The Littlest Butterfly

Raising boys; its enough to make my hairs turn gray. Sidney has always had an independent streak which is simultaneously wonderful and frustrating. Whether it is picking out his own colorful outfits or the games he plays on the playground, he marches to his own drum and doesn't openly care what others have to say about it. This makes him less susceptible to giving in to peer pressure (which is a good thing) but this same behavior is also increasingly drawing negative attention to himself (and this is a bad thing). So here is the issue I am pondering as of late: how do I encourage independence, creativity and non-conformity while not exposing my son to undue ridicule, potentially being picked on or generally setting him on a coarse for a harder path through childhood?

Sidney is small for his age (its honestly in his genes) which in itself is going to make for a long and sometimes turbulent course through childhood. But why is this? It is all so unfair that boys are expected to be bigger and stronger yet it is acceptable, if not desirable, for girls to be smaller and more fragile in stature. So much of this is dependent upon genetics so is it that as a society we look look down upon smaller people (especially males) who really have no control over their height? Even at the ripe old age of five I see the games that go on in school and the taunts that are made because of size. Until recently Sidney has never let his small size stop him; he's scrappy and fast and is the first to jump into the game and try something. But in recent months Sidney has been asking why he is so small and when he will grow bigger. I encourage healthy eating and tell him that he will grow but he wants to know when. As in a date and time when he will be the size of his peers. I just don't have an answer for this inquiry.

Through a series of recent unpleasant events I've learned that Sidney is being picked on by one of his  larger classmates and thus his desire to be bigger and taller. This simply breaks my heart. This same boy--a fellow American--taunts Sidney by calling him names, teasing him until he is on the brink of tears and on more than one occasion has even pushed, poked and choked him in class. Sidney feels that if he was bigger he wouldn't be the object of this boy's attacks. I'm not sure this is entirely the case since physical size is only part of it. Mindset and personality are the other. As rough and tough as he can be, he is also incredibly sensitive at times. And he is still a little boy. One who will play with girls as long as other boys aren't around ("because they will make fun of him"). Sidney is a little boy who doesn't like loud noises and is afraid of the dark. He wants to be liked and have friends and his feelings can sometimes be easily hurt. But somehow, for some reason, being small, sensitive and with a strong streak of individuality has made Sidney the object of this other boy's torment.

The physical assaults are horrifying but it is the words that are the most upsetting, and leave the longest lasting scars, of all. As far as I know, the physical assaults are no longer happening and things have calmed down in class but the words and taunts are continuing. (Of course I am only hearing one side of this story so I am a tiny bit skeptical). Words can be easier to hide and in the vast space that is the lunchroom and even worse, the playground, a large, loosely supervised area filled with children playing and proving themselves the way growing children do, words are often the weapon of choice. He's asked me what certain words mean. Words that I don't want to repeat let alone put in writing. Sidney has heard them someplace and he tells me that these are words that this other boy calls him. I in turn find myself at a loss for appropriate words. I can tell him that these are words we don't repeat, that they aren't nice. I can tell Sidney not to use them in reference to others because he knows how it feels to be called them. Teachers can't see and hear everything and kids will be kids. But how much is too much? And most importantly, how do I instill confidence in my son while protecting him and realistically, not making him the target of increased negative attention.

But most of all I am angry. Yes, I am angry at this boy, and by default his parents, since he has to be hearing and learning about these things someplace. But most of all, I am angry and disappointed in our culture that sets stereotypes and stifles individuality. And I hate the fact that I actually found myself suggesting to Sidney that he not say, do or wear things that might make him a further target of ridicule. Am I no better than our culture by suggesting that my son needs to conform to these pervasive stereotypes? As a mother I want to protect him from harm but I also want to encourage creativity and freedom of speech. But like I said, I want to protect him....

So for the past few weeks Sidney's class has been studying butterflies. They've talked about the phases of a butterfly's life and have even watched their own cocoons turn into butterflies. Sidney has been mesmerized by this lesson and has taken to running, flapping his arms and chanting that he is a butterfly. Yes, my little camouflage clad boy is proclaiming independence by identifying as a butterfly. He does this at home, on the playground and the soccer field. He's also the same boy who continues to spend hours playing soldier, racing matchbox cars and trains like there is no tomorrow and then goes to sleep sucking his thumb and clutching his favorite baby blanket. He is only five, but......

What is a mother to do? His teacher can serve as a buffer in the classroom and I can at home but neither protects him from the realities of the larger world. If it isn't this bully it will be the next one. Sidney is small yet tough, creative and caring, sensitive and stubborn. Part of the beauty of our society is that we all have differing views, opinions, and expectations. We don't all have to be friends but we really should respect each other. This is something I can teach my son. I can also help him put a Teflon coating on his butterfly wings then trust him to fly.

Myth Busters

I hate stereotypes and stereotypes regarding gender roles really get me steamed. Before becoming a parent, I made myself a promise that I would raise my children, regardless of their sex, to not associate everything with a specific gender. I wanted them to see that both men and women can fulfill any role they set out to achieve. It sounds great, doesn't it? But then there is the reality and as of late, I have been forced to confront it head on.

Whether I like it or not I am surrounded by gender stereotypes on a daily basis. Living in an overseas military community the vast majority of the military members are men. They are the ones who get up, don a uniform and go to the office every morning. That leaves us trailing spouses, who are predominantly women, to get our children to school each morning, shop for groceries, care for the house and any deal with any other assorted issue that arises. What I consider to be antiquated roles are even more difficult to break out of since as a non-Belgian spouse, finding employment of any kind is next to impossible for me. I knew this coming here and (for the most part) have accepted it since I can see the bigger picture. But an impressionable four year old who sees the world in terms of black and white? He just doesn't interpret it in the same way.

Sidney notices everything that goes on around him and from his first day at school he started asking questions. The first was why there were only mommies dropping their kids off in the morning. (There are a few dads as well but not many). I explained that the daddies were at work so the moms did drop off in the morning. He nodded and didn't say much until the one morning when he noticed a dad dropping off a classmate. He quickly turned to me and announced that the child must not have a mother if his dad was bringing him to school. I quickly corrected him otherwise. But a few days later he announced that another classmate didn't have a father so his mother had to go to work. That lead to Sidney asking if I went to work. I explained that my job at the moment was taking care of him and his father. But even as the words rolled off of my tongue (and as I sit here typing this) I cringed a bit. Reality or not, it just sounds so antiquated and a throw back to another less liberated era. This Sidney took to heart since he started chattering about how my job was to take care of him. He extended this to food and cooking and reacted in horror when I suggested that perhaps his father could go to the store to shop or could even cook dinner. In his four year old world this violates his norm and he informed me that it simply wasn't possible for his father to perform those tasks. So much for my goal of raising a liberated son.

And these stereotypes continue and are reinforced by his surroundings. From toys ("boys play with cars, girls play with dolls") to choice of colors (pink is a "girl" color) my son is picking up on and verbalizing the very stereotypes I had hoped he would never experience. According to the all knowing four year old girls don't play baseball or football either. Boys grill since girls don't like fire just as they mow the lawn and girls sweep the kitchen. Just yesterday, after meeting Glenn for lunch, Sidney informed me that his father had to go to work to earn the money that his mommy spends. I can only surmise that he has picked up on these things at school since I know these words have never been uttered in our household. So what is a mom to do?

At the moment I counter his girls don't work statements with reminders that I did have a job outside of the home when we were in Albania and that when we return to America I will once again be working. Both concepts are a bit hard for him to grasp since his mind operates in the here and now. His one question was who will take care of him if I have a job so I reassure him that I can really do both. He seems skeptical. I remind him that Glenn cleans around the house just as much as I do and that he does all of the vacuuming. My son's smart response? Girls don't like the noise of the vacuum so boys have to do it. But I'm not completely without hope. Sidney does love to help me cook and even has his own play kitchen where he whips up pizza on a regular basis. He has recently become enamored with the movie Frozen (I know, its a sad day when I am relying on Disney princesses to break gender stereotypes). But he loves the music and readily watches what his classmates call a girl movie. He may be all rough and tumble but he recently converted an Easter basket into a purse (his words) since it is so much easier to carry his toys (matchbox cars) in a bag instead of his hands. (This is the European influence coming through). So all is not lost.....

Is this enough? Absolutely not. Is it a start? Maybe. But in reality I know this is going to be a life long struggle and all I can hope is that we model the right behavior at home and that someday it all clicks.

A Typical American

Typical:  Combining or exhibiting the essential characteristics of a group; conforming to a type. ***  But what does this really mean?  I know what is considered typical for me--my daily routine, the way I dress, my thoughts, what I eat-- but I seriously doubt that they are the same for the next person.  Typical may be easy to define for an individual or perhaps even a nuclear family (but not always since after all we are all individuals), but how about a slightly larger group?  Depending upon its composition there are likely to be as many versions of typical as there are people. Expand this into an even larger group, say a city, state or an entire country, and it is a much more complex situation.  Earlier this week in a rare moment of television viewing I saw an AFN infomercial talking about an exchange program between U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Japan and Japanese teenagers whose lives had been disrupted by the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami and the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  The whole premise of the exchange program was to provide Japanese teenagers with the opportunity to spend time with a "typical" American family.  This sounds good but are these host families really your typical American family?  And for that matter, what does a typical American family look like?  In a country as diverse as ours how do we begin to identify and define what a typical American anything looks like?

Fueled by television and the movies the popular perception of a typical American family has changed over time. From the idyllic Leave It To Beaver of the 1950s to the 1980's The Cosby Show and Growing Pains and then today's Modern Family and Parenthood the idea of what a typical American family looks like has changed with the times.  There was a time when two parents with their 2.5 children living in the suburbs and dad commuting into the city with mom managing the home front all day was believed to be what the typical family looked like.  That might have been a typical snapshot of suburbia but what about the rest of the country?  What about families living in the inner city or rural areas?  In reality the differences between urban and rural, middle-class and living on the edge, married, single or something in between, and children or no children are just too much to compare.  Throw in ethnic background, education level, religion, native language and general geographic area and there really isn't a typical American family.  I look around my own American community here at the Embassy and there is so much diversity amongst us that collectively we are a hodge-podge of America.  For every health nut we have someone else whose main form of nourishment is junk food, for every church goer there is someone whose idea of going to church is touring one on vacation.  The comparisons go on.  But even then do we really represent typical America? Perhaps being a typical American actually means being atypical in nature. Perhaps being a hodge-podge is being American? After all, we are the world's melting pot.

Now back to the typical American military family living in Japan.  With less than two percent of the U.S. population serving in the Armed Forces, I would argue that this family is not representative of America's families.  Within this two percent segment of the American population there is an unimaginable amount of diversity.  The families participating in this exchange program might be typical of other U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Japan (or not) but that is where the similarities with the rest of America probably end.  That is OK; just don't go making statements about typical Americans.  If you do, I will challenge you as to what that really means.



*** According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.