My son, known on the pages of this blog as "Mystery Man", is turning 18 and graduating high school in two weeks. Like most parents, I wonder where the time went and how he morphed from a little guy playing with Leggos into the big lug who spent the day yesterday in the trunk of his car drilling holes into the window ledge for his car speakers. However, I doubt that he gives it much thought. He's very content, sure of himself, and basically happy to remind me that he could bench press me if I get in his way. And then he laughs and gives me a little punch to the shoulder which is 18-year-old-boy-speak for "luv ya, Ma!"
When I was pregnant with this second child, we found out we were having a boy at the last ultrasound exam. The technician asked us if we wanted to know the sex and since I was due in 3 weeks, we said sure, why not. We were floored when she said we were having a boy. I don't know why we thought it was impossible, but since we had just had a daughter 20 months before, and I came from a family of five girls, we had pretty much dismissed the possibility. We didn't even have any boys’ names picked out. I remember leaving the facility in an excited daze and teaching my law class that night with my mind wandering and smiling like the cat that ate the canary. As I lectured on easements and prescriptive rights, my mind was trying to wrap around the notion that I was going to be the mother of a boy.
I didn't have a clue how to raise a boy. Lacking brothers, and with only a few male cousins, I had no role models to turn to. Men were basically a mystery to me and I was amazed that I'd managed to hook up with my husband. My personal world was pretty much populated with women, as my husband soon discovered when he and my father would be the only men at a twenty-something gathering on the holidays.
As a charter subscriber to Ms. Magazine, I knew what NOT to do: no sexism, no machismo, no violence, and no guns. Great. But what should replace all this culture chaff? What do we replace all the testosterone insensitivity with? Who would teach him to fish? Why did he have to know how to fish? Would I have to sit through karate lessons? And oh my god, he'd have to be circumcised! I panicked as if I was going to be the mohelim myself. Why didn't I pay attention in childbirth class when the instructor was discussing the controversy over circumcising? (Perhaps because I was falling asleep and dying to go home and eat dinner.) I panicked all the way home and arrived in a dither.
This is when the need for a male and a female parent kicks in. In the midst of my sputtering, my husband reminded me that he had a pretty good idea of how to be both a boy and a man and what they liked and disliked. And he was a great father, very nurturing, very involved. And anytime I felt he was gearing towards that beer-drinking, chest-thumping, tool-wielding caricature, there was my voice and that of my four sisters, two grandmothers, three aunts, and two great aunts to counteract it. .
Right.
Having the first son in a family light on men was an adjustment for everyone. My family knew how to play with a baby girl. Jessica was painting her nails and playing with the piano at 18 months. They gave her their purses to carry around and allowed her to put on lipstick. Baby dolls were ubiquitous and she had great aunts knitting her doll blankets faster than she could burp all those plastic-headed babies.
They didn't have the slightest idea what to do with a boy. Why is he so noisy? Why is he so messy? Gee, he has A Lot of Energy. These were the words that I heard for the first seven years of my son's life. It didn't help that despite all the educational toys that were showered on him by well-meaning aunts, the son only wanted to play with the antenna of the portable telephone and to use anything as a hammer. He had a strong attachment to anything metal that made noise, like ashtrays that could be banged; the vacuum that roared, and of course, anything with wheels that could "zoom".
He got up in the morning and hit the ground running, only stopping when his head fell into his plate of mac and cheese at dinner. Literally. Fell into the plate. Snoring. That's when my knowledge was confirmed that males were a very different species. He loved building things and his Leggo sets began to rival his older sister's Barbies. A shoeless walk across any room in the dark was a life-threatening risk. Have you ever stepped on a Leggo with bare feet? The pain is indescribable. Think little plastic piece with many sharp bumps. He loved paints and crayons and swings and the sandbox and water and dirt and mud.
In short, he loved it all and we just ran behind him, keeping him away from electrical plugs and busy streets. He managed to get through his childhood unscathed and took to school easily. Other than an incredible lack of organizational skills (read: Oscar Madison), and the proclivity towards bringing home electronic junk from other people's trash piles, we can't complain much about anything he does.
But I still don't know anything about boys.
What is this innate drive to drive? What's with the attraction to fender and flash? Why do the father and son worship at the altar of giant lawn tractors? And why do homes that house boys ALWAYS end up with walls that twitch and floors that thump to the bass of an electric guitar playing Stairway to Heaven? Why is a 32 year old, rusty, falling apart Chevy Nova way cooler than a brand new red Jeep? How come he could learn to ride a bike faster than his sister who was 21 months older?
Now before you all think we are a family of old-fashioned gender defined roles, let me digress to say that my older daughter is the most rabid baseball fan I know, my younger daughter would rather have a basketball in her hands than a purse anyway, and up until about two years ago, I could take my son to the museum and he'd keep a sketchbook like his mom. We are equal opportunity parents and our kids like what they like with little influence from us. Believe me, I've tried influencing them. No matter what I dangle before them, they only pick what they like anyway.
I still don't know anything about boys, but when you think about it, I don't know much about kids in general. I mean, I put the stuff out there, and they pick and choose what they want to follow. They have a pretty clear understanding of our morals and values and seem to be able to stay on the right side of it most of the time. At least as far as I know none of them have a police record and their permanent record is fairly unscathed.
What do I know about raising boys? Stuff like if you refuse to buy your son a toy gun, he will take some bites of out the toast you carefully buttered, hold it in his hand and point it at you and say "bang, bang". I learned that when he leaves a red crayon in his pocket, it will cover all the clothes in the dryer, and the dry bin itself and you'll have to have a repairman come out to get rid of it. I also learned that hamsters will eat through every piece of an expensive plastic habitat and that pet stores have identical white gerbils to replace the one that got his neck guillotined in the cage door. I know all the rules of soccer and baseball, and learned, as he grew older, more subtle points, like sons do not want their mom to accompany them to pick out their prom tuxes, while daughters expect you to be with them for every gown twirling moment in every department store on the East Coast. Sons, however, will only confide health issues to their mother, leaving the father to learn second-hand about anything involving a doctor from the mother. Of course, there will always be mysteries that no parents will solve, like what is that sticky green stuff in the drawer of his desk, why is his waste can filled with clean clothes and a banana peel, and how do all the sheets and pillowcases come off his bed every night.
We shall miss our son when he moves to college. We are actively looking for replacement labor to pull the air conditioners in and out of the windows and to shovel the walks when it snows. We've primed the youngest daughter that she'll be taking over the role of One Who Takes Out the Garbage. And we are anticipating replenishing our ever-diminishing inventory of towels, bowls, cups, forks, and spoons by doing a sweep of his room. A sweep with a metal detector and power washer by the looks of it.
And I'm also looking forward to that day, in about ten years, when he calls me to say, "Mom, we're having a baby". And then I'll invite him over for a burger and teach him everything I know. And everything I don't.