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Being the mother of a son whose birth father does not live near, I think about Tin’s male role model needs quite a bit. I read and study up on what it is to be a boy.

My introduction to boy-ness came from four older brothers and a father along with countless uncles, cousins, and my two grandfathers. I’ve been steeped in boys since early on.

I’ve also had three husbands and many boyfriends, lovers, not to mention colleagues, friends, and nephews and great nephews. So when I adopted a son, I knew boys were going to be boys. But of course. And you could take all the feminist and studies about how we have to raise our children gender neutral but the simple fact remains teaching your children to respect gender differences is better than teaching them that there are none.

And I’ve been noticing a lot more differences as Tin enters his post-toddler years – from a moment in the toy store where Tin was so engrossed watching a father, on his knees, engage in a Battle Royale with his son using NERF swords, to watching Tin jump on and swing from my friend’s fiancé arms every time he sees him, to the cool, jazz moves he’s adopted from his musician godfather. I’ve been observing him and I know once again this is something I cannot replicate despite what people say about our containing both masculine and feminine qualities.

On Friday, a friend of mine arrived from California to spend the weekend and I was a little surprised at how Tin took to him like a duck to water when he is usually a bit more cautious with new people. This morning he told me “Michael is my best friend.” Michael and Tin have been feeding the baby doll to the sharks, engaging in mystery night games like finding the lost treasures of Atlantis, putting together a transformer truck thing that has a cannon on it, and hanging out in their own boy world of banal violence, grossness and unadulterated silliness. I’ve watched from the sidelines, curious, yet not eager to join them.

The truth is I have read the book on roughhousing, I have endured the love jabs from my son that actually hurt, and I’ve been climbed on, tackled, and jumped on by this 40 pound child and I’m telling you – it’s odd. I don’t have an inclination to want to hit someone or to be hit. I see Tin does – he likes to be tickled till he almost pees his pants, he likes for me to pop his booty with a rolled up dish towel, and he likes to jump from extremely high places and say, “Oh, that hurt!” as if that was the intention.

So when he came home from camp and was talking about the fire force galaxy nonsense of a fantasy gun he held up to my nose, I said, “Where did you learn that?” and wanted to scold the counselor who taught him this sort of aggressive behavior. But then I walked in and saw Ellie hanging from a rope as bait for the invisible sharks surrounding Tin and Michael, and thought of how I had tried unsuccessfully to get on my knees and hit Tin with a NERF sword, I realized how much boys will be BOYS and this secret of boyness is not mine to model for him, not mine to comprehend, not mine to possess – it is his gift to the world.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 15th, 2013 at 9:54 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.