Although my sons identify as boys, I do not identify as the mother of boys, writes Laura Friman in her column.
“Well, the sack too as a mother of boys, you know”, the half-familiar laughs and winks knowingly.
I smile in pained acquiescence because I’m a sheepish coddler.
The situation is so common that in retrospect I can’t even remember which anecdote I faked this time. During my decade-long parenting, I have experienced the same moment an estimated thirty thousand times.
One day, I will finally exercise my natural instincts and start screaming: “no, I really don’t know!”
The boys and girls in my large family are obsessed with ninjas and perfumes, wrestling and Barbie movies, pink and butterfly knives, soft toys and violent movies.
Some of their preferences follow common notions of “boyhood” and “girlhood”, some are in complete contradiction with them.
News bomb: actually all the children I know, tens or hundreds of them, are like this.
Individual herring salads that the culture – that is, us – tries to force into a bifurcated path in one direction or another. And even though my boys identify as boys, I don’t identify as boys but as a mother of children.
“
Smelly laundry also annoys fathers, and girls also produce smelly laundry.
Between I feel like I’m the only one. The internet is full of bad things, and one of the worst is the super popular Facebook group Moms of Boys.
Don’t mess around: I know some smart people who belong to the group. I myself may have laughed sometimes at some random meme in the group.
Not because I identify for even a second with the group’s sexist attitudes pushing the worst stereotypes, but because the memes sometimes coincide with my experiences of parenting. About parenting any gender.
Smelly laundry also annoys fathers, and girls also produce smelly laundry.
Yes, believe it or not: dads can be the primary laundry men in the household, and girls can be the primary aficionados of sweaty sports.
“
Sometimes even my comfortable self gets caught up in stupid thought patterns.
Anyone none of us are immune to the lifelong intensive program of cultural brainwashing. Sometimes even my comfortable self gets caught up in stupid thought patterns.
Recently, I was upset that my bonus daughters are watching Gilmore Girls with their biological mother.
I had thought that sharing the crown jewel of comfort kits with the next generation would be one of the most wonderful joys of parenthood, but I would miss out on that because I only have boys.
I stopped my moaning: so what? Gilmore Girls is a series about coffee, a quirky small town, parenting and relationships. Are these only themes affecting the female gender?
I grabbed my bump under my arm and pressed play.
“It’s a legit pro series”, he announced at half an hour as a sign of approval.
These days, we’re so hooked on Gilmore Girls that we already watch it for breakfast.
Correction 1 November 2023 at 15:48: Corrected the section “Once upon a time” to “Still some day”.
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