Friday, November 13, 2009

Rain & Answers

It's raining, which is nice except that it's been raining for three days and we're all sick, so nothing's nice. But it's quiet because Elijah is asleep and I can kinda-sorta breathe for the moment, so I thought I should take a moment to write a post.

Aunt Nicole asked: What do you think about gender roles and the raising of children. If he wants Barbies in a few years would you discourage that? What if he wants to wear a dress to kindergarden?

First: I really appreciate the question as blogging fodder. It's helpful and awesome :)

I'm not actually sure what you mean by "gender roles", but I'll do my best with the other questions.

Re Barbies, I wouldn't discourage it at all. I'll be giving him a baby doll (probably my old Water Baby from when I was a kid) when he's old enough to have some concept of "this is a baby dolly, this is a dinosaur, this is a toy bat, they are all treated differently". The baby doll doesn't get bashed around, for instance, because that's not how we treat babies. Right now, he's not aware of those sorts of distinctions.

And if he wants them, I have plenty of Barbies and their accessories from when I was younger ;)

And re wearing a dress to kindergarten, he may be in a private school, and they usually have uniforms. If he's thought about it enough to want to wear the girls' version of his school uniform, then I'd have to find out from the school if there were rules against that. If there are, then no; no breaking the schools' rules. But if he's in a public school or a school without uniforms, and there are no school rules against boys in dresses... well, he'd have to understand that he may get made fun of, but I wouldn't stop him from wearing it. And if he wants to go to the grocery store in frills and pink and whatever? Sure. That's fine.

Who knows what he will be interested in as time goes on. I'm excited to find out. I can't wait to see how he progresses, what things he likes, what his passions are. Will he like sports? Will he like dance? Will he like animals as much as his mama? Will he be good with numbers like Daddy, or languages? Or both? Will he hate school like I did, or will it be easy for him and he'll love it?

It's going to be so amazing and awesome :D

4 comments:

Satyrblade said...

*hugs and snugs*

Bravo! I love that you not only accept the reality that Baby Coyote will be his own person, but that you want both to nurture his passions while teaching his boundaries. That attitude makes you a great parent.

Satyrblade said...

*hugs and snugs*

Bravo! I love that you not only accept the reality that Baby Coyote will be his own person, but that you want both to nurture his passions while teaching his boundaries. That attitude makes you a great parent.

Satyrblade said...

(Odd - I wonder why it posted twice...)

Nicole said...

very cool

I'm totally picturing him in a little school uniform now *squee*