6 girls and no sons. Recently we were talking about our future and William said
“You do realize its a 50/50 shot and we have just as much of a chance of having a boy as a girl?”
What? Are you sure? I know that I will love a son very much,but the Laura in this conversation would probably cry if at that fateful appointment the doc says, “Its a boy”
Coming to that realization about myself broke my heart. What was wrong with me? A child is a gift from God, boy or girl, healthy or unhealthy, ugly or beautiful. I needed to fix this problem before there was any chance of a child for us. In the hopes of bolstering my excitement about the possibility of a son, I made William stop talking about our gaggle of girls, started talking about our child (that doesn’t exist yet, just to be clear) in gender neutral terms and started looking for boy nurseries on Pinterest. These sound silly, but I had to fix this issue the same way it was created; simply.
As I was scrolling through these boys nurseries, (I still have yet to find one I’m in love with, I’m torn between “Why can’t little boys like glitter?” and “My son’s gonna be a man, men don’t decorate with bunnies!”) something caught my eye that has been resonating in my heart ever since.
My son, should God bless us with one, will be William’s son. We will be charged with the same responsibility as our parents were, to raise our sons into men. We don’t have to raise boys like the ratty, horrible ones I encountered and retreated from growing up. We are charged with the responsibility of raising a man who is kind, courageous, honest, and strong. It is time for me to stop viewing my future children as an opportunity for tutus and dance recitals or a life of begrudging baseball games and boogers, to realizing what a child actually is; a soul. I needed to view having a child for what it really was; a responsibility. God gives you the child that he feels you can raise best. He gives you the responsibility to take care of a specific soul, feminine or masculine.
Even though William was a terror as a child and my brothers,too, were kind of terrifying, they have become men that I am proud to have as part of my life. And raising sons, in my opinion, has made my mother a better and stronger person. I would have the privilege of building and protecting someone to eventually be a partner to another woman, the way William is mine. Viewing motherhood of a boy through this lens, a mature Christian mothers lens, instead of the damaged lens that I have developed through my childhood experiences, set me back in neutral territory.
Do I still think that I would probably be a better natural mother to a girl? Yeah. I’ve had a lot of practice. In all of my years of babysitting I have had 2 boys and 10 girls. I sewed my first tutu last week and routinely paint little girls nails.
So, Lord if it be your will, bring on the baseball gloves, and the dump trucks. I am ready.
Do I also think that the Lord will provide for our family and will give me the tools, opportunities and heart needed to raise up a man for His service? Absolutely.
So, Lord if it be your will, bring on the baseball gloves, and the dump trucks. I am ready.
