Boys and Girls

I am working on my Grandmother post- but it's a long and heartfelt one, and Hunter said something today that made me so ... I don't know- mad, annoyed, frustrated, crazy... that I lost my focus. So here I will write on this energy rather than try to write peacefully.

So amidst the whole Limbaugh-Fluke controversy (what's the controversy? I think we can all agree that Limbaugh is a jerk-face)... today is national women's day- don't remember who decided to celebrate us, but thank you very much. We need a day. Or a month. Or a year. Hell- we need a few decades to recover from some of the junk society and nature deals us.

Today I took Hunter to a follow-up appointment at the doctor's office. He had a double ear infection and the doctor wanted to make sure his ears had cleared up with the antibiotics. We were waiting patiently in one of the exam rooms and we could hear a younger child crying in another room. Hunter commented on the sound saying that someone was sad and wanted his Mommy. I thought that was sweet. Somehow we got to guessing the child's gender (now in retrospect, I really wish I remembered how that came up). Hunter said it was a girl. I asked him why he thought it was a girl and he said plainly, almost rehearsed: "Because girls cry and boys don't cry!"

WTF.

I mean, really. He is THREE! Already he is getting this weird complex about crying and gender roles with crying. I am anxious in my stomach thinking about it. I told him that of course boys cry and of course it's ok to cry. I asked him where he learned that- and of course he didn't know. I asked- preschool? Sunday School? Home? WHO TOLD YOU THAT?! No recollection- true politician style. Frustrating.

I wouldn't be so angry and upset but that this is not an isolated event. He's mentioned this before in other forms about how he can't cry. The last couple of weeks he's been increasingly aggressive in preschool and with Graham. He literally growls at adults. Again, wtf? Today he said he doesn't like people to be mad, but HE likes to be mad. And translation: mad = the emotion when you reprimand someone for being in trouble. We've attributed (and worked on correcting) this behavior to continuing changes in the home: Bruno being upstairs and in Hunter's space, Graham being much more mobile and in Hunter's space. But there are moments when no one is in anyone's face and Hunter gets up to bop someone on the head. It makes me literally lose my mind. I DO NOT GET IT. I have a sweet, kind, gentle child who is careful going up and down stairs, but somehow he is growling and punching and not feeling free to cry.

WHO kidnapped my kid and brainwashed him? Honestly, many of his behaviors may still be the result of the many changes going on around him and we are still working on those. He is still sweet and I love to see his little personality shine out. It's those moments that he says "girls cry and boys don't" that I want to punch sexist society in the face. People talk about original sin. My baby was not sinful when he was born. He was vulnerable, beautiful, human, needy, and whole. It is the world that he was born in that has the systems of evil. Little comments like "boys don't cry" wreak havoc on a literal 3 year old mind. I am going to figure this out. Every chance I get I'm going to tell Hunter: people cry. Boys, girls, old people, young people, etc. It's fascinating, when he talked about this another time- I looked for music videos to show boys crying- but without violence. Didn't find one. Lots of words about crying and sadness- but no boy physically crying. Hardly any girls either, for the record. We don't like to see or show crying.

I cried at my Grandmother's funeral and it was cleansing, healing, wonderful.

Boys and Girls DO cry, dammit. How do I unteach what society has already taught my son?