Like Mother, Like Daughter (three)

Although all of these fears are understandable, I know that in reality  they are not much to worry about.  There will be differences, but my husband and I will work diligently to provide her with the same structure we’ve provided for our son, which, we feel, has worked pretty damn well.  Her hair, my elders have informed me, will be the least of my worries.  This, I know.  Which is precisely why I am scared shitless of having a girl.  I’ve tried to explain it, but it comes out all garbled, and the people I try to tell chuckle at me, telling me I’ll be just fine.  And then, as I heard my mother-in-law relaying my fears to her girlfriend, laughingly, it hit me.  All of these other fears are a cover up for what I’m really afraid of—a sort of hypochondria to disguise my real illness.  My biggest fear of having a girl is the fear that I will transpose all of my own insecurities and fears and neurosis onto her. 

A while ago, my family went to the lake for an afternoon of fishing and roasting hot dogs.  On the way home, my niece and nephew, who were driving home with my parents, made up a song in the style of “Ol’ McDonald Had a Farm.”  “And on that farm he had a Gramma, EIEIO.  With a hat-hat here and a hat-hat there” (Gramma likes to wear hats).  Eventually they got to Aunt Michelle.  “And on this farm he had a Michelle, EIEIO.  With a nag-nag here and a nag-nag there.  Here a nag, there a nag, everywhere a nag, nag.”  Nag.  I am commonly referred to in my family as a nag.  My response—if people would do what I told them to, I wouldn’t have to nag.  I am bossy.  I am a know-it-all.  I am a smart-ass.  My friends and family know this, and love me anyway—or maybe because of this. 

It is rarely my intent to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I know I do it more often than I’d like.  “Um, did you wear that skirt to school today?” I asked my teenage niece.  My intentions were entirely sincere and caring—it was a little short, and I wanted to know that she wore shorts or something under it.  I remember a day in high school, wearing a jean skirt, where the educational assistant came up to me, while the students were sitting at our desks in an all-class circle, and whispered in my ear that the way I was sitting with my legs crossed allowed the boys sitting across from me to see my underwear.  Talk about awkward.  My comments to my niece were merely in a concern for her to not have to experience the embarrassment that I once did.  But do you think that’s how a 13-year-old construes that comment?  Not quite.  I know the comments I make to my daughter, in an attempt to stave her from discomfort, will be construed as criticism.  And no amount of backpedaling can erase what’s already been said.

In all honesty, my criticism isn’t always geared as a protection for the person it is aimed at.  Often, particularly regarding my son, it’s as a protection for myself.  I am insecure.  Although I think I’m pretty damn cool, my perception of people’s perception of me is that everyone thinks I’m a loser.  And again in all honesty, one’s child is seen only as a reflection of their parents.  When at a birthday party with a gaggle of four-year-olds, when one child is acting like a wild banshee, what every other parent there is thinking—even though they may not say it—is “who are that kid’s parents and why aren’t they over here parenting?”  I work in education and grew up with parents and in-laws who work in education—I know how this goes.  You have a student, that student, and when parent-teacher conferences come around and you finally meet little Johnny’s mom, it all clicks.  Ah, you say, so that’s why Johnny is a terror.  Granted, there are a few occasions where the parent is not to blame, and there is certainly a level of “kids will be kids,” but I know that in my quest to appear as the has-it-all-together-mom, I’ll over-criticize my children.  So far, I’ve done okay with my son.  But expectations are different for girls, and the role of the mother is stronger for daughters than it is for sons (I can blame my son’s behavior on his father).  Yet why should my daughter have to suffer because I’m insecure?  She shouldn’t—but she will.

I’ve talked with these girls, whose mothers have had a hugely adverse effect on their psyche.  I worked with a high school girl whose self-esteem and therefore eating disorder could be directly tied, with at least eighty percent relevance, to her mom.  A good friend of mine, with similar self-esteem issues, can also relate it, again with a good eighty percent, to her mom.  I don’t want to be that mom.   But I fear that I will be, that I am, that mom.  I fear it with all my heart. That one day my sweet girl will be sitting in therapy saying, “Yeah, yeah.  My mom was something else.  Nothing I ever did was ever good enough for her.”  I fear that she will never know, never truly understand, that my criticism and nagging is derived from love, and that nothing, nothing, she will ever do will be wrong. 

Like Mother, Like Daughter (two)

First, there are the superficial gender concerns.  As more than one person has told me, girls are more expensive. Others say, when I tell them it’s a girl, “Oooohhhh!   You’re going to get so much stuff!”  But I don’t need so much stuff, and I see no reason to spend more money on this little girl than I do on my son.  We live in a 964 square foot house.  The office has now moved into the dining room to make room for the nursery, which has crammed in it a crib, a futon, and a dresser.  The dresser, through much debating, has been determined a necessity as the closet is full of my husband’s clothes and paperwork since the closet in our room is full and just for me.  Where exactly am I supposed to put all this extra stuff a girl apparently needs?  I’ve got just enough room for the necessities, and even then, it’s getting pretty damn cozy in here.  Why does a girl need more stuff than a boy?  Why, I ask?!  My son is certainly not deprived of anything, but my husband and I consciously attempt not to spoil him.  At three, my son is already starting to learn the value of a dollar.  He has a daily chore list—make bed, set table, clear table, pick up room—for which he receives a quarter.  He saves this up and uses it to buy something special, which most often he has been drooling over and working towards for a couple weeks.  Last week, he bought an Ironman costume he had been wanting ever since the Halloween costume catalogue arrived in the mail.  He’s now saving for the Hot Wheels Shark Attack.  In an attempt to instill this same notion in my daughter, and refrain from a sense of entitlement for any reason—be it gender, looks, smarts, whatever—I fear that I will overcompensate on her behalf, and she will not only not be spoiled, but will feel deprived.  I fear that, in an act of reverse discrimination, I may not buy her things just because she is a girl. 

So with this societal expectation that girls are higher maintenance than boys, I fear that, in an attempt to counteract this norm, I’ll cause more harm than good.  With my son, I already work to diffuse gender expectations.  Just the other day, I bought him a pair of Princess Tiana socks from the dollar bin at Target.  He loves The Princess and the Frog, so who cares that they’re pink and feature a princess?  He certainly didn’t—he loved them!  But I know that his love of The Princess and the Frog was only half of the reason I bought them.  He also loves Cars and Sesame Street, who also had socks available for just a dollar.  But I chose the pink ones with the princess to both show my progressiveness, and to instill an ideal in my son’s mind that he can wear whatever makes him comfortable, regardless of societal norms.  If he asks me to paint his toes when I paint mine, I do.  If he asks to put a clip in his hair when his cousin is getting a clip in hers, I do.  I know that with my daughter, I will work to instill these same values—that she can be or do whatever she wants, without constraint due to her sex or gender.  But will my buying her Spiderman and football shirts help her establish a sense of identity, or just get her made fun of? 

Aside from the looks, there are many other cultural stereotypes surrounding girls.  The other day, while talking with some friends about having a daughter, my friend relayed a saying she’d heard: “When you have a son, you just have to worry about one penis.  But when you have a daughter, you have to worry about hundreds of penises.”  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard my friends with daughters joke about sitting on the front porch with a shotgun when she has her first date.  And if you know my husband, you know he is not even remotely joking about doing this.  But why just for her first date?  I’m scared of my little boy going on his first date.  I’m scared of his little heart being broken.  Certainly I’m scared of him “getting himself into trouble.”  But I’m just as scared of the not-so-innocent girls he’ll meet, who can be just as aggressive in seducing a guy as a guy can a girl.  Men say they know having a daughter because they were once teenage boys and all they thought about was sex.  But I can’t say that I was much better than any of them.  I made my rounds, and it didn’t have anything to do with being pressured by the guy.   So while my husband may be on the porch with a shotgun for our daughter's first date, I’ll be on the porch with the shotgun for our son’s first date.  However  in my attempt to do this—to provided gender equity among my children—I may unintentionally deprive her of something.  I fear that my attempt to crush the American norms of the pampered little girl will be received, by both her and others, not as an equal concern for her and my son, but rather as a dislike for her compared to him.

My heart melts every time I see my son.  Every night I go into his room, tuck him in and straighten out his blankets, lay down next to him, give him a kiss, and tell him how incredibly special he is.  I can’t imagine loving anyone as much as I do my son.  I love my son more than anything, and I know in a Sophie’s Choice type situation, I would choose my son over my husband (or rather I believe, as until we are actually in these—or any—situations, we can’t say for certain how we’d react).  Not necessarily because I love my husband less, but because he’s my son and my job as a mama is to take care of my son.  But with a son and a daughter, how can one keep from having a preference?  And considering I’ve had almost four years—five if you count the time during pregnancy—to establish such a strong bond with my son, how can it not be for him?  How can anyone possibly be as cute and smart and funny and kind as my little boy?  The capacity of the human heart is ever-expanding, with limitless capacity.  So, consciously I know that I have plenty of room in my heart for them both—and then some.  But our feelings are not always in conjunction with our knowledge:  the battle of heart and mind. 

Likewise, even before she is born, I am afraid the feelings my husband has for her will outweigh those he has for me.  Along with the cultural norm to be spoiled, innocent, and dainty in pink, there is an understood bond between father and daughter.  I have sense of jealousy regarding the relationship I know my husband will have with our daughter.  To an extent, I think this additional bond is fake, and I’d like to think of my family as so progressively advanced that gender does not play a role in the complexities of our relationships.  But I’m not stupid.  I know my husband.  And I’ve seen that relationship.  My niece is thirteen, the product of divorced parents, a single mom.  She is an amazing girl, with—although a typical thirteen-year-old attitude, which I would often like to slap right out of her mouth—a heart of gold.  Even as just a niece, I’ve seen the special relationship she has with my husband, her uncle, who has been a more active part of her life than her father has ever been.  I’ve seen the way she admires him, and him her.  I’ve seen the way they cuddle up on the couch when we’re all watching a movie together.  Their mutual respect and admiration are clear and visible.  And it’s something every daughter deserves to have.  Which is why I know that our daughter will be the apple of his eye, will hold a special place in his heart, will be the utmost precious thing he has ever and will ever love.  And although I tell myself the same thing I did in regards to loving both my son and daughter equally—the capacity of the human heart is ever-expanding, with limitless capacity—I’m still jealous.

Like Mother, Like Daughter (one)

The other day I had my ultrasound for my second child.  I knew what it was long before the ultrasound.  This pregnancy was different.  I was sick from the beginning; and not sick like I was with my first, where I threw up once in the morning and was then fine for the rest of the day, but sick-sick all day long. I threw up early and frequently, and felt nauseous at least until dinner.  I threw up two or three times a day until about week twelve.  It then started to subside a little, throwing up just once a day, then once every few days, and even now,  toward the end of my pregnancy, I’m still throwing up about once a week.  I lost seven pounds, then slowly gained it back, still only a few pounds above what I was before I was pregnant. To this I shouldn’t complain.  But this weight came off of my ass—the one place on my body where I like the curves.  Why not come off my thunder thighs or my jello-jiggler arms?  I could feel the kiddo moving around starting at only five inches long, weighing only eight ounces—already kicking and punching me.  Now that she’s up to five-plus pounds, those kicks and karate chops and summersaults are getting painful.  I get cramps in my abdomen, have intermittent sacroiliac back pain, and have had itching and chaffing in an area where no woman should ever have to scratch.  I’ve been more tired than I was with my first pregnancy, needing a nap everyday at about two o’clock, my grouchiness at this time enough for whomever I’m with to say, “Why don’t you go ahead and go rest for a while.  I’ll take Clem to the park,” as they rush out the door to get away from me.  It was early on that I realized that this pregnancy was different, that this child was different.  No boy, I said, would ever treat his mama so badly.  This is definitely a girl.  Only a girl would be this mean to her mama.  And of course, much to my dismay, we found out that my assumption was correct. 

My dismay was apparent when the ultrasound technician typed on the screen “It’s a girl.”  I tried to smile and be excited, but the disappointment was too much to conceal.  I’ve used the excuse about having all the stuff for a boy since I was first asked what I was hoping for.  I’ve got about twenty boxes of boy clothes in the garage, just waiting to be reused.  And lord knows I don’t have the means to be buying a bunch of new clothes, which, apparently, have to be pink.  The second reason I’ve claimed is my distaste in fixing hair.  I’ve been adamant in letting my husband, and the rest of the family, know that my daughter will have short hair.  I am not going to fight with a toddler to hold still so I can comb and brush and braid and pony-tail and clip her hair.  Hell, I can’t even remember or make the time to brush my son’s hair in the morning.  And my husband has a baseball cap permanently glued to his head, so I’m not counting on him either.  But in reality, these are only a very small piece of my disappointment in having a girl.  Many of my son’s old clothes will work fine, and we have a lot of friends with female kids, so I’m sure more will be handed down.   My daughter will have a cute bob, as I did when I was little, and will be just fine.