It’s been a few years, but I’m fairly certain I taught my son to speak. I have a dim recollection of spending many happy afternoons coaxing his sweet baby-self to say “mama! Ma-ma! You can do it sweetie, Mama!” only to thrill to that blessed, blissful day when he cracked a wide, gummy grin and said clearly and with great feeling:

That one small instance of treason aside, I’m certain I taught the boy to talk. How then, to explain the fact that he is apparently struck mute when it comes to middle school? My formerly chatty child seems, overnight, to have become somewhat succinct in any speech pattern relating to school activities. Is he attending spy school up there or what?

How was your day dear?” “Good.”

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When my oldest son was a toddler, he fell in love with my daughter’s red, patent leather shoes. My husband just about shit his pants when he saw his namesake, prancing around in pretty little mary janes. He demanded that the shoes be taken off and hidden from his son’s view. Talk about paranoid! Our families tried to convince my husband that wearing girly shoes would not turn him into a flaming homo, but my husband was not about to take any chances. As little girls, my sisters and I absolutely adored dressing up and playing pretend. Sometimes we pretended to be men. Did any of us grow up to be lesbians? Nope. It was just fun to be something that we knew could never really be (without an expensive operation, of course.) My husband, being the black and white thinker that he is, did not give a rat’s patootie about my childhood stories of cross dressing and its harmless implications. No son of his would ever, ever be allowed to play with a Barbie or look like a drag queen. That was about six years ago. My how some things have changed…

Five kids and four sons later, my husband has learned to loosen up. Not because he found some source of enlightenment, but out of sheer necessity. It takes way too much time and energy to try and keep five boys from doing anything remotely emasculating. Sure, he tries to instill a love of football, ultimate fighting and belching the alphabet, in each son. What father doesn’t? He does, however, let certain behaviors and activities slide now. He has given up the quest to keep them away from Barbie dolls. I think he has seen the value of roll playing in learning social norms. Or maybe he grew tired of trying to hide the Barbies, only to hear my daughter whine about being bored. She did not get a sister until six years after her birth, making her brothers the obvious choice to play the part of Ken.

There are some things that are off limits to our sons, in Dad’s book. He does not allow them to take dance class, unless it is Hip Hop or Break Dancing. He will never be okay with the boys experimenting with make up. Nail polish, ear piercings and long hair are permanently on his list of “Hell No’ items. God forbid one of our sons decides that he is gay. My husband could give a damn if somebody else has a homosexual son, but it would kill him to see his son “float around the room like a fairy.” Some things will never change. You can imagine his reaction when I showed him this picture of Reed, our youngest son, donning the thong undies that he stole from my drawer and made into a leotard:

This is a rant. This is only a rant. For the next few paragraphs, this blog will conduct a rant about men. This is only a rant. If this had been an actual essay, the entry you’re about to read would have included actual sources to back up the claims it made.

I’m not a fan of stereotyping. I think it can lead to prejudices and other bad things. I also think that if people hold up a stereotype as the norm, then those who don’t fit into that set of characteristics are left a little confused about their identities, maybe ashamed of who they are, and try in an unhealthy way to make themselves be more like the group they were born into. But, this particular entry is going to just neatly set aside those particular beliefs a little bit.

I’ve always liked the company of men. My very first best friend was the little boy across the street. In high school and college my closest confidants were men. My husband is still my very best friend. And the people I choose to hang out with now as an old, married, mother of three are younger single men.

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We often hear about the victimization of women and young girls as the tragic recipients and victims of violence. We also hear about the suppression of women and the constant struggle for equal rights and equal opportunities. It has been a long battle to shorten the gap between social and political disparities between the genders while progress continues to be made with the aid of social activists and support networks.

But boys aren’t without challenges growing up in America today either and it is easy to take for granted that boys will fend for themselves. The stereotypes of boys is both a curse and burden as girls are warned of their intentions early on, “Don’t trust boys. Boys are only after one thing. Boys try to dominate. Boys suppress their feelings and keep healthy emotions bottled up. Boys are more violent. Boys are aggressive. Boys are…”, the list goes on.

In some ways, I actually think it’s harder to be a boy growing up in America today. When a mother of only boys introduces her children to a stranger, she is often met with eyes of sympathy. I am no exception when I think about my preconceived, ideal family make-up which always included a girl to dress up like a doll and plan a ginormous wedding for. Now that I have boys and am done having children, acceptance has prevailed and I have learned to love having the challenge, uniqueness and pleasure of having boys only. I have grown to appreciate them immensely. From the request for shaggy haircuts, torn jean fashions and maxin’ and relaxin’ to Drake and Josh, life is both amusing and sweet with boys in it.

I do worry about them though and the expectations on them in our society. Will a girl come along and break their hearts, will they be discouraged from exploring boyish wonders while society forces them to get real with their feminine sides? Will teachers, historically partial to girls anyway, treat them unfairly and will they be able to find a balance between sticking up for themselves and empathy? We want our boys to embrace our expectations when it benefits our society, like providing for their families or working in the coal mines or having the strength to lift a dead body to a gurney, yet we want them to go against their biological instincts and be more like women. Our society despises them as much as they expect from them. We expect our boys to fight on the front lines and risk their lives for us, yet society tries to constantly diminish their roles and contributions. What is a boy to do?

It breaks my heart when mothers are disappointed when they hear they’re having a boy. Of course, both genders would be ideal, but my point is that boys are not a punishment and I think they are sometimes perceived as such. While we need to raise our boys to be compassionate, responsible and kind, we should also celebrate the differences between boys and girls and not attribute values to one gender over another. Boys should be celebrated too and if one is lucky to have more than one or all boys, they should count themselves lucky to be initiated into the boys club.