Making a Man of Him

'You're not going to make a man of him. Don't you see that?'

'No. I don't see that. I think [he] will grow up to be a man because he's a little boy.'

- Louise Fitzhugh, Nobody's Family Is Going To Change

The thing about babies, you see, is that they look pretty genderless. Unless they're wearing a shirt that says 'Little Princess' or 'Just Like Daddy', you have to guess. Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, and every baby gets mistaken for its opposite number. I've been known to ask, 'What's his name?' about babies dressed all in pink. My only explanation is that, as the mother of a boy, a boy I care for every day and love with all my heart, I sometimes forget that such things as baby girls exist.

Then someone says something to my son, and I remember.

My son has an upbeat and sociable disposition: if a person comes within his range, he almost always tries to catch their eye and grin at them. If they smile back, he's overjoyed, and will smile again, chatter, rejoice in having made a friend.

'Ooh,' says the clerk we regularly see, 'he's cheeky, isn't he?'

Is my son cheeky? Sometimes. He's playful and unafraid, and cheek is one expression of that. He knows, for instance, that blowing raspberries is forbidden during meals; one too many experiences of getting sprayed with lentil stew made this the first house rule. He blows a raspberry, I tell him firmly that it's naughty and leave the room for a short while. He wasn't winding me up; he was only doing it for the funny buzzing sensation and the satisfaction of making a controllable noise - but then there was that time on the changing table. He kept undoing the Velcro of his nappy; I employed my firm voice and told him to stop doing that. He looked at me with merry contemplation for a moment, then very carefully and very deliberately, he blew a raspberry at me. So yes, he can be cheeky, and it was fortunate that the on-the-go consequence for raspberries is that I avert my head and ignore him; seeing my helpless laughter would not have been good for discipline. But is he being cheeky when he tries to make friends with people?

You see, if he were a little girl, people would be calling him a flirt.

My son loved his pram mobile. It had a jingly chicken on it, and he'd knock it and enjoy the noise.

'Look,' said the man who came to fix our pipes, 'he's boxing the mobile.'

Seriously? Sometimes my son whacks things for the pleasure of using his arms, but is he playing a competitive sport? He is not, on the whole, a competitive baby. Play dates go peacefully. Once he sat in his high chair while, to console his little friend Micky for the fact that his mother was on the other side of the room, I gave Micky a bounce on my knee while singing our favourite dandling song. Concerned my son might feel left out or jealous - and I wouldn't have blamed him if he did - I glanced over. Blow me down, the little guy was bouncing along with the rhythm and grinning from ear to ear. Rather than thinking, 'Hey, that's MY mum!', he was thinking, 'Hey, a party!'

Knowing his habits, I had another theory about why he was batting Jingly Chicken. He is, in fact, a music lover. Singing enchanted him from a very early age. His interest in television programs is directly proportional to how many songs they contain. Offered a cuddle with a toy cat in playgroup, he tinkled the bell on its collar as a first move ('The boys love the bell,' said the teacher), and music-making toys are among his favourites. I don't think he was boxing Jingly Chicken; I think he was playing it.

And I'm pretty sure little girls are not considered boxers.

Every baby grizzles when they're tired and hungry. Towards the end of a long morning, we queued in the second-hand shop, and my son, past his lunchtime and due for his nap, was frazzled and crying.

'He has a terrible temper, doesn't he?' said the woman in the queue.

No. No he doesn't. That one isn't even a question: it's just a fact. She was wrong. He does not have a terrible temper. There's nothing inherently wrong with being angry and I wouldn't love him less if he did have a temper, but in a year of life, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him angry. He gets tired, he gets upset, he gets hungry or frustrated or uncomfortable or lonely, but anger is not an emotion he seems to feel very often.

If he'd been wearing pink, she would have said, 'She's upset, isn't she?'

'Hello, trouble,' people say to him. It's like those T-shirts for boys that say 'Little Rascal' - the kind I refused to buy, even though it was going for 25p in the charity shop, because calling a boy a rascal without cause is only going to encourage naughty boys to misbehave and hurt the feelings of obedient ones.

Or at least, people say 'Hello, trouble' when they know he's a boy. Sometimes, for reasons best known to themselves, they assume he's a girl. And then they coo at him - and when I say, 'Actually, he's a boy,' they generally excuse themselves on the grounds that he's good-looking, or that he has beautiful eyes.

Is he good-looking? Heck yes. Of course I think he's good-looking because I'm his mother, but strangers keep saying it as well. And I'm glad for him: looks shouldn't matter, but they do affect how people treat you. It's not fair, but it's a fact, and if it's going to be unfair I'd rather it was unfair in his favour.

Does he have beautiful eyes? Yep. They're a lovely blue-grey with big dark lashes, and they shine out of his face. He gets them from his father.

But good looks, it would seem, are a female purview.

My son has plenty of 'boy' qualities, and I'm pretty sure they're going to attract comment as they become more apparent. He's energetic and intrepid in the playground: he can't climb up the big slide yet, but he pushes himself down it with gusto. He's brave, recovering from bumps and knocks quickly. He's playful and confident in a way that will, I'm certain, sometimes come out in mischief. That he's also affectionate, sweet-natured and gentle, I fear, will attract fewer remarks, though love and courage need each other to do any good.

Give him time, and it's very possible he'll become a 'boyish' boy. Why not? He's a human being, and human beings are interested in exploring their own natures, and maleness is part of his.* My rule is this: the only person who gets to tell me what my son's 'boyness' means is my boy. Everybody has to decide for themselves what their gender means to them, and the interaction between gender and personality is complex and ongoing. If he decides to lead with his 'male' qualities, he'll be a great kid: courage, confidence and humour are excellent things. He'll be a great kid if he leads with his 'female' qualities too: sweetness of temper is equally excellent. He is who he is, and masculinity is something he'll have to come to terms with. I just hope he can manage it on his terms rather than other people's, because other people's terms are alarmingly limited.

If I've learned anything in a year of mothering a son, it's this: I have no patience with the claim that boys and girls are essentially different by nature. We can't possibly know that, because to know it, we'd have to see nature without nurture, and nature doesn't get a chance. People have been working to 'masculinise' my son - kindly, nicely, with the best of intentions - from the day he was born. We have two sets of vocabulary for the same human qualities.

My oldest friend has a daughter, a delightful little girl who shares a lot of qualities with my son. Both are bold, sunny, friendly children, starry-eyed and beautiful, cheeky and charming, keen on music and fun and people. They're not exactly the same, of course, but they have a lot in common. And I worry for them both. I worry about the day her outgoing nature gets curtailed for fear of men who see her beauty and think that it's for them, not for her. I worry about the day his generous nature gets curtailed for fear of being tagged a loser if he doesn't compete. I worry about the day her playful cheek gets chastised for not being 'gentle' or 'polite' enough. I worry about the day he's told to hide his loving character because love means you're a sissy. I worry about the day her anger gets patronised away as distress, and the day his distress gets punished as anger, and the day she gets told not to be strong, and the day he gets told not to be weak. Our brave, bright, hilarious children are facing two different worlds, and neither world will give them all the room they need to breathe.

Our children are fine people and with love and luck they'll make it to adulthood with their selfhood relatively safe. Mothers do worry, and we should probably try to knock it off and have some faith in our kids. But I see the pigeonholes people are building around our wonderful children, and...

... well, I wish they wouldn't.

--Kit Whitfield

---

*Probably. There's always the chance that he's genderqueer, but statistically speaking, probably not. If he is, that's fine by me: a parent's job is to try their best to understand who you are and love you for being that person. And hearing how many times a day I say 'Good boy', I'm becoming more aware of how exhausting and confusing it must be if you are genderqueer, constantly getting these messages that contradict your inner knowledge. But as I say, cisgender is statistically the most likely, and that's fine by me too. ↩

---

 

The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[Jenny Islander]

I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5YzRr9yPo&NR=1

A wistful little song about feeling the gender straitjacket closing in.

Our first two children happen to be girls and our youngest happens to be a boy. I have lost count of the number of people who assume that we just kept on having babies until we could get our super-valuable boy, instead of having three kids because we, you know, wanted three kids.

[Nick Kiddle]

I remember in the innocent days when xCLP was too small to express a gender, he was always in blue and brown clothes, leading people to assume he was a boy. They would interpret normal curiosity as, "You can tell he's a boy, he's so adventurous," which I used to find extremely amusing.

[Mary Kaye]

Many years ago my siblings and I were body-surfing in Hawai'i, and we screwed up badly--we were set down by one wave right in front of the next, much larger one, which smashed us into coral-studded sand. One of us ended up with a broken collarbone: the other two had only cuts and bruises.

No one said, "Of course, the smallest/youngest person has the most fragile bones."

No one said, "Bad luck there! Must have landed wrong."

Everyone said, "Boys are so injury-prone!" and made my sister and I very angry. We could see no way in which his gender contributed to his broken collarbone at all--we had all been on the same wave (we were holding hands, in fact) and we had all gotten pounded very hard. I was 21 and he was 9, so he was probably a bit more fragile.

[Froborr]

My fiancee and I plan to adopt a little girl some day,* and this is one of the things we worry most about. We've both had less than fun experiences dealing with gender-based expectations, and we really really don't want our daughter to have to go through that, but short of building some kind of orbital death ray to incinerate anyone that makes gendered comments to our baby,*** we're not sure how to accomplish it.

*In the very, very** distant future.

**VERY

***Tachyon-based, so it fires after they make the comment but the beam hits them before they open their mouths.****

****I've been reading a LOT of mad-science-themed webcomics lately. I therefore blame Shaenon Garrity for my thoughts trending in this direction.

[Rowen]

When my good friend's first born was about 1 or 2, I remember she told me that he was walking on his toes and his grandfather made a comment about how that means he'll be a star athlete and mentally had picked out which (American) football team he would be on. She bit her tongue but really wanted to say that he could be a lot of things and is only 1 so let's let him be a kid and love him not matter what, thank you very much.

[Ruby]

Rowen: When my good friend's first born was about 1 or 2, I remember she told me that he was walking on his toes and his grandfather made a comment about how that means he'll be a star athlete and mentally had picked out which (American) football team he would be on. She bit her tongue but really wanted to say that he could be a lot of things and is only 1 so let's let him be a kid and love him not matter what, thank you very much.

Heh. When my brother was a baby, he used to hold his rattle right up to his face to shake it. And more than one person said, "Ooo, look at how closely he observes things! He's going to be a scientist!"

Turns out he's just really, really nearsighted, and holding it up close was the only way he could see it at all.

Though he does love science. :)

[roosterfish]

Just thought I'd leave another song about the gender straitjacket, by Canadian band Barenaked Ladies (none of whom are naked, and all of whom are males). I always thought it expressed this issue amazingly well for a pop song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i0yZTeTZ4Q

When I was born, they looked at me and said,
"What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy."
And when you were born, they looked at you and said,
"What a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl."

We've got these chains hanging 'round our necks,
People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.
Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same,
When temptation calls, we just look away...

[Lou Doench]

"See there! A son is born -- and we pronounce him fit to fight.
There are black-heads on his shoulders, and he pees himself in the night.
We'll
make a man of him
put him to trade
teach him
to play Monopoly and
to sing in the rain."

And later

"See there! A man born -- and we pronounce him fit for peace.
There's a load lifted from his shoulders with the discovery of his disease.
We'll
take the child from him
put it to the test
teach it
to be a wise man
how to fool the rest.

Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull

[Zigforas]

Rowen: When my good friend's first born was about 1 or 2, I remember she told me that he was walking on his toes and his grandfather made a comment about how that means he'll be a star athlete and mentally had picked out which (American) football team he would be on.

When I was a little girl, I walked on my toes all the time because I was often barefoot in the house and placing my whole foot on the floor made my feet cold. (I still do this as an adult.) My parents noticed that I walked on my toes as a child, but never asked me why. Then my mom signed me up for dance classes. I hated them and was a terrible dancer, but my parents had me go for four years. After I became a young adult, I asked my parents why they had put me in dance classes for so long even though I hadn't liked them. They told me that because they saw me walking on my toes all the time, they thought I would one day be a great dancer.

This may be the girl-assigned equivalent of "it means he'll be a star athlete."

[Froborr]

I still frequently walk on my toes when barefoot! It's just... comfy.

I am most definitely NOT a star athlete, and from a very young age was clearly not going to be one.

[Launcifer]

Heh. I walk on my toes when barefoot - which is most of the time. I wish I could say it was because I was an athlete, though I knew my way around a rugby pitch when I was younger. Mainly it's just because my fingers and toes are entirely out of proportion with the rest of me and far too small. See, the things you parents lumber us poor buggers with from the off ;).

[Stella parva]

Either I am too forceful to attract much of the usual comments, or there are, even in the midst of this genderized conservative catholic part of Germany fewer people of the kind you people keep encountering. Yes, I see a lot more differences made between boys and girls here than I was used to from Berlin. Still, the stories you are telling here make me cringe. It's the kind of stuff I expect from my maternal grandmother, who would not be allowed to be alone with the kids even if age made that possible. There are many reasons, and her unquestioning "girls are little princesses" is only one of them. That hurt my mom, my uncle, it hurt me, and it's not going to hurt my kids.

The daycare ladies (not a single guy in the place!) say they see differences in the way girls and boys behave, but they know that this may well be the influence of the parents. There is a cuteness for girls wave here, has been for some years, but I hope that we as parents can strengthen our kids to be themselves. If they turn out to like the pink and sparkly, that should be their decision, not arbitrarily decided by society. The Gnome right now likes Hello Kitty, butterflies, tanks and bobby cars- in fact, one of her first picture books was my information booklet on military machinery in Afghanistan. It would not have been my first choice for her, but she ignored all the nice and colorful age appropriate materials we had offered her first. Doesn't make her a boy, now. I'm pretty sure I am a woman, and it was not my husband who brought that info piece into our home.

[cjmr]

Now if a kid walks on hir toes all the time, the medical establishment wants to evaluate hir for autism spectrum disorders. Apparently it's a early symptom. Or, just cold floors...

[kisekileia]

Yes, toe walking is a symptom of autism spectrum disorders. I still toe walk on stairs occasionally. It could be very harmful to put an autistic kid in sports or dance because of it, because a lot of people on the autism spectrum have seriously impaired physical coordination. (Not to mention the difficulty we have with the "do what everyone else is doing" principle of figuring out what you're supposed to do in sports and dance.)

[Brin]

(Not to mention the difficulty we have with the "do what everyone else is doing" principle of figuring out what you're supposed to do in sports and dance.)

In my one dance class ever (it was part of a Girl Scout badge), I found the secret was to ignore everyone else* and time my moves off the beat of the song (Macarena's easiest; unfortunately some didn't have matching songs). If I tried to follow everyone else, by the time I noticed what they were doing and copied it they'd moved on to the next bit. There was always some of that, because I needed to learn what the moves were before I could ignore everyone.

*Bit like round singing, really.

[kisekileia]

I don't think I ever really got past learning the moves. I need at least three times as much repetition to learn dance moves as other people do.

[storiteller]

Just thought I'd leave another song about the gender straitjacket, by Canadian band Barenaked Ladies (none of whom are naked, and all of whom are males). I always thought it expressed this issue amazingly well for a pop song.

That's exactly what I thought of while I was reading the post! I just listened to that song yesterday. It also expresses so much of the frustration with expectations in general people have, with the way it blocks us into thinking about what is "good" and "proper."

[Sixwing]

Huh. I toe-walked until my parents got really concerned about my tendons shortening and made me stop (they probably had a point, because that was -not- comfortable, and I still toe-walk quite a bit regardless).

Considering some of the other things I have trouble with, I still wonder if I should get evaluated for ASDs, but how to even approach such a thing, I don't know.

[violet]

And then they coo at him - and when I say, 'Actually, he's a boy,' they generally excuse themselves on the grounds that he's good-looking, or that he has beautiful eyes.

Out of curiosity, why do you correct them?

[Kit Whitfield]

Out of curiosity, why do you correct them?

Er - why not?

Because he's my son and I'd like people to address him correctly?

Because if people assume that any child with nice eyes must be female, it's an educable moment, and I'd like my son to live in a world where the stereotypes are wearing down?

Because I don't know how long they'll talk to me and if the conversation went on for a while it'd be really weird having to pretend my little boy was a little girl?

Because he understands more and more English each day, and if someone told him he was a nice girl he might find it frustrating and be unable to object on his own behalf?

Because they're showing an interest in him, and if they're interested in a child they probably want to get its gender right?

Because if he were a little girl he wouldn't be the same child, and I think he's perfect the way he is and want that perfection seen for what it is?

Lots of reasons, really. I mean, if I'm in a hurry and it's just a passing comment I might simply say 'Thank you' to save time and move on, but if they're stopping to chat to him, I can't think why I wouldn't correct them.

[Mmy]

@violet: Out of curiosity, why do you correct them?

I correct people when they call female animals "he" and male animals "she."

I am less worried that my cats would hear and realize that they had been mis-gendered and more worried about promoting (through non-response) continued gender stereotypes.

[Phoenix]

If he decides to lead with his 'male' qualities, he'll be a great kid: courage, confidence and humour are excellent things. He'll be a great kid if he leads with his 'female' qualities too: sweetness of temper is equally excellent.

Even though you put quotes around 'male' and 'female,' given the overall point of this article, this remark totally threw me for a loop. As in, I wonder if you're being satirical and I'm just missing the subtlety. (Is that it?)

I've never heard any of these qualities ascribed to either gender, not even stereotypically or in jest. It would make sense if you had used adjectives like "aggressive" or "take-charge" or "competitive" for boys and "gentle" or "caring" or "nurturing" for girls because those are, annoyingly, traits often associated with their respective genders (even though they, too, could go either way). But I've not even once heard confidence, humor, or an even temperament described as "male" or "female" qualities.

[Amanda Fisher]

I and my husband basically thought of and referred to our daughter as "a kid". That helped us avoid the gendered expectations. Rather than saying "good girl", we'd say things like "excellent!".

Since she had pretty much no hair until she was 18 months, people would default to seeing her as a boy. Even when she had on a pink t-shirt with "GIRL!" on it- which we got primarily because people got so embarrassed when they thought she was a boy and she wasn't.

Now, if they just said "What a cute boy!" I'd say "Thank you!"; if they said "What a cute boy, what's his name?", I'd have to say "Well, she's a girl, and her name is K-----", and then they'd get all embarrassed. And so we tried the GIRL t-shirt, and it didn't help.

After that, we mainly dressed her in stuff from both the boy and the girl parts of the kids' clothing store. (I did make her swirly fun dresses for Xmas, because she adored them, but they were not a part of her daily attire.)

And- she's grown up to be her own person, and identifies as gender-queer, and that's cool. She seems to self-identify more as "femme" than as cisgendered female, which is an interesting approach and one I respect- gender as basically performance, not inherent.

[Ruby]

@Amanda Fisher--Yeah, I was a baldy baby, too. And plenty of people assumed I was a boy because of it. Because apparently only boys are born bald.

And whether they thought I was a boy or a girl, my mom used to get condescending pats on the arm from other moms when they saw my bald baby head--"Oh, don't worry, honey...the hair will come in."

My mother said she always wanted to respond, "Yeah, I'm actually not under the impression that my child will be bald for the rest of her life."

Bald!Me had white-blonde Orphan-Annie ringlets at age three, and I now have strawberry-blonde ringlets. My mother still laughs at the thought of tracking down those ladies and showing them my hair.

[kisekileia]

Ruby, your hair sounds beautiful!

[Ruby]

@kisekileia--Oh, thank you. That's a very sweet thing to say. I wasn't trying to brag on it--it's actually one of the few things about my looks that I like. My family was just always amused by the fact that my mother got the condescending pats for having a bald baby daughter, but never for having an equally bald baby son a few years later.

His hair also came in. ;)

[kisekileia]

It DOES sound beautiful! I love ringlets, and strawberry blonde is a beautiful hair colour.

[Kit Whitfield]

But I've not even once heard confidence, humor, or an even temperament described as "male" or "female" qualities.

Thing is, he's not aggressive or competitive, and he's too young to be take-charge or nurturing. I was trying to take the qualities he does have and sort them based on which stereotype they come closest to.

[Phoenix]

Ah, okay. That makes more sense. It just threw me for a minute.

[violet]

@Kit & @mmy— I ask because my instinct would be not correct people one way or another. In significant part, this because I don't know that I'd actually be correcting them—it's most likely that my hypothetical kid is cis, but it's by no means a given. It also seems like a way for them to get at least a sample of gender programming from the whole spectrum, which might help them develop a more nuanced gender identity if they're cis, and which would very likely be enormously helpful if they're trans.

In most cases, I doubt that correcting someone about a young child's gender actually nudges the person you corrected towards reevaluating their understanding of gender. More likely, I think they re-evaluate the child's behavior under the new gender schema, and start sending new, more “appropriate” gender programming their way.

I certainly don't want to say you're doing it wrong. Obviously, this way lies linguistic pitfalls, social awkwardness, and taken to its logical conclusion, widespread media coverage.

@Amanda, your daughter sounds like a really cool person; it sounds like you raised her well.

[Kit Whitfield]

n significant part, this because I don't know that I'd actually be correcting them—it's most likely that my hypothetical kid is cis, but it's by no means a given. It also seems like a way for them to get at least a sample of gender programming from the whole spectrum, which might help them develop a more nuanced gender identity if they're cis, and which would very likely be enormously helpful if they're trans.

Fair enough, but like I said, I'm playing the odds. If zie is trans, zie''ll know that for zirself and won't need gender programming to teach it to hir. On the other hand, if he's cis, I think it might frustrate him to be addressed as a girl and unable to identify himself correctly. Being addressed as the wrong gender is, I think, frustrating whether you're cis or trans, so I'm going with what's statistically less likely to frustrate him unless and until he tells me otherwise.

In most cases, I doubt that correcting someone about a young child's gender actually nudges the person you corrected towards reevaluating their understanding of gender. More likely, I think they re-evaluate the child's behavior under the new gender schema, and start sending new, more “appropriate” gender programming their way.

Perhaps, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I know I've found myself checking my assumptions if I make a mistake.

Also, I don't think it'd undo very much. He's going to get a lot of male-directed behaviour no matter what I do; the way I see it, the best thing I can do about it is to try to give him treatment and access to toys and role models that show him there are many ways to be a man. If he gets treated more gently only when people think he's a girl, that's going to send him a message too, after all: that people are only gentle to you if they've misidentified you. That could teach him that gentleness is feminising, and if he's into being a boy, he might be very resistant to being feminised when he's older. And that wouldn't be unreasonable: nobody likes being misgendered.

A stranger who stopped for a brief coo isn't going to change their behaviour towards him drastically - after all, they often praise his looks after I've corrected them - so I don't think correcting them denies him very much. What I do think failing to correct them might send is a message that his mother doesn't support his 'boyness'.

As I said, if he turns out to be genderqueer that's fine, but until such time as he gives me any indication, I'm playing the odds. And the odds are that he's a cisgendered boy. I'd rather affirm him 'boyness' as a good thing, and focus on emphasising that being a boy doesn't mean you can't also be gentle, kind, emotional, and loving. This is just the way I see it, but I feel that if I treat his 'boyness' as something to be ignored, any lessons I try to give on the varieties of masculinity will be weakened, because he might easily draw the conclusion, 'Well, what does Mum know about being a boy anyway? She doesn't even care that I am one. Maybe she doesn't like boys at all. If I want to be a boy, I'll have to defy her.' Which would be painful for him and counter-productive for both of us. I'd rather send the message: 'You're a boy, and Mum thinks that's awesome, and being a boy doesn't mean you have to be X, Y and Z.'

I guess what I'm saying is that I feel it's my job to love everything about him. Almost certainly, 'boyness' is part of him, and I love it. If I'm wrong, I can revise. But I personally feel that the best way to deal with the stereotypes is to accept that they're inevitable to some extent, affirm the kid's gender as a good thing, and try to model that it doesn't preclude any virtues.