Pink (ode to my son).

He might like trucks and
he might like dolls.

I hope he helps his dolls
drive his trucks.

Someday his sister's frilly tutu
will fit him

and he might want to wear it
which means we'll have to find one to fit me too.

I hope he will dance like a maniac.
Maybe he'll play football and hit very hard.

Maybe he'll ice skate and leap very high.

I want him to grow up and be himself all along the way.

And keep the optimism and
curiousity and imagination of

CHILDHOOD

so I can keep clinging to it too.

Boots and blue and ammo belts,

swing a hammer and

BE TOUGH!

Little boys are like
this

and

Little girls are like
that.

Raise your fist, son, to those who tell you The Rules for (y)our gender.

Be Martin Luther,

King, do not bow to old patriarchs,
at venerated notions of manliness.

To be a man is to be yourself.
That is what I want you to be.

Do not
prove
your masculinity by

disparaging
Hugh Grant and rom coms.

(Thou dost protest too much)

Construct, deconstruct,
do not destruct
yourself or others.

Build up, be a bridge, open doors
for everyone.

There is a time to fix and a time to listen.

Be a leader, and remember
to let others lead too.

A loud voice doesn't make you a leader. Sing.

Be kind.

There is an art director who got in

     hot water

for photographing her young son

     wearing

bright pink nail polish, which he liked.

"There's got to be a 

DIFFERENCE

     between boys and girls,"

the wise ones say.

     "Otherwise it gets

confusing

   We've got to

protect

 those differences

      and keep things un-confusing."

Which made so much sense 

a century ago.

They have their drinking fountain, and

     we have ours,

spoke Plessy vs. Ferguson
in 1896. And that's how things were,
for another 58 years.

Hunters and gatherers,
Protectors and warriors

     returning

to the caregivers, the
matrons and mothers and childraisers.

It is

embedded

 from an early age

what toys and colours and traits

      Boys Like,

innocuously, innocently, an open feedback
loop of preconceptions turned into actions that
create self-fulfilling reality.

      Boys argue.

      Boys fight.

      Boys are about

Action

      Girls gossip.

      Girls bicker.

      Girls are about

Talking

.

My problem is

not

 that there is

no

 historic or biological reasons for differences between gender.

      MY PROBLEM

is when these traits are treated as inviolable facts, as

raison d'etre

 for how one gender or the other responds to a given situation in life.

If our son grows up loving yellow Tonka trucks and camouflage attire,

     that is fine.

If our son grows up loving pink dolls and purple kilts,

     that is fine.

Being a man is developing the

self-confidence

to be yourself, to like what you want, to live how you want, to approach life with your own rulebook, not one that's been handed to you by a centuries-old code of gender expectations.

There is a troglodytic paranoia that for a 

little boy

to grow up playing with the wrong things or
liking the wrong toys
will turn him into something not...

     blue-blooded manly.

Be kind. Be respectful. Be curious and imaginative.

Those are my commandments, son.

There is nothing,

NOTHING

that will ever make me disown, or
turn my back on my son.

MY PROBLEM

is when people make assumptions about what

kind

 of person
he will be.

He is eleven months old,
and the wise ones make their assumptions already, because
that's

the way Little Boys are.

Why are so many fathers disengaged from

     their children's lives?

(because)

They grew up with embedded ideas and
expectations of what

Men

 do 

     and what

Women

 do.

And raising children is still looked at by many
as a Woman's Job.

Dad can step in at some point when the kid's
old enough to start hunting, playing football,

     or dating cheerleaders, and
catch him up on "the guy stuff."

Another cycle continues.

     "This is who I am expected to be,

     therefore that must be who I am,"

     the implicit idea.

"You're not a normal guy," I have heard,
an ambiguous compliment?

Thank you, I think.

I am not betraying my gender. I am proud to be a Man.

     Tarzan. Korak. Conan,
I roar.

I am proud to be me.

There are many like me, similar,

     'not normal,'

and with raised melodic gorilla voices,
maybe our sons will someday be the

New Normal.

Men of strength and kindness, confidence and humility,

     empathy and

     humor,

     proud to acknowledge the beauty in the world

     and

     to build lasting relationships of love and respect.

Son, I love you. Let's go paint our nails.