Indeed

The other day before leaving for work Heidi had left notes for each of the kids in their rooms.  She does this sometimes on days she doesn’t get to see them much, and this particular day she had missed out on some of her normal time with them because of a birthday party we had to go to.  The kids loved it.  Julia had said that she wanted to write a note for Heidi and then promptly forgot about it until about 8:45pm, an hour or so after bedtime.  I was frustrated, having just started a movie and hoping to enjoy a quiet evening.  I got up, retrieved her a piece of paper and a crayon.  She then asked me how to spell various words and we talked about how she could sound out the words she wanted to use and do her very best to spell them.  My movie was paused and I was anxious to get back to it.  She said “I’ll find a book to help me.”  Ok baby, I told her, be good and don’t color on anything except the paper.

Two hours later the movie is over and I head up to bed, stopping to check on the kids.  I walk into Julia’s room expecting to find a note somewhere for me to deliver to Heidi.

 Let me interrupt at this point by saying that currently Julia has the distinction of being a five year old that has to be barricaded into her room.  We’ve resorted to the old baby gate because she absolutely refuses to stay in her room.  No amount of rewards or punishments seems to do the trick.  So the baby gate goes up until she falls asleep and then it comes off.  If she has to potty she calls me and I’ll come up and take her to the potty.  But this is a child who WILL NOT stay put.  And if all she did was head to the playroom and sit quietly with her toys, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  No.  Julia has been found creating wall art, decorating the bathroom with toothpaste, and just in general up to no good.  So the baby gate it is. 

Anyway, when I was in her room, I didn’t see a note, so I assumed she’d given up on the project and I felt horribly, thinking I would help her in the morning so she could write a note for Heidi. 

I closed her door and went into my room only to find a note for Heidi on her nightstand.  Little stinker.  She must have gotten her brother to deliver the note on her behalf.  Resourceful.  I pick up the note to read what she’s written, and about fall over laughing. 

Apparently her book of choice to help her write her letter?  The Bible. 

Exhibit A:

In case you can’t read her writing, it appears she’s written:

“Indeed now your servant has found you peace.  Set. So I born a pigs.  I love Momo.  [Happy Face]”

While I’m not sure where the pig reference is from specifically, the “Indeed now your servant has found you…” is the beginning of Genesis 19:19 (at least that’s the phraseology used in her Precious Moments Bible), which I discovered when googling what she had written to figure out what verse it was.  What’s ironic about this is that Genesis 19:19 is the middle of the passages about Sodom and Gomorrah, so often used as one of the clobber passages against families like ours.  The humor in this must not be overlooked. 

I called Heidi immediately, as she was on her way home, and was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.  I refused to read her the note on the phone, however, because it was too good not to be able to see her face.  The next morning, she told Julia how much she loved her note and Julia was very proud. 

And for the record? 

She scaled the baby gate to put the note in our room. 

Dammit.

Justice for All

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that a horrible verdict came down in a horrible case concerning the murder of a little girl named Caylee Anthony.  Like the rest of the world, I’d love to know what the jury was thinking.  Ultimately, that little girl’s mother will have to answer for her actions at some point.

I was discussing the case last night and the conversation turned to media frenzy, rumors of Casey Anthony being pregnant with her attorney’s child, and celebrity.  My theory on it is that the more we turn the cameras on her, even as much of a reviled person she is, the easier it becomes for her to go from pariah to media darling.  Shut off the cameras, ignore her, let her try and walk the streets in public without being recognized.  Her life will not be pleasant, nor should it be.  But if we keep documenting and reporting her every move, every rumor, every detail of her disgusting life, the better the chance is that we’ll turn around one day and she’ll be the next contestant on Dancing With the Stars. 

Even that, though, isn’t what bothers me the most.  What bothers me the most is what nobody really wants to talk about.  Why are we so invested in this case?  Why are we so passionate about “Justice for Caylee?”  I’d love to say that it’s because we are appalled every time a child is abused, murdered, or abducted, and it is patently wrong for us not to be invested in these cases.  I might buy that.  And I think for many of us, that’s true.  This was different though.  This was an incredibly high profile case.  What makes it high profile?  Why does the media grasp on to a story like this and plaster all over every news and social media site until the public is worked into a mob mentality?  What makes this case unique?

It’s not the fact that a child was murdered and then lied about.  It’s not the fact that her grandparents participated in the deception.  It’s not the fact that Casey Anthony clearly is some sort of psychopath who partied while her daughter was denied a death with dignity.  All of those things are awful.  Wrong.  Evil. 

But it helps quite a bit in the court of public opinion that Caylee Anthony was a little white girl with a white mom living in suburban Florida. 

That’s ok.  I’ll sit and wait for the indignation to pass.

Ok, now.  Think about it.  Think about all the high profile kidnapping and child murder cases.  Caylee Anthony, Jaycee Dugard, Madeline McCann, Haleigh Cummings, Brittanee Drexel.  When was the last time a missing African American boy from the inner city made the news? 

Take a trip over to the website for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  A quick search for my home state of California reveals 384 missing kids.  125 of them Caucasian.  Less than a third.  Nationally, less than half of missing children are white (44%) And yet the news doesn’t cover the stories of these kids.  The public doesn’t rage at a system that isn’t delivering justice for these kids. 

Recently, in my hometown paper, the story of a young girl who suffered extreme abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother (her biological aunt who took her and her siblings in) came to light.  She’s 19 now, but when she managed to escape her environment, which included severe beatings, broken bones, confinement to a closet, she was 15.  She’d been living with her aunt since she was a small child.  When she finally was treated for her injuries, they documented over 100 active injuries.  Broken bones, healing scars, missing teeth.  The closet she was regularly confined to was barely enough space for her to turn around in.  She was pulled from school by her aunt and apparently there was one CPS visit that didn’t turn up anything (clearly they didn’t look very hard).  She’s 19 now and living on her own with the help of public assistance.  She’s attending college.  Haven’t heard of the story?  No, I thought not.  Lilly Manning is black. 

Why wasn’t the press camped out at the courtroom when Lilly’s aunt and her husband went to trial?  Where was everyone’s righteous indignation then?  Why hasn’t someone demanded justice for Lilly?  She was lucky enough to survive, but so was Jaycee Dugard.  Jaycee Dugard is getting book deals and $20 million from the State of California.  Lilly is living on food stamps.  Yes, every case is different, but clearly there’s a huge disconnect here between the kids who get attention in the media and the kids who don’t.

I’m not saying Caylee Anthony doesn’t deserve our outrage at the lack of justice delivered on her behalf.  I’m saying don’t be lulled into thinking that the kids who get the media attention are the only ones out there.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of kids who deserve justice.  If you learn anything from Caylee Anthony’s case, learn that most kids never get that justice.  It is right for us to be outraged.  It is right for us to be appalled and disgusted that these things happen.  It is right for us to stand up and demand justice.  But we’ve got to stand up and demand justice for all the kids out there and start demanding visibility for the kids who don’t have the benefit of white privilege just as much as those who do. 

Always and Never

When you’re a struggling infertile deep in the midst of treatment, you fantasize about what life will be like when you finally bring a child home.  You watch moms around you and you create this mental list of thing things you’ll “never” do (or “always” do, as the case may be), and you’ll silently chastise the moms you see violating this invisible list of musts and mustn’ts in your head.  You think that these moms you see must not know what a gift they have in their children.  Surely they must be fertile, because if she had to work for her child she’d know how precious and amazing her children are and never (or always) do x, y, or z.  We all do it. 

“I’ll never speak to my child in frustration.  My child is a gift, and I will not waste words on him/her that are anything less than positive.”
Really?  When your beautiful gift decides to scale the washing machine in order to get to the bleach up on the shelf, manage to open the childproof cap, and dump said bleach into the DRYER filled with her own clothes, I’m sure the only words out of your mouth will be calm and collected.  You know what’s fun too?  Finding a bathroom mirror covered in hair spray because your five year old daughter can’t control the irresistible urge to spray any spray bottle within a 50 mile radius of those precious little fingers.  Frustration?  No.  I love when my house smells like febreze, hairspray, and every perfume I’ve ever owned all at one time.

“My child will only eat organic food I make myself.  I’ll never let my child eat processed sugars or McDonald’s.” 
Right.  And when your littlest gift is barely on the weight chart and refuses to eat anything you put in front of her, you’ll drive through the golden arches every freaking day to get her some chicken nuggets if she would only eat for chrissakes.  What?  Gogurt?  Have 10, kid.  For the love of all that is holy, please EAT.

“I’ll never (or only – depending on your leanings) co-sleep with my child.”
Really? For a good few months my son slept in his carseat.  And the swing.  And laying next to me nursing.  For crying out loud just sleep.  I almost don’t care where.

“I’ll only breastfeed.”
Good luck with that, and by God I hope you manage it.  But guess what.  Breastfeeding is fucking HARD.  Made harder when you’re anemic from blood loss in delivery, a baby in the NICU, and being exhausted.  And your milk never actually comes in.  How about, “I’ll breastfeed if I can, and not beat myself up if I can’t, and for eff’s sake I’ll never judge anyone else for their ability or inability (or CHOICE) to breastfeed.

“Plastic toys made in China will not be in my home.”
You might not buy them.  But someone, usually a grandparent, will.  And before you can say “lead content” your lovely little one will have shoved that officially licensed, anything-but-gender-neutral, plastic piece of crap in his mouth and decided it’s his favorite toy in the whole world.  Soon you’ll be posting pictures on facebook of how cute he is asleep with it.

“I’ll never bribe my children with food/toys/treats for behavior.”
HA!  I should have bought stock in M&Ms before we started potty training.  Sometimes, food works.  Whether it’s potty training or promising ice cream if they behave in the grocery store, food can be a great motivator.  And really, you’re doing the other shoppers a public service because that ice cream promise is keeping your little guy from a royal meltdown in the middle of the produce aisle.

“I will never use the tv as a babysitter, and when/if my child watches television, it will only be educational and positive programming.”
Do you ever want to take a shower longer than 15 seconds?  Shave your legs?  Figure out if what they say about removable shower heads is true?  Then guess what?  The tv is going to be your friend.  And eventually, they will learn who SpongeBob is.  Because when they go to the dentist and they give them a balloon and a bag of goodies there will be SpongeBob toothpaste in there, and it just.  Happens.  And then they’re 5 and the last thing you want to do is watch another freaking episode of Caillou.  So you don’t mind that your son would rather watch ESPN and your daughter asks you to watch House Hunters (or Glee) because it’s nice to watch something with them that doesn’t require you to want to jam a pencil in your eye. 

Have I made my point?  Raising children is HARD.  It doesn’t matter if you got pregnant in the back of a Chevrolet Impala on prom night or spent 10 years and furnished your RE’s house twice in order to have a child.  Yes, make no mistake, children are a gift.  And we shouldn’t speak to them in frustration, and we should feed them nutritious food, and we should monitor what they watch, and make sure we protect them at every step and turn as best we can.  But for crying out loud don’t believe for a second that whatever that list of “nevers” and “always” in your head isn’t going to go straight out the window as soon as that kid(s) shows up. (PS, this also will happen with your “birth plan.”)  Sometimes, that mom in the store telling little Susie and Johnny to get over here RIGHT NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GOD is just sleep deprived, overworked, underpaid, and doing her very best.  And more often than not, she’ll finish in the store, load her littles up in the car, and spend two or three minutes crying at the steering wheel for violating her own inner list of “nevers” and “always”.  She’ll look over her shoulder and tell them “Mommy’s sorry for being frustrated, she loves you very much.”  And she’ll try to remind herself not to be so hard on herself.  She’ll climb up the stairs and check on them while they sleep and promise to try harder. 

I might be trying to be funny on some of this, but the reality is, it’s SO EASY to judge other people’s parenting.  Sometimes I think infertiles are the best at it.  I’m guilty too.  So I’m making a new promise.  I’ll focus more on MY decisions rather than second-guessing someone else’s.  And I won’t use “always” or “never” when I talk about things I will and won’t do with my kids and remind myself that it’s ok to make mistakes. 

My kids are an amazing gift.  They’re gifts that can be sweet, and loving, and frustrating, and button-pushing, and tiring.  Kids are all those things no matter how easy or hard they were to come by.  I hope you can live up to every “always” and “never” on your list.  I can’t.  And I’m a better parent because I’ve given up on some of those “always” and “nevers”.  If I hadn’t, I’d never known the joys of co-sleeping, learned how to support fellow moms who couldn’t breastfeed, watched my daughter’s eyes light up at the sight of a hideous plastic princess vanity on Christmas morning, or enjoyed singing along with my kids to the songs from “Glee” because I let them watch it with me.  Is it perfect?  Nope.  And it’s much better that way.

Donor Unknown

I had heard about the film “Donor Unknown” via a message board I infrequently post to. The Tribeca film festival was screening it on their website on Friday, and I reluctantly reserved myself a seat. I say reluctantly, because I’m always a little leery of how donor sperm issues are portrayed in the media. I’ve already had to fight the “what does their father look like” from people close enough to me, and equating our sperm donor with a person to whom my children are tied from a familial perspective always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The film is about a group of young adult, donor-conceived children who find each other and ultimately their sperm donor, through the help of the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). We are members of the registry, and have made contact, and a small private facebook group, of families with children who are “donor siblings” of Nate & Julia. They include a set of girl twins, a daughter, two sons (two different families), another set of boy/girl twins, and us. We’ve since learned there’s another daughter, and contact has been made to hopefully have them join us on facebook.

We’ve had the pleasure of meeting one of the families in person, and our children have enjoyed time together. I would consider us friends. What I don’t consider their son, at this time in this journey, my children’s brother. While they share genetic material, they do not share parents.

The film was centered specifically around the youngest of the donor-conceived children of California Cryobank donor #150. At one point in the film, after the identity of the donor is revealed (he came forward after seeing a story in the New York Times), she finds the donor’s father and visits him, calling him her “grandfather.” This didn’t sit well with me, for a lot of reasons. One, it seemed a violation of the donor’s privacy. While I believe our children have the right to have medical information about their donors, and the opportunity to meet them once everyone is an adult, co-opting a donor’s family as one’s own seems to be overstepping this boundary considerably. Two, in my opinion, this man was not (he’s since passed away) her grandfather. He may be related to her by genetics, but her grandfathers would be the men who were fathers to the parents who raised her.

Now, here’s where my belief in what makes family may be playing too large a role in my opinions on this. Because bloodlines to me have absolutely nothing to do with family. My best friends are family to me. My friend Bianca and I might as well be sisters. I love her.  Our friendship has withstood time, falling outs, and traumatic events.  Her mother treats me like her own daughter. Heidi’s best friend’s mother is “Nana Deborah” to our children. She has not one drop of blood relationship to them.  So my inability to see the donor’s extended family as an extended family to the donor conceived children is largely a product of my inability to believe that blood is thicker than water.

What were poignant to me were the relationships that had developed between the donor conceived children. Regardless of whether they called themselves sisters or brothers, clearly these kids needed these relationships. One of the young women noted that not only were these the first donor siblings she’d met, but the first donor conceived people she’d ever met. While I believe it’s my responsibility to expose my children to other kids like them, that wasn’t always possible for these earlier trailblazers because families had no way to connect with one another. In today’s age of the DSR, gay and lesbian parenting groups, and the internet, finding other people like you is easier and easier.

Unfortunately, the film was filmworthy partially because the donor himself was a caricature. Living at Venice Beach in an old, beat-up RV; homeless by choice; his eccentricities became a strong focus of the film. One of the mothers mentioned that learning about him was almost the death of a fantasy she held in her head about the kind of person he was. I have no such fantasies about our donor. In my mind he’s a college student finding easy ways to make money while getting through school. Maybe he believes he’s helping families achieve their dreams of children or maybe he believes it’s an easy way to make a buck. The reality is I have more information on my donor’s family and health history than I have on my own. I’m disappointed that the donor in this film is the way he is, not because of some crazy dream I have about what a donor should be, but because who he is gets so much attention that who the kids are is overshadowed.

I get it. It’s much more interesting to do a movie about a wacky guy and the kids his sperm made. But like everything surrounding “alternative” family building – whether it’s lesbian families, IVF, surrogacy – the REAL stories aren’t interesting. It’s much more sensational to make movies about guys like the donor in this movie, or films about surrogates who change their minds, or IVF embryo switching. Meanwhile, mainstream people believe that these sensationalized stories are the norm rather than the exception. While it may be boring to read about what real families dealing with these things are actually like, the more we hold up movies like “Donor Unknown” as an opportunity for people to understand how are families are built, the more we do ourselves a disservice. On top of it, holding up the donor as some sort of icon in our families minimizes the completeness of our own familial unit. If we want OUR stories told, then we have to be willing to tell it. To remove the hushed whispers. To make conceiving via a donor, be it a sperm donor or an egg donor (the differences between which are so vast that deserves a whole other post), something that doesn’t make people think of some crazy guy living in an RV as your child’s “father.”

My children have two mothers. They have a plethora of aunts, uncles, friends, Godparents, and all sort of folks who have influence in their lives. Half of their genetic make up is tied to a man I’ll likely never meet. Yes, I made that decision for my children and I can’t un-make it. Will they resent me for it later? Possibly. And if so, probably only for a short time. The reality is, it’s not my kids I worry about when it comes to understanding and assimilating the information surrounding being donor-conceived. It’s the rest of the world. But the only way to change people’s perceptions is to stop producing media – be it news articles or movies – that glorifies the exceptions among us.

Five

To Nathan and Julia, on the eve of your fifth birthday.

My sweet babies. Tomorrow you will be five years old. I’m seriously not sure how this is happening. I can still remember driving to the hospital the day of your birth. We were sure they were going to send us back home, since it was a full week and a half before the scheduled c-section. But I felt funny; different, and off we went.

That day, my whole world shifted. I had always known I wanted to be a mother. From the time your Uncle D was born when I was almost 7 years old I knew. But the day you finally took your first breaths in this world it was like I had just taken my first breath.

This past year has been amazing and challenging with you both, for many different reasons. You’re learning to assert your independence in new ways – negotiating and finding ways to play on your strengths (and sometimes my weaknesses) to get what you want. Luckily, most of the time we still outsmart you and can see through what you might be doing to your real intentions (like stalling bedtime to tell me you just want to say you love me – well played my loves, well played.)

The sheer level of sass emerging from you, “General Sassypants,” this year (you were promoted from Captain shortly after your 4th birthday) has really thrown me for a loop. Sometimes I have to stop myself from responding with a matching level of sass (or laughing) because you are so sassy beyond your years. But then, I’ll find myself under the weather or fighting a migraine and you turn into “Little Momma Julia,” bringing me sodas or kissing my forehead and brushing my hair off my face with such sensitivity and love it blows me away.

Recently, the talk of school starting and moving has thrown you outside of your comfort zone in a big way, and I’ve learned just how much like me you are. Even being away at your grandparents’ house for a few days was a lot for you, and you came home talking about how great it was to be back in our own house. I can tell already how hard going to school is going to be for you, and I can only hope you adjust quickly.

You might be a sassy smart little thing, but you are your mommy’s kindred spirit in so many ways. And you are in tune with me in ways I don’t even realize until you say something that knocks me sideways. You’re amazing, and adorable, and beautiful, and crazy and funny and loving. You make me laugh and you can make me cry and I love you bigger than the sky. I promise to do everything I can to nurture that bright amazing spirit you have.

The yin to Julia’s yang, my sweet boy Nathan. Your sweet nature continues to grow and grow and I long to find ways to continue to encourage your sensitive nature. You have amazed us this year with your capacity for reading and math, and you’d think that we drill you daily with as much as you can do. You’re reading at a 3rd grade level, doing subtraction in your head, and counting by 2s and 3s and 5s. I worry so much about you starting school, not because I don’t think you will do well, but because I want so badly for you to continue to be challenged. I pray your kindergarten teacher does more with you than make you the “Teacher’s helper.” Of course, reading at age 4 means your mommies can’t fool you anymore by telling you the restaurant doesn’t have root beer or mac and cheese. You’ll simply point and say, “yes they do, it says right here – ‘ROOT BEER’.”

Sometimes I wonder just where you came from, little man. You’re smart and funny and sweet and athletic and I think back to that little angry baby on the ventilator. Your mommies were so scared and so in love with you and all I wanted was for you to be home in my arms with your sister. I love the way you come running when I ask for a hug without even a pause. I love the way you will wrap your arms around me and pat my back and give me a kiss smack on the lips. The way your eyes light up when we walk into a restaurant that has sports playing on the tv makes me laugh, because I know sometime in the future you will have a wife or a husband who asks you, “PLEASE, just this once, can we watch The Bachelor Season 42 instead of Golf’s Greatest Putts?”

My beautiful babies, the differences between you can be summed up by your reactions to the same roller coaster ride experience: Julia, you bounded off the ride with a “that was awesome let’s go again!” while Nate cried out “that was TOTALLY NOT FUN!” But none of that matters when I creep up the stairs while you are playing together in the playroom and I hear one of you say “I love you” to the other. For 5 years you’ve been each other’s best friends, and I can only hope you will always be this close.

On the eve of your fifth birthday, I cry for the babies you are no longer, because you are closer now to thinking I don’t understand you than you are to thinking I hung the moon. But guess what? I’m always going to think you hung the moon and sun and no matter how old you are that will never change.

On the eve of your fifth birthday, I rejoice in the people you are becoming, and I hope for the wisdom to be able to nurture you in ways that encourage who you are and not who I or anyone else wants you to be. Because all I want you to be is your best, your most authentic you.

On the eve of your fifth birthday, I will climb the stairs and open your doors while you sleep, lean in and kiss your cheeks and look at you with the same awe and joy that I did five years ago. I will whisper “I love you” and I will pause for a second before I close your doors just to memorize the moment. Tomorrow you go from babies to big kids. And even though you already tell me you aren’t babies anymore, you’ll always be my babies. Five years ago I took what felt like my first breath when you took yours, and my life has never been the same. I love you, to the moon and stars and sun and back.

Happy Birthday.

Barbie and Wii and TV - Oh My!

Look out folks, it’s about to get offensive around these parts. Well, maybe.

No, I’m not going drop f-bombs or talk about my girl parts.

We’re going to talk about toys. No, not THOSE kinds of toys. Kids’ toys. Dollhouses, and cars, and books and such.

The reality is, this post is part of a larger set of posts done all around the interwebs (is that the “in” term these days?) about how much we judge each other as parents. It all starts before our children are even conceived. Assisted Reproduction vs. “natural” conception vs. adoption. Natural or medicated childbirth? Breast vs. bottle? On and on and on. And it doesn’t stop once the children grow out of infancy. We judge each other for EVERY. single. parenting decision we see other people make. See a kid acting up in a restaurant? We assume “someone” doesn’t know how to handle discipline. Hear a mom chastising her daughter for acting up? We wonder why mom doesn’t understand that Tar.get isn’t interesting for a 3 year old and why can’t she be more laid back and relaxed? Mom’s texting while her kid is on the slide? GASP, what a neglectful parent she is! Mom stays home with her kids and homeschools? Her kids will grow up antisocial and mom will never have her own life.

When does it end? And why won’t we just end it?

Kids’ toys are an easy target. SUPER easy target. Come on, look at Barbie. Her unwieldy proportions and her hooker heels and lack of anatomically correct parts – the box should come with a warning – “other mothers will JUDGE YOU for purchasing this for your child.” Wii and Xbox games should have one that says “your house will become the house that other children whose parents won’t let them have video games flock to, stock up on cheetos.” DVD’s of Dis.ney movies should say “find your own rainy day solution when all you want is a shower and they won’t stop nagging you for Halloween candy.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are things I won’t buy for my kids and there are things that I think aren’t appropriate. I’m not some total slack off of a parent who lets her son (my daughter isn’t particularly interested in video games) play Grand Theft Auto at four years old after turning off the DVD stocked with horror flicks while his sister wanders around with a copy of the latest Danielle Steele in large print.

But I am that parent who will let her kids play bowling on the Wii and watch Toy Story and Tinkerbell and play with Barbie and plastic kitchens and Mc.Donald’s toys, and sings along with them to the latest in pop music.

Now, I have NO problem if that’s not you. If you want to only buy things without plastic parts or throw your TV out or teach that Dis.ney is evil, go right ahead. Seriously. I won’t judge you, and I will respect your wishes when invited to your kid’s birthday party and if you decide your kid can’t come to my house because he or she will be exposed to things you don’t approve of, fine. I don’t need convincing that too much TV is bad or too much time playing video games is not ideal, or that there are toys with lead in them, or that you think that buying the things I let my kids have thwarts their creativity. I am just as conscientious a mom as you are. I research lead content, monitor what they watch and for how long, and only allow age appropriate Wii games in the house. We read before bed EVERY night and we talk with them all the time about what is and isn’t appropriate language and dress for their age.

So my question is this. If I can be respectful because you choose NOT to buy those things or let your children watch tv or whatever, don’t I deserve the same respect? The reality is, the toy judgment is just ONE MORE extension of the mommy-lympics that goes on as soon as we conceive a child. And it has to stop. As parents we are really good at criticizing ourselves for our choices; really good at second-guessing ourselves; really good at feeling guilty for every indulgence or thing withheld from our children. Trust me. I’m a gold medalist in self-doubt. There’s enough judgment from within without having to deal with it from other moms too.

Barbie lives in my house. Actually lots of Barbies live there. So do Buzz Lightyear, two leapfrog Tag readers, a Disney Princess vanity, boatloads of books, cars, and dress up clothes, glittery princess lip gloss, and a crapload of other toys lots of people probably don’t approve of.

And two four-year olds live there. Two four-year olds who are learning to read, learning to swim, behave themselves in public and say please and thank you most of the time. They are happy, and healthy, and I spend every day making sure they are ok. If you have to judge me, judge me on that.

Boys Will Be Boys, Even With Painted Toenails

There’s a column I read on Slate.com that’s called Dear Prudence. Granted, it’s an advice column, and Emily Yoffe gets it wrong more than half the time (in my opinion). But often the letters are comical, and the real fun lies in reading the comments from readers arguing whether Emily Yoffe got it wrong and why they are better informed or more right or morally outraged or whatever it happens to be.

The most recent column includes a letter from the parents of a five-year-old boy who asked (repeatedly and from Santa as well) for a skirt for Christmas. Now, the parents of said child make it clear this is not an issue for them, but wonder at what point they need to quell his desire to dress up as girl in order to make him more socially conforming for venues such as school, etc…

There’s been a lot about gender expression in the media lately, most recently a large uproar over a blog about a little boy dressing up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween .

This whole issue strikes a chord for me because, well, I have both a son and a daughter and they are both growing up in this world that still thinks that it’s ok for little girls to be tomboys but not for little boys to enjoy traditionally “girl” things. Look at the word that gets used for them – “sissy”. It’s pejorative. “Tomboy” is often said about little girls with pride – about little girls who don’t mind getting dirty or playing sports or who don’t spend hours with Barbie dolls. A “sissy” is weak. Because “girls” are weak. A boy who acts like or enjoys “girl” activities is going to be gay (like that’s a bad thing). Boys who play dress up are going to grow up and want sex change operations.

Really?

I have a four-year-old son. He plays t-ball, basketball, and is itching to be six so he can play football. The kid can throw a ball like nobody’s business. He asked Santa for a marshmallow shooter gun and a remote control car for Christmas.

And that kid loves to wear nail polish.

So. The. Eff. What.

He’ll also play princess dress up with his sister, wear a pink headband with his Buzz Lightyear pajamas, and scream at the top of his lungs at the tv when Heidi’s Colts get a touchdown.

Boys get the short end of the stick in a lot of ways in our society. Girls get all the sparkly pretty fun, and Moms and Dads and whoever else “oohs” and “aahs” over them and well, who wouldn’t want to participate in all of that? So a little boy wants a skirt, or wants to wear tights, or paint his nails. Guess what? Chances are he’ll grow out of it. Chances are, he’ll grow up to be a healthy, happy, productive member of society. And that won’t change just because you buy him a skirt.

The danger here is that when you start telling little boys that they can’t have a skirt because that’s for girls, you tell him that there’s a part of him, a part of who he is and what he wants to learn about, that isn’t ok. You send a message that he’s different in a way that isn’t ok to you – the person (or people) in his life who are supposed to love him unconditionally.

The other side of this coin is what if your little boy doesn’t grow out of it? To which my answer is, “And? What if he doesn’t?” As someone with friends who are transgender and friends with people whose children are transgender, I believe that the best thing a parent can do for a child exploring his or her gender identity is to have an open dialogue with the child and always make it clear that you love that child unconditionally.

Does non-traditional gender expression open a child up to teasing? Absolutely. Do we want to protect our child from the stares and taunts of other children (and more disheartening, other parents)? Clearly. Ultimately, though, forcing a child to believe that his or her expressions of gender in terms of halloween costumes and painted nails and hair length will make you love him or her any less is just as damaging if not more so. Bullying is a serious issue in this country, and children are bullied for a lot less than gender identity issues. But a child’s first bully shouldn’t be his parents. And by suppressing or quashing a child’s choice of attire or adornment because of it being traditionally for the opposite gender puts that parent in that role. Making a child feel less than because of his painted nails or her short hair makes a parent no better than a schoolyard bully. Sure, the intentions are different, but made worse because now the child feels unsafe in the one place that should always be safe – home.

My son loves nail polish. He loves to show it off. He likes colors like blue, and black, and yellow, and green. He likes it on his toenails. He likes it on his fingernails. And he throws a mean spiral with those painted nails. One of these days he’ll likely stop wearing it. And I’ll miss the way he’d run up to me to show me what new color the nanny painted them or how sweet his little toes looked all decked out in purple polish because he knows it’s mommy’s favorite color.

Love them. Let them be who they are. Not who you want them to be.