It's a Boy!!!

"Congratulations, it's a boy!" our nurse pronounced Anne upon her delivery.  We'd kept gender a surprise so my husband had to muster some courage to correct: "It's ... a girl...."  He was right, and later as politically correct parents we provided gender-neutral toys: dolls, trucks, tools, and ducks.  Except for hating pink, Anne was all girl.  Her trucks drove dolls to the store where they bought drills later used to plant imaginary flowers for the ducks to eat. 

When she learned to walk, Anne's destinations were  a series of fascinating discoveries.  When she learned to speak, nothing was more fascinating than what she had to say, and when she wrote as a young child she revealed deep and powerful truths in only a few words: "Grownups aren't very good at crying, but babies know just how to do it."  That got us all thinking. These were beautiful mysteries Anne unfolded for us, while I watched some of my contemporaries direct their children in their new accomplishments:  If you walk, we'll go to ballet class.  When you talk, this is what you should say.  When you write, these are the number of lines to fill.  I feel the same about my daughter now having a boyfriend.  I have yet to learn what it means for her, and am waiting with bated breath to find out what she values, what fills her cup, what she wants from a relationship.  Others seem to feel differently.  My allowing her to have a boyfriend seems to indicate that I'm signing off on whatever boyfriend means to those casual observers: her life is over now since it's all about boys, she won't care to achieve anymore because all of her attention will go to the boy, or she'll somehow compromise her morals because of the dangers of libido.  

Parenting girls requires navigating fields of sexualized land mines from unsolicited opinions to unreasonable wardrobe options.  String bikinis in the 9-month-old section of baby bathing suits is a real thing.   It took a good friend lending me Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, by Mary Pipher and Ruth Ross, for me to figure out a pivotal truth:  support your daughters' non-sexualized identities, and they will become strong happy women, regardless of their relationship status.  Better she make herself known as athlete, intellectual, or musician, than get labeled by others as prude, bitch, or slut.  Anne was a musician in utero; it's no wonder 14 years and $50,000 in instrument lessons later that she'd remember her violin before tampons any school day.  She sports a clean face, beautiful and modest clothes, is compassionate, helpful, and seems proud of who she is; completely separate from her bra size.  She's gorgeous and hardly notices.  

Raising boys is a mystery to me but surely complicated in its own right.  Recently I skimmed an article about how to support any one of several kinds of sons: hero, warrior, side-kick, loner, or champion.  Surely not every boy fits into such simple pigeonholes, but Anne's boyfriend seems to be largely a champion.  He's a strong athlete, has many friends, smiles often, and takes social risks like asking Anne to formal in person instead of texting, or standing up before our entire church congregation to be introduced.  He sets the bar high: he's attentive, positive, and has integrity.  This is earlier than I would have chosen, but who better to journey with than this young champion?  So I'm delighted to learn more about what it means to my daughter to have a boyfriend.  All I know right now for certain is that we have a great new someone in our lives, and this time  "It is a boy!"