That’s what little boys/girls do!

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Sera’s recent post on “Single Mom with Tiny Tot” about gender labeling and the idea that boys are “more independent” has me thinking this morning. Sera is rightly frustrated when another mother suggests that her son is more independent than Sera’s daughter, mostly because he is wilder, not necessarily because he’s more apt to play alone.

Yesterday when Sweet Cheeks and I picked Pitter up at daycare, we were pulled aside to discuss his recent behavior. Currently, at our request, he’s being transitioned out of the 1-2 year classroom into the late-ones-and twos room. For months now he’s been the fastest, tallest, most verbal, and oldest kid in his room. And apparently, he’s recently started pushing the little kids down. Then he laughs when he’s told it’s not okay to treat his friends that way.

This sounded familiar. Pitter’s been throwing puzzle pieces and any other nearby object at me for weeks now, just because he knows it bothers me so much. I think it’s a power-play more than an indication that he’s the spawn of Satan, since he continues to dole out kisses like he’s the Prince of Kissy. (Isn’t he in some kind of fairy tale?) Oh, but it bugs the hell out of me, especially when he continues to laugh no matter what discipline approach I take to try to teach him to stop. On Tuesday I finally had to bring his stroller from the garage to the living room, where I promptly strapped him in and walked away. It was the only way to keep me safe from him and him safe from me. I was at a total loss. But do I think that if Patter is a girl I’ll never have to physically restrain her in order to keep the sanity? It’s quite doubtful.

So I expressed concern and explained Pitter’s home behavior to his daycare teacher, and we traded ideas on why Pitter might be acting this way and what techniques might work to change his acting out. Honestly, as long as he’s not biting in retaliation for all the times he’s been bitten at that center, I feel like we’re doing okay.

One thing the daycare instructor said was that “he’s such a little boy” because all he wants to do is run around and rough-house. I actually didn’t pause over the gender labeling at the time because I agreed that her assessment of his physciality was correct. But do none of the girls run around and want to jump into your lap and be tickled? When Pitter incites the other children in his class into total rambunctiousness because he loves to run around, do the girls not participate? I find it hard to believe. Do I like that Pitter’s daycare teacher has such clear-cut ideas about how girls and boys behave? Not really. But aside from moving to a commune or sheltering Pitter from the rest of the world, I’m not sure how to avoid it.

Pitter is extremely active. He’s the kind of child who bounces around his bedroom until nearly the moment he puts his head on the pillow and falls asleep minutes later. He runs laps around the dinner table after he’s finished eating. He wants to play chase and be held upside-down for as long as you’ll participate. But he also sits quietly and reads board books. He shares snacks and sippy cups with his stuffed animals and coos at them. He bats his eyes flirtatiously and dances gently when we play music.

All parents have children this complex, regardless of their gender. It’s part of being human. Do I think that children are assigned gender roles from the moment they’re born and that they are socialized to behave in certain ways and then punished if they deviate too much from expectations? Absolutely. There’s a great short story by Lois Gould called “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story” that suggests human potential is retarded by gender labels. In it, a child’s gender is not revealed to society and the child is taught that it is an “X” rather than a girl or a boy. It frustrates the hell out of society, but the child is better able to follow its interests rather than being forced into certain activities or behaviors.

Here’s the thing: I am the kind of feminist who believes that men and women have equal rights as human beings. I believe that if eighteen year old men have to register with the armed forces, eighteen year old women should too. But I also believe in the science that suggests that our intellectual and physical abilities differ. Most (not all) female soldiers cannot condition their bodies to match those of their male comrades. And so they should not be expected to perform the same exact duties. They have other strengths that should be tapped instead.

Perhaps what I truly believe is that each individual’s strengths and weaknesses should be honored as we each make our way in the world. I bristle at gender labeling and assigning behavior based on boy/girl factors. As I think we all fall on different places of the sexuality spectrum, I think we all have different interests and behaviors that should not be labeled as specifically male or female. Clearly, historically in doing so, society has hurt both men and women by forcing them into considering themselves as limited or broken in one way or another.

I guess what’s most important to me is that if like Pitter, the majority of young boys run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and that behavior is acknowledged as something that boys “do,” that it is not valued as better or worse than other childish behavior. A quiet, less active child is not necessarily socially awkward or more intelligent that Pitter. He or she is simply genetically programmed to behave that way. There’s no definite conclusion that I can come to here, but I do agree with Sera’s concern at the idea that behavior =  a specific quality. Constant exploration does not equal independence or intelligence. And it does not make your child more or less a boy or a girl.

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