Over the holidays I read a novel by Jodi Picoult. I enjoyed the book, but there was one passage that bugged me. In it a mother acts as narrator, and explains that we\u2019re all supposed to say there is no real difference between boys and girls, but that that is a \u201cpolite fiction.\u201d She says all you have to do is look into any sandbox at any park, and you\u2019ll see the girls preparing food and the boys smashing things with trucks. Except that this is not in fact my experience.<\/p>\n
Look, my son Bobby loves trucks. I\u2019m not denying this. He loves anything that movies. Trains and airplanes seem to be his favorite, though buses, boats, and cars are favorites as well. When we pass a bus he freaks out and starts yelling \u201cBUS!\u201d Sometimes in the parking lot he likes to walk from car to car, stroking them and checking out their wheels. If an airplane passes overhead, he is always the first to hear it and scan the sky, pointing with his chubby finger and hollering \u201cPeh-plane! Peh-plane!\u201d Bobby is rarely out of the house without a matchbox car in each hand.<\/p>\n
Some people would call Bobby \u201call boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Bobby has other interests as well. He loves animals, from ants to cats to dinosaurs. And he has a way with animals, too. They like him. Bobby also loves his kitchen set, and never tires of cooking me \u201cmeals\u201d which I always enjoy quite openly, sipping invisible tea or eating invisible mac-n-cheese. And Bobby has a thing for shoes. The sparklier, the better. Boys\u2019 shoes are boring, it seems.<\/p>\n
Until a few months ago, Bobby\u2019s favorite iPad app was candy girl resort. He excelled at giving facials and the other aspects of running a spa. He has since switched his preference to several excellent gender-neutral reading and math apps. One of Bobby\u2019s favorite Netflix features are the recent fairy movies about Tinkerbell and her friends. Alongside Thomas & Friends and Mater\u2019s Tall Tales, Bobby\u2019s other favorites include Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse and Lego Friends. (Bobby knows how to navigate Netflix on the iPad, so these are his choices, not something we put on for him.)<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t look at Bobby and see \u201call boy.\u201d I look at Bobby and see a curious vibrant child with a variety of interests and a world that is ever expanding. I don\u2019t have a problem with him liking traditionally \u201cboy\u201d things, but I also don\u2019t render his less conventional interests invisible. If Bobby were in a sandbox, he\u2019d be just as likely to be preparing food as he would be to be smashing things with a truck.<\/p>\n
And that brings us to Sally. When Sally was Bobby\u2019s age, she loved to build things out of blocks and then smash them. I suspect all children that age love watching blocks fall after knocking down a building or tower. Smashing things is not the domain of boys alone, as any trip to Sally\u2019s daycare playground would tell you. Those girls\u2014they are tough!<\/p>\n
Of course, Sally is today very enamored by princesses. Most girls her age are (and these days, boys aren\u2019t immune). Sally has several princess dresses, and loves the Disney princess movies. When we go swimming, she asks to be called Ariel. Sally also enjoys applying makeup (when I let her) and having her fingernails painted. She\u2019s always on the lookout for a dress that spreads out as she spins. She loves dancing and sparkly shoes (and is quickly joined by Bobby when combining these). It would be easy to look at Sally\u2019s interests and type her as a girly girl. But to do that would be to ignore the other half of Sally\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n
Sally is a science kid. One of her favorite shows on the iPad is Bill Nye the Science Guy. She can sing the opening sequence through perfectly. But honestly, she simply drinks in the things she learns about the world around her. She doesn\u2019t just watch Bill Nye. She remembers what she sees. Sometimes, too, we turn on dinosaur documentaries, or\u2014her favorite\u2014documentaries about black holes (remember Sally\u2019s theory about Jesus being born out of a black hole?). On a recent doctor\u2019s visit, Sally described black holes with such intense feeling (and accuracy) that she made a lasting impression. She even used hand motions. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure that when I was five I was primarily worried about where my next popsicle was coming from,\u201d the doctor said, shaking his head in admiration.<\/p>\n
Sally is like a creative explosion, but her range isn\u2019t limited to purple or pink. Sally has yet to see walls on her world, so she doesn\u2019t fence herself in. Bugs, dirt, plants, outer space\u2014the kid is unstoppable. She wants to learn to scuba dive so she can learn about the ocean and look for ship wrecks or underwater crime scenes. She wants to ride in an airplane\u2014a step closer to her interest in outer space\u2014and can explain in accurate detail how hot air balloons work. She can explain evolution, and is quick to tell people that we still have dinosaurs among us\u2014birds. And yet she\u2019s never stuck up about any of this. She just wants to share, and is certain everyone around her must be as interested in the things she\u2019s learning as she is.<\/p>\n
Sally also has a bit of a penchant for the scary. I think I\u2019ve checked out every book of scary folk stories our library has\u2014or at least, all of the ones with pictures. She\u2019s five, she\u2019s still insisting on pictures. Sometimes we take turns making up ghost stories of our own, and she\u2019s pretty good. Sometimes she has me<\/em> scared.<\/p>\n Sally\u2019s interest in princesses and dresses and makeup might seem to make her a girly-girl, but few girls are actually that one-dimensional. It seems as though an interest in princesses is enough to assure people that all is well with a girl, while an interest in trucks or trains is enough to assure people that all is well with a boy. And I\u2019m sure there are some girls whose interests are confined to stereotypically \u201cgirl\u201d things and some boys whose interests are confined to stereotypically \u201cboy\u201d things. But I\u2019m going to go out on a limb and guess that most children\u2019s interests don\u2019t fit that neatly into one box. It\u2019s just that that complexity gets ignored because most people simply need to see princesses, or trucks, and then they have all the information about they child they need\u2014or so they think.<\/p>\n I realize that the whole nature v. nurture debate is very complicated. I realize that we don\u2019t know everything. But what I think I can say with confidence, both from watching my own children and from watching those around them, is that children\u2019s interests rarely fit simply in the gendered boxes we adults tend to create for them\u2014and I think it does children a disservice to suggest that they do.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the holidays I read a novel by Jodi Picoult. I enjoyed the book, but there was one passage that bugged me. In it a mother acts as narrator, and explains that we’re all supposed to say there is no real difference between boys and girls, but that that is a polite fiction. She says all you have to do is look into any sandbox at any park, and you’ll see the girls preparing food and the boys smashing things with trucks. Except that this is not in fact my experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[24,135],"class_list":["post-22533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","tag-children","tag-gender"],"yoast_head":"\n