Raising the warrior son the world needs

I just knew I was having a girl. I felt it in my heart. I sat in the sun on the playground one day watching my students run by in a blur, and as their 10-year-old energy swirled around me, I had this anchoring feeling that I was having a girl.

Imagine my surprise when the ultrasound tech said, “And that’s a penis. You have a boy. Congratulations!”

“A boy? Are you sure?” As much as that little cocktail weenie nub floating on the screen looked undeniably like a part of a boy, I was shocked. I am a highly intuitive person. I thought I would sense the sex of the baby growing inside my body. I thought I would be able to sense the presence of a penis within me.

I looked at the image on the screen and couldn’t bring myself to say “his” yet. “Is that the hand?” I said. I hadn’t wrapped my mind around him yet.

Every mama is happy and relieved beyond comprehension to see a healthy baby on that screen, and I surely was one of them. But I left the doctor’s office that day having to rework my vision of what this mothering might look like and the little human I would raise up in this world.

Woman hurt by men raises boy

I felt really challenged. I had been surrounded by men who never developed their emotional intelligence muscles. I had also been the victim of long-term sexual and emotional abuse by a man. Many of my earliest and most formative experiences as a growing woman found me in a powerless position with men. Part of me worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle having a son, that he would talk over me and live over me, and I wouldn’t know how to stop it. I worried I would retreat into learned helplessness and not be the strong maternal figure he needed. Part of me worried that he could turn out like the men who had hurt me and that it would be my fault.

In my dreams he was a baby in my arms. Then I set him down, and he turned into a teacup puppy. In my dreams he was a baby I pushed in the grocery cart. Then he morphed into a baby kangaroo, wriggling, writhing, trying to hop away from me. In my dreams he was a cat messily suckling at my breast and dashing out the open window. In my dreams I repeatedly felt the form of a baby against my chest, never seeing his face, but when I looked down at my child, I saw the form of an animal.

A boy. I would be raising a boy. I was intimidated. I was scared.

I took a lot of deep breaths. I regrouped. I grounded myself in two truths: my agency as mother and my lack of absolute control. I don’t talk in God language very often, but I felt like if God was giving me a boy, then God had something special in mind for this boy and for me.

I didn’t want to tell anyone his sex. We decided to tell everyone that we didn’t know if we were having a boy or girl. It felt like really private information…like, you want to know if the baby growing in the depths of my uterus has a penis or a vagina? It felt strange to me. It wasn’t a conversation I was interested in having. I didn’t want to hear about snips and snails and puppy dog tails. I didn’t want onesies with footballs and baseballs that said “Tough Like Daddy”.

Plus, I think I wanted to protect the identity of my child. I wrote to him:

We don’t want people to start putting toy guns in your hands and making you a whooping cowboy terror before you’re even born. If you were a girl, we didn’t want bonnets and sweet ruffles awaiting you. You come into this world a new person, one who has never been created or taken a breath before. We want to look in your eyes and name you–more like have you tell us who you are. We don’t want smocked and monogrammed clothing to anticipate you, a whole identity fashioned before your first cry. Little boy, we want to discover you in that first moment and every day.”

I know some people bond with their baby through naming and monogramming in pregnancy, and that is an authentic process for them. It didn’t feel right for me and my child.

In a moment of hilarity, when we took our baby on his first stroll down our street, a neighbor watering his plants walked over and asked, “Did you have a boy or girl?” My first impulse was to say my practiced response: “We don’t know”. And when he asked, “What’s his name?”, my first reaction was still to say, “We’re not sharing names.”

Visions of a daughter

Looking back, I see that I had more expectations than I realized. And yes, they were definitely gendered visions.

Before I knew I was having a boy, I thought it was my job to raise a girl and make sure there was never a day when she doubted that I saw her less than anything but a strong, kind-hearted, brave warrior who would change the world. I felt empowered at the prospect of needing to be a strong role model for a little girl who was watching and learning what it meant to be a woman.

I imagined us having tea parties with all the ambassadors from Bear Land and Panda Nation and Dolphin Cove and together we would map out a way to heal the world.

We would look in the mirror and find all our perfections–our strong legs that carry us, our arms that hug, our hands that tinker with nuts and bolts. All the way up to our necks extended tall, holding up our brains that swirl with creative thought, logical and compassionate arguments, and the power to see the world new. Then we would walk away from that mirror because we had more important things to do than stare at ourselves in the mirror all day.

In our babysitter’s club we would hold meetings about how to help raise a generation of people comfortable with their emotions, and thus, themselves. People with emotional literacy who, in accepting themselves, learned to love others in their imperfect humanity. We would hold painted signs: “Teach emotional literacy”. We would start a campaign and march on the Capitol.

Our princesses–if that’s what they wanted– would wear construction gear under tutus, tiaras on top of hard hats, and would know that a princess has too big of a job and too many resources to just sit and wait for any prince to come along. She would know that a worthy prince wouldn’t kiss a girl he’s never met when he comes upon her while she’s sleeping. A worthy prince would see her hammering together a Habitat House or speaking at the podium to a captive audience, and his respectful admiration would precede their romance.

The first time a boy tried to tell her what to do, she would listen, consider his strategy, and say, “I have my own idea,” and the teacher would commend her for being a leader.

She would know that girls wanna have fun AND fundamental human rights. And, if you were wondering, these boots were made for walking on the moon.

I would teach her that to be sensitive is a superpower, that gentleness and compassion are not weaknesses, and that her big voice was made for the world to hear it. I would teach her that she didn’t need to make herself smaller for anyone else to feel comfortable.

I would dare anyone to call her “cute”, “shy”, or “bossy”. I’ll raise your “cute” to “adventurous”. I’ll take your “pretty” and crown it with “curious”. I’ll take your “shy” and fold it into “introspective” and “discerning”. I’ll hold your “bossy” and roll it into “determined” and “confident”.

Raising myself

As it turns out, not much is different for me. I didn’t know that in raising a boy, I would be raising a girl, too. I didn’t know I would be raising myself.

I am raising the woman I am, challenging myself to be the kind of woman I want my son to see. I will be his first teacher. He will learn what it means to be a woman from me. Just as much as a daughter, he needs to see a strong, passionate, capable woman in his mother.

I am raising my marriage. I am directly confronting my husband, Lloyd, about any moment when I feel disrespected. I raise his awareness about the small things. I don’t let the moments slide by. Because those moments add up, and our son is watching. Small brush strokes make a painting.

Our son will learn what it means to be a man, a dad, and a husband from his dad. So his dad is raising himself, too. Because our son is watching. And he sees when Mom is interrupted while speaking. He watches Daddy’s face as he listens to Mama’s ideas, alert to every eyebrow raise or use of full eye contact. He hears the tone of voice his Dad uses and keys into any sign of superiority or criticism. This becomes his norm.

He notices what Mommies do and what Daddies do. He notices if Daddy always gets to read or go for a run while Mama folds the laundry. He notices if Mama always asks Daddy for help to hammer something into the wall or measure a space. He picks up on who asks the questions and who answers. He notices, and he has no awareness of what this is telling him about the world.

Lloyd is noticing how he responds to women at work and to other men, too. He is becoming more conscious of how his speech, actions, and postures contribute to or detract from equity. He’s learning to confront other men about what they are saying under their words.

“If a fish were to become an anthropologist, the last thing it would discover would be water,” said Margaret Mead.

We have power over the water where our sons learn to swim. We’re determining the constitution of the water of the next generation. We are building the world where we want our son and your daughter to live. We are building it in our home, our workplaces, our friendships, and our church.

Swimming against the current

The day of the presidential election, Lloyd and I took our son to the pediatrician for a check-up. There I saw these stupid cutesy canvases above the scale. A blue one said, “Boy: Superhero in disguise”. A pink one said, “Girl: Giggle with glitter on it”. Aww, hell no. Not today. Not the day we elect the first woman president, I thought.

“Hillary Clinton: A giggle with glitter on it?” my husband said. We both laughed.

And in that moment I felt my heart divided. How could I hold these two truths at once?

My son’s magnificence and sacred power and the way his power can eclipse another’s.

The fact that I want my boy to be a superhero and the fact that I don’t want him to be cast in the same old white male role of power that would displace another person.

The fact that I want him to learn what it is to be a man but I don’t want his gender to define him.

We went straight from the doctor’s office to the polling station. We thought we were casting our vote for our first woman president.

We all know the outcome of that day. The day when a man who thought it was ok to brag about “[grabbing a woman] by the pussy” was elected. The day when sexually abusive “locker room talk” was excused as normal, and rape culture was emboldened. The day when we learned that for an overwhelming amount of people, this kind of debasing mentality about women was not a deal-breaker for choosing the leader of America in the twenty-first century.

The boy who I’m raising became even more important that day because I realized what we were up against in mainstream culture.

A little intimidating? Feel much pressure there?

The good news is that I started with a newborn who had no concept of “boy” and “girl”. I read that for weeks he didn’t even know the difference between self and mama, that we were still connected as one in his mind, long past the cutting of the cord.

I realized that this is a relationship with a person. An individual. I didn’t have to know how to handle BOYS–all caps. I just had to learn this one person. This was comforting to me. I would learn what message he needed every step along the way, and I would make adjustments as necessary. I could do that.

From ideals to actionable choices

Here are my aspirations for what messages my son will receive and how I raise my vision into action.

I try to raise my son secure in his emotions so he knows that a boy can express his sadness and fear and that the world can handle it. I try to raise him comfortable in his emotions so that they don’t poison him from the inside, turning his fear of his feelings into a toxic discharge he unleashes on the world in the form of control and a need for power.

He doesn’t need toughening. He needs tender, responsive care. He needs to be allowed to cry. He needs to know that his feelings are seen and part of the normal human experience. He needs to learn the words that match his expressions of sadness, frustration, disappointment, and pain.

In Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson write:

Boys need an emotional vocabulary that expands their ability to express themselves in ways other than anger or aggression…A boy needs male modeling of a rich emotional life. He needs to learn emotional literacy as much from his father and other men as from his mother and other women, because he must create a life and language for himself that speak with male identity. A boy must see and believe that emotions belong in the life of a man,”

He needs to see that emotions belong in his life. Because if he runs from his emotions, the world around him will suffer from it. He will watch both of his parents navigate their emotional lives. I won’t invite him into the world of adult problems, but he can watch me handle being angry, he can witness Daddy being sad, and he can know that it’s all ok. That we still do our best to make loving choices amidst those feelings.

He will know that love is not about possessing or controlling. He will live with the discomfort of disagreement. He will learn to speak the truth in love and know that we must share the difficult truths in our hearts even when it might be painful for the people we love to hear them. He will learn to bear witness to another’s pain without making himself responsible for fixing it.

I tell him, “I’m sorry Mama used that tone of voice” or “I’m sorry Mama lost her patience” because he needs to see that people with power make mistakes, take responsibility, and ask for forgiveness. He needs to know that no one is above that.

I give him a doll to care for because he needs to learn how to be tender, gentle and loving, too. He needs to know that it is his job to care for other people just as much as it is a part of a girl’s role.

I give him firm boundaries and hold them. “I don’t want you to do that,” I calmly say. I let him throw his body to the ground in frustration and disappointment because he is allowed to have his feelings, but he needs to know that his strong feelings do not control my decisions and that “no means no”. He will feel secure knowing that he doesn’t need to hold that much power. He will learn the security of control over himself alone.

If a baby girl crawls over and babbles to him, I won’t tell him it’s because she’s flirting and because he is a ladies man. It will be nothing more than two humans who are learning how to communicate and awakening to the joy of interpersonal connection. “Look, a friend,” I may tell him. He is not a heartbreaker. He is not a stud or a Romeo. She is not a conquest. They are children who have no place as actors in our script of romantic adult dynamics.

He can imagine what it’s like to be a princess. He can have tea parties and a babysitter’s club. He can try Grandma’s makeup. He can wear pink un-ironically.He can love brushing his hair like Mama does and try putting on her headband. His aunt can teach him to crochet, knit, or embroider because we all need fine motor development, and we can all appreciate useful, pretty things. He can paint and play dress-up with Daddy, who is a costuming wiz. He can know that the most interesting thing between us as humans is not that he is a boy and I am a girl.

He doesn’t need initiation into a tired, boring, gender-obsessed world. He can push trains on the floor and steer cars over couches. His first word can be “ball”. He can wave sticks and dig in the dirt. He can catch bullfrogs and jump in the mud. And he will not hear me say, “You’re all boy.” I will not weave him a story of his overpowering masculinity. Instead, I will tell him stories of when his mama was a little girl who built lean-tos in the woods and picked up yard snakes and carved symbols into fallen trees and slugged through the mud pit beyond her house.

“Strong like Mama” and “Sensitive like Daddy”. That’s what we’ll tell him.

He will not need to wear manliness like a badge, polishing it every night and flashing it in people’s faces every time he’s worried it has been violated.

And yet, he can ponder his masculinity. He can wander the woods and learn to build fires if it helps him access inner resources and learn about himself. He can climb a mountain and camp at the base of a volcano if it helps him build confidence and reverence for a world bigger than him. And there he can cultivate a robust masculinity of vulnerability as strength and sensitivity as beautiful. He can cry at the beauty of the world. He will know he doesn’t have sole custody of adventure and independence and confidence. He will know that he is not excluded from the humbling wonder of the world.

He will live in a house where “boys will be boys” means “boys will be respectful and responsible for their actions”. Boys will be aware of their feelings. Boys will be conscious of how their actions affect others. Boys will be good humans.

If in his adolescence he finds himself trying to impress peers by uttering a crude thing about a woman, I hope it will linger bitter in his mouth, a taste he can’t get rid of. I hope his cheeks will burn and his tongue will feel heavy. I hope the hollow laughs will leave him feeling empty, and he won’t be able to get the memory of Mama tucking him in bed out of his head.

And I will remind myself that when his dad was in seventh grade he wrote an undelivered note that said, “I want to fuck you.” I will remember that his mom didn’t ignore it when she found it at the bottom of his backpack, and that the seventh grader went on to become a gentle man who respects women.

When my son feels longing and fire building into desire, he will know that it’s not his birthright to unleash it on another person. He will know that he’s not entitled to anyone else’s body, no matter what that person is wearing, how many drinks they’ve had, and what has transpired between them. It will be another exercise in holding the tension between wanting and having. He will know that feelings come with choices and actions, and his masculinity is not a free pass for reckless abandonment of human decency. He will control himself, and the word “consent” will be a banner flying over the waves of passion.

This will be the water. This will be the water in which he swims.

I may have a son and not a daughter, but it is still my job to raise a strong, kind-hearted, brave warrior who can change the world. And he can giggle and throw glitter on himself while he’s at it.