That thing I wrote the other day about not knowing if I regret having a daughter… remember that?
This is my fear (rational or not) about raising boys exclusively: I just don’t think, eventually, that I will understand them entirely. They are going to grow up with a different cultural reference than I have. There will come a day that Jeff will implicitly understand something about their maleness, and I will feel confused and left out.
Actually I think that day may have already come. On Wednesday, to be precise.
Within about an hour on Wednesday evening the boys:
· Used colored pencils as guns and ran around pretending to shoot each other (including the toddler);
· Upon being told that wasn’t safe, turned the pencils into swords and swash-buckled around the house;
· Rearranged the furniture (these are the same kids who claim they aren’t strong enough to carry in groceries, by the way), thus transforming the living room into an indoor football arena, and played a full-contact game with a regulation-sized football, using the Christmas tree as a goal-post;
· Cranked up the stereo and flattened an enormous cardboard box which they used as a dance floor, which was totally fine until they
· Turned dancing into a game called “Push Each Other Off The Box,” whereupon Caleb—at a distinct size disadvantage—was plowed into a wall and started crying;
· Turned the sofa into their personal stunt-man-training-facility, which also resulted in Caleb crying. And bleeding;
· Placed the flattened box at the top of the stairs and helped Caleb lay down on it and said something about “…sledding!” and were clearly planning on launching the poor baby to his death until I intervened.
They accomplished this destruction in under one hour.
The sledding incident pushed me over the edge. I may have yelled. Okay, I did yell.
And Jensen, offended at being told (in nicer words of course) that he was a complete bonehead, threw up his hands and rolled his eyes and said, “But, Mom, there isn’t anything to do that doesn’t involve hurting each other!”
I fell into stunned silence and looked at Jeff with pleading eyes. “What is wrong with your children?” I asked silently. And he smiled. And shrugged. And he understood them with absolute clarity. I was the only one not in the loop.
It has happened.
Oh sister, my soul sister. This is my life. And I know. And I know you know. And I know you know that I know. (Enough of a loop for you?)
I am going to read THIS post to Dan. Because he needs to hear it. That this is a life with three boys. Ours. Yours. Three boys. This is it. And it is exhausting. And this post is the reason I feel so helpless most of the time.
The cliches are true. And I feel like a zookeeper. A greatly unqualified one at that!
Teresa, First, I love the way you describe what happens in your house. No, I don’t have three boys, but still, I can see it. I can hear it. I can see you standing and watching (mouth agape?).
My kids are a little younger, but they, too, can destroy a house with “weapons,” recyclables and furniture in less than an hour.
Most important, I think I know what you mean about not understanding your boys. I have a boy, and neither his father or I understand him. (Nor does Sarah, or her husband.) One day I hope one of us does, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen. Just this morning, I kid you not, J shook his head and said of 5-year-old B, “We’re just going to have to give him some wide parameters of what’s acceptable and let him go.”
Yikes.
Sigh. I see my future in this post. I have two boys, little ones. And part of me longs for a girl – for the tea parties and hair braiding, sure, but also for someone to share what you call the “cultural reference” of being a girl in this house of boys.
As always, a beautifully written, wry, and profound post.
This post made me ache. I’m not a parent yet, but I have an enormous fear of not being relate to my children if we end up with only boys. In fact, I can see myself being driven absolutely crazy from lack of patience with inherently male destructiveness. I grew up with only sisters; my husband had only brothers. It’s a sore spot in our discussion about children, my fears about that. My husband seems to think those fears are unfounded and negative and utterly not constructive. But I can’t help being afraid, can I?
I guess last Christmas sort of gave me an idea of how excluded I might feel — my husband’s parents gave him and his brothers marshmallow guns. They proceeded to load and empty them all over the living room couch and Oriental rug (at his parents’ house) in under 2 minutes. I was caught in the cross-fire, ducking behind furniture, absolutely miserable. And I was mad at myself for feeling that way but also mad at the situation for *making* me feel that way. I couldn’t understand and I didn’t want to understand. And that makes me sad.
So glad you posted about this. It’s not easy to write this way.