Tag Archives: my oldest

First Day of School – The Obligatory Post

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Actually this year, the first day of school IS special:

My oldest will be going to junior high. THIS, is the first day of the rest of his life without his mama hovering over him…

Or at least that’s how it feels to ME. I am pretty sure from his perspective I am a pesky fly that won’t go away.

I could tell he was nervous because he woke up at 6:30 this morning without an alarm or me threatening to pour cold water on him. Well, that and the fact he said, “I am nervous.”

“I am nervous too, honey.” I said. “Ooops. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that, huh? Probably didn’t help…”

Tentatively I suggested that I drive him to the bus stop because of “the huge heavy bag of school supplies” (and not because I wanted to be there on his first day as a 7th grader). He startled me with a brilliant smile, “AWESOME!”

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You can never be sure when they want to be treated like an adult, and when, a child.

Trial and error.

Today, when I thought that he would want to look cool and not be seen with his mom, he asked, “Are you going to bring your camera?”

“I wanted to but I was not going to because I assume you will be mortified?”

“Nah. I don’t care…  Where is [younger brother]? Is he still asleep? I want him to say goodbye to me at the bus stop…”

Today is full of surprises. The two of them sometimes behave as if they were mortal enemies.

“Well, go wake him up then. Tell him that you are going to a different school from now on. That the two of you will never be in the same school again.”

When my oldest came downstairs again, I asked him whether his brother was going to the bus stop with us.

“Nah. He’s still asleep.”

“Oh. He didn’t want to wake up? What did you say to him?”

“Nah. I just said ‘I am going to junior high today’ and then I kissed him on his cheek.”

Today is indeed full of surprises.

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It is still possible that when he comes home from his first day in junior high this afternoon, I am blamed for ruining his life.

For taking pictures of him at the bus stop even though I tried to do it surreptitiously by hiding behind the neighbor’s big SUV.

For standing too close next to the neighbor who was chanting, “Junior High! Junior High!”

For laughing too loudly when she called out, “You guys are moving up in the world! Look, your bus has tinted windows!”

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For raising my hand and waving as the bus drove away. It’s a force of habit. I will try and remember to stop doing it.

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Two little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell down…

Now that his older brother is going to junior high, the quieter, less outgoing Mr. Monk will be for the first time by himself in the school. No more living under the shadows of his older brother. He will be known by his name, not a little brother, and definitely not “So and so’s brother”.

He looks all of a sudden so grown-up. His own person.

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This is so silly on my part since this is not the first “First Day of School” I have gone through. Yet I know many mothers are the same: We cannot help the tears coming out even as we laugh at ourselves.

When they turn around to wave goodbye as they step onto the bus…

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When you look at their anxious faces through the window…

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Something tugs at your heart.

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Last Day of Innocence

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He may not know it but today marked an important milestone in my oldest’s life, and also in our life as parents.

My husband walked the boys to the bus stop this morning and he even took some pictures of them together waiting for the bus albeit with his phone*. This will be the last time they do this. My children will no longer attend the same school at the same time. It is kind of strange to realize this.

Today is the last day of grade school for my oldest child. After the summer, he will be a 7th grader, going on to junior high. I am dreading seeing it more and more as the end, or the beginning of the end, of childhood innocence for him. For us.

I am terrified. To me, junior high is alien territory. A murky space between child and teens.  Where the physiological development of your child propels them across the threshold of adulthood when they are still babies.

My baby.

I did not grow up here and all my education of the American high school experience and culture came from watching high school movies produced in Hollywood, starting with Porky’s. It suffices to say that Porky’s is not very helpful, nor is it reassuring, in preparing me for junior high because, well, all these movies are about senior high schools. Junior high schools are way under-represented in Hollywood. The only movie about junior high school in my recollection is The diary of a Wimpy Kid. A movie so unsettled me that I repeatedly asked my husband, “Is it really that bad? These kids are only 12?! How can they be so mean?” until he lied and said, “No, it’s just a movie. Now stop being so crazy,” and forced my children to promise me that, yes, they WILL tell me if they are being bullied in school because “I WILL GO KICK SOMEBODY’S ASS!”

Oh, yes. I am on full-patrol bully alert. I am sharpening my shuriken and start my 12-step training as a ninja assassin because God forbid if I make it worse for my children by giving those bullies a chance to retaliate.*

I went to an “Introducing New Parents to What Junior High School is All About” meeting a few months back. The principal gave us a rundown of the curriculum, the classes offered, the extra-curricular activities available, the amount of homework expected – “Two hours minimum, and more if they take a foreign language class”, and the rules especially regarding electronics – “NONE allowed. Don’t even bring them to school.” There was a walk-through of the school property, which I missed because my son did not inform me of the meeting until that afternoon, and from what I was told, an attempt to explain how the kids will be divided into two groups because there are too many of them, the Switch and Swap between classes, and something about the homeroom not being really important since the kids are based off of their lockers.

Lockers? You mean lockers from which things inadvertently fall out and the owner of the said locker will be ridiculed and thus be relegated to the Purgatory of the Uncool? You mean lockers where the smaller kids get shoved into by the bullies all the fucking time and nobody ever stops them or at least alerts the authorities?  Is it just me? Nobody else sees these lockers as potential hazards and should be purged from high schools? Or are the movies completely made up?

Good. Now I feel better. I should also stop remembering each and every high school torture scene I have seen.

Then there was the cafeteria. The pièce de résistance in every high school movie.  Although I mocked myself for taking the movies too literally, I soon realized, much to my dismay, that the significance of the cafeteria is not an exaggeration by Hollywood. I spent half an hour listening to moms rehashing and reviewing the cafeteria seating assignment process and policy shared with us new parents.

The kids will have a few weeks to sit wherever they want. The day before the designated day, an announcement will be made. “Tomorrow is the day!” On the designated day, wherever the kids are sitting and whomever they are sitting with, THIS IS IT. They have to remain in that seat for the next 3 months.

The moms seemed to be satisfied that there will be quarterly rotations. So I was too. After I made this mental note…

Note to Self: Child MUST attend school on THOSE FOUR days. Even if he is coughing up blood.

All this pressure to be COOL. To NOT be uncool.

I seriously admire all of you who have grown up this way, who have gone through and survived this unscathed. Just sitting here thinking about it, the pressure is getting to me so much that I want to slit my throat.  Because the boundary between COOLNESS and UNCOOLNESS seems so… fickle and arbitrary. One has no control over it. You become the hostage of your peers who are just as confused as you are.

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As I watched the children at their 6th grade party having the time of their life, I wondered whether these kids knew that their carefree days were naught:  Did they know that this might be the last time all of them would be hanging out as a group and stay in such proximity to each other (for 100% innocent fun), no cliques in sight?  That this would be the last time the D.J. did not need Bill Pullman’s speech at the end of Independence Day to rouse everybody to participate equally, more or less?

My heart ached.

For almost all of them this was probably the first “dancing” party they have been to. They were excited. And awkward at the same time, not sure what to do with their long limbs when the music started pounding. While I wearily noted down a few kids that could be easily pegged as “future jocks and queen bees in the making” and I mentally gave them the Robert De Niro “I’m Watching You” hand sign, short and tall, small and big, boys and girls, they all acknowledged each other’s existence. They were all hanging out and being uncool together. Crossing that mile marker. And that made it totally cool.

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*I started out wanting to write a sentimental piece about how my baby is all growing up and no longer a child. Apparently, my school of parenting is Unsentimental Parenting. Somehow this turned into an exercise in mental anguish and pre-battle prep and I am psyching myself up like Mr.  “I Pity the Fool” T.

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*Correction: I forwarded my husband the email version that Feedburner sent me and he would like it to be known that he actually remembered to bring an ACTUAL camera with him that morning to the bus stop. That’s more than I can say, honey. You know how I only take pictures with my iNotPhone now.

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* Yes, I email my husband selective blog posts of mine to 1. inform him what’s going on in this household because chances are he has no idea (and this may or may not have something to do with him being a road warrior). 2. prevent him from reading posts that I don’t want need him to read.

Athletes

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I don’t know where my oldest gets his athletic prowess. I guess we lucked out.

He started gymnastics at our park district when he was three years old because I did not like the idea of sitting in the sun, the rain, or the cold for ball games. When he was seven, he was asked to join the newly-formed Boys Team  and he started his “career” in competitive gymnastics. It did sound impressive when I told people that he went to the State Championship. I am not one of those pushy and hyper-critical parents. I am amazed by the gymnastic moves my oldest can do, with ease, and most of the time, with grace. But I will be completely honest: there will be no Olympic medals in the future. He is good, could definitely do better, but not that good.

We attend his meets and hold our breath and watch, ready to comfort him or to cheer him on. It is getting harder and harder to sit in the audience since every event now involves the risk of him falling off or falling down. I don’t think I will be able to watch without having a heart attack as they start doing more and more dangerous “tricks”.

How do parents of Olympic athletes quiet their hearts when it is happening? What happens if something wrong happens to your child’s routine? How do you stop the ache in your heart, fortify it, and find the right words to comfort your heart-broken child? I used to wonder about that.

As my oldest reached the higher level in gymnastics, the routines became harder. Because he grew in height without packing on the pounds, his muscle strength (or lack of) does not allow him to perform as well as before. This became very obvious when he attended his first competition this past season.  Less then half way into his floor event, he fell, sat heavily on his bottom, not once, but twice. I could hear the gasps from the audience even in the noisy gymnasium. I will be brutally honest with you: it was painful to watch. I wanted to turn my head and close my eyes. NOT because I was embarrassed, please believe me when I say this, but because the urge to go to him right away and hug him was so strong that I physically felt ill. I had to sit on my hands to prevent them from flying to my mouth or chest and bite my lips so I didn’t break down and cry.

But he got up and finished his routine. He was not frazzled. Much to my surprise, when he exited the floor, he was neither in tears nor pouting; he walked back to where his team was sitting and fist-bumped his coaches.

THAT was one of the proudest moments I have had as a parent.

He has learned to fail. Or rather, he has learned the ability to not get bogged down by an accident or a mistake and forge ahead. He has learned the ability to remain calm and focus on what is ahead. An ability that I am sorely lacking.

Several days later when I was sure it was safe to touch upon the subject, I asked him with a frankness bordering on admiration,

“What was going through your mind when you fell and sat on the floor? How were you able to get up and continue with the routine? How did you find the strength to be so brave?” I was truly amazed by this young person’s (“My own son!”) will power to remain poised under such duress.

“Well, it’s nothing really. The coach has always told us to NOT think about what has happened and just focus on what’s next in the routine. We just need to focus and finish the routine. I don’t notice the audience when I am doing the routines. I just focus.”

Focus. Grace under fire. I believe these are the things that make athletes such special people. Any athletes, no matter the rankings or the scores. They don’t become broken-hearted by a single setback. They just do it again, and again, and again.

At his second meet when my son once again did not place and I once again agonized over what the right things to say to console and encourage him, he bounded to the bench where I was sitting in just one stride, plopped down, and before I could say, “I am sorry honey…”, declared with a smile, “I have achieved my three goals today.”

“I was telling everybody this. I have three goals for this meet and I reached all three of them:

1. I had fun
2. I did better than last time
3. I was not physically or emotionally scarred permanently.”

I laughed and slapped him on his back.

THAT was another one of the proudest moments I have had as a parent.

A glimpse of the future…

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This one will be short. It just happened, and I want to make sure that I capture this moment…

I worked from home today as I have been able to do when my co-worker travels since there would be nobody else in the office but me. As I was lamenting internally how much my job is killing my soul, I sighed and said to my son who was doing his homework at the kitchen table as I, “Make sure you find a job that you love when you grow up.”

“Do you love your job?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you do something about it?”

*sigh* “It’s inertia. It’s a good job. It pays well and allows me the flexibility to raise two children.”

“Well. When we grow up and are out of the house, I want you to be someone that you want to be, ok?”

This brought a shock wave to my being that I am failing to describe. I put my hands to my face and cried.

“Thank you. That’s one of the kindest things anybody has ever said to me.”

“You are welcome.”

All of a sudden I remembered the words Fuck Yeah Motherhood used to describe her teenage son, “Occasional glimpses of the man he will be are awe-inspiring.”

That’s what I am feeling right now.

Twelveteen Going on Thirty

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The best description of what it is like to be a parent is a comment left by suesue on Merrilymarylee’s Weblog:

Having a child was deciding to have your heart walking around outside your body forever

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My oldest turned 12 this week.

12.

That is a full Zodiac Cycle. I am sure it means something.

I am lucky in the sense that I only have boys; boys mature much later both physically and emotionally than girls, as I was assured by many moms with preteen girls. Therefore we really have not hit the “preteen” stage until recently. Like, a month ago.

The heralding moment? Facebook. As in,

“Mom. Can I have a Facebook account? Why can’t I be on Facebook? EVERYBODY ELSE is on Facebook!”

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You should be scared. Very very scared when your parents are on Facebook...

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It took me one month to go through the entire grief cycle and I am finally calm and collected enough to talk about it without sobbing uncontrollably.

It all started when he came home one Friday afternoon when I happened to be working from home. He seemed a bit jumpy. Happy jumpy.

“Mom… Can I tell you something? Hmmm… Well… Something happened at school today… NO. Nothing bad… Hmmm. Uhhhh.”

“Would you like to IM me about it? Would it be easier for you to tell me?”

“Yes!” He ran to the family computer and Ping! <<Begin transmission>>

son: mom
so…
me: yup
what’s going on?
son: um
i didnt tell u b4 but
ive always kinda…
me: i am fat?
son: liked
[this girl]
and
me: ohhhhhh
sorry dude
son: 2day
she said she liked me 2
🙂
me: awwww
son: happy
me: 🙂
son: 🙂
yay
ok
bye <<end transmission>>

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The 🙂 from me was a big fat lie. Acting skills came in handy in motherhood I learned. All through the exchange I was screaming inside my head. Headless chicken running around. WTF? He’s only in 6th grade! Elementary school. Why is he liking girls already?! Ohhh WOE IS ME! WTF?! Take a deep breath. Try to stay calm. You don’t want to make any wrong move. ’cause if you startle the snakes, you’ll never catch them again…

Thus began the Grief Cycle…

Denial: “No. Not him. Not my son. The 6th grader. Wasn’t he just a baby not too long ago? Aren’t 6th graders supposed to be safe from these things?!! I thought he hated girls. What happened to ‘Ewww. Girls’?! I thought I had to wait until Junior High for this? What’s happening?!”

Unfortunately, this phase lasted about 5 minutes since later when I signed his weekly school report, I saw:

“Dear Parental Unit…The best part is that the most beautiful girl in the scholl like me! Awesomeness!!”

Anger: “WTF? Why is this girl ruining my life?! Why is HE ruining my life?!”

My Facebook status read: “[Son] just said he wants a Facebook account. Then he showed me just HOW MANY of his classmates are on Facebook. 6th graders? With hundreds of friends? Already? Seriously? WT[beep]?! What happened to my baby?! I need to seriously get those evil women away from him…”

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Ok. Maybe I won't be the worst mother-in-law in the world...

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Soon the anger was channeled towards my husband who dared to laugh out loud when I informed him of the blossoming puppy love.

Unfortunately, this phase lasted for the longest time. I was mad in advance at the cruelty of my children, forsaking me for THAT OTHER WOMAN in the future. In my most irrational moments, I even called him SOB in my head as in ME being the Biatch. I said I was being irrational… Yeah, I know. I am going to be the worst mother-in-law in history. I can tell already from the boiling blood inside my skull…

Bargaining: “If I am a better mother, maybe he will not become wayward like this.” “I wonder whether supplying him with more video games will help divert his attention away from girls.”

The bargaining goes both ways – Facebook time & privilege has now become a major ACE in my card deck when bargaining with my oldest. I can also threaten him with, “I am going to write on your wall!” <cue evil laughter>

Depression: “Fine. He’s going to leave anyway. He’s going to grow up. My baby….”

This phase actually started from the beginning as I alternated between cursing and sobbing, especially when I went through his baby pictures.

Acceptance: “It’s going to be ok. I can deal with this. We can do this. I will survive without killing anybody.”

By talking to people about their “OMG my child is on Facebook” experiences, I learned that there are ways to tame this monster to your own parental advantages. After some trial and errors, Facebook turned out to be not as evil cradle robber as I expected. I can now spy check on my son and see who he is talking to, and what.

All in all, reflecting on this agonizing month, I am glad that I bit my tongue and played it cool. Yes, at the beginning there were a lot of dramas that provided record-high number of WTF moments in one sitting. 6th graders? Lamenting about love lost? Say what? Not to mention the “F” letter scattered throughout the conversations, most of the time unnecessarily. Do you seriously need to use LMFAO? The initial excitement over the “declaration” has apparently worn off.  My son’s Facebook status now consists mainly of game score updates. THAT’s my boy.

As I said to my husband, I feel better that my baby still prefers video games to girls. I don’t mind if my boys are geeks. I am sure that Bill Gates’ mom didn’t mind at all. Not one bit.


What I learned from the Olympics*… *Not what you think

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We have been watching the Winter Olympics. I didn’t plan to. But what’s not to love really? Finally something on prime time that does not involve dead bodies, sexual predators, or its own mythologies.

Naturally I gravitated towards Ice Dancing and Figure Skating. (No, I don’t really want to engage in a debate about how Ice Dancing does not count as a sport and should not even be included in the Olympics. Thank you very much).

Last Sunday though, we caught a glimpse of the Super-Combined and the boys and I were hooked. We don’t ski. Skiing has never entered my mind as a recreational option despite our proximity to some relatively inexpensive hills in Wisconsin. The word “skiing” conjures up images of Vail and the fancy schmancy aura surrounding “Skiing resorts” in my psyche. Memories of seeing people refusing to do away with their lift tickets still hanging on their zipper pulls long after their last skiing trip without any hope of ever going back again this season.

What was shown on TV was exhilarating. The commentators were talking about Bode Miller as this Comeback Kid. Everybody loves a good comeback story. So we held our breath as he rushed downhill. The camera at one point cut to his mother, I assume, with her hand to her mouth watching her son intently, perhaps with a bit comprehension. The camera zoomed in further to try to catch an emotional moment. Everybody loves a good human interest perspective in the games of sports.

With his eyes still on the screen, my oldest commented,

“You know, when I or [my brother] go to the Olympics? You have to remember that you are always on camera. So you have to remember to look good all the time. Don’t let the camera catch you tweeting or Facebooking! That’s the lesson we should learn here.”

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Our job goal as far as our kids are concerned as parents is to never embarrass them. I am sure with me as a mother THIS is constantly on his mind. Later when one of the athletes crashed on the snowy course and thus dashed his dream for any medal, for yet another human interest angle, the camera mercilessly zoomed in on the father who buried his face in his hands, leaned his forehead against the fence, visibly shaking.

My preteen reached across the sofa, grabbed both of my hands, and besought me,

“Promise me. You will never do that! Don’t cry like that if we lose. Promise me!”

I simply laughed. For sure, this is a promise I will not be able to keep…

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I also learned that athletes for Winter Sports live on the wild-er side, and they either have no mental filters because they are so adorably honest, or they are simply really really high, like “high”, when they are on the high mountains…

Read this quote from Norway silver medalist Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset as reported in Sports Illustrated… and tell me if it is not one of the best…

“My name is Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset. I skied the second lap and I f—– up today. I think I have seen too much porn in the last 14 days. I have the room next to Petter Northhug and every day there is noise in there. So I think that is the reason I f—– up. By the way, Tiger Woods is a really good man.”

(Sports Illustrated Writer’s note: By far the craziest quote released by the VANOC information desk over the past 13 days.)

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Or this quote from Graham Watanabe, a snowboarder from the U.S.

“It’s feeling a lot more like this is my first Olympics. Try to imagine Pegasus mating with a unicorn and the creature that they birth. I somehow tame it and ride it into the sky in the clouds and sunshine and rainbows. That’s what it feels like.”

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Update: Naptime Writing had written in a post “Lessons from the Olympics” which has a list of the things she learned about human nature from this Olympics that was observant, profound, hilarious at the same time. Knowing my readers, I just want to emphasize hilarious. I was grateful that she commented on the “fake flesh-colored” costumes worn by the skaters to make them look like they are wearing skimpy outfits when actually they are not. So it’s not just me.

Do you know what you are reading to your children?

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Do you really know? I mean, really really? Do you know what you are reading them and how they are hearing what you are reading them?…

I was browsing through the Costco “magazine” (what sadly passes as reading material for me nowadays) in bed when my oldest came to snuggle with sit by me. Not wanting to stop this rare moment, I tried hard to engage him in conversations.

“You like 2012 right?” The DVD is featured in the magazine because it is a shopping catalogue in disguise.

“Oh. That movie is AWESOME!” For my son, things can be easily divided into two groups: Things that are awesome; things that sucks.

I pointed to the DVD for the movie Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze (of the Being John Malkovich fame). “Dad said the movie is actually quite good. He saw it on the plane. We should watch it sometimes.” Having two boys five years apart in age, I am constantly searching for movies that will appeal to both of them and are age-appropriate. To be honest, I aim for semi age-appropriate now because the picking is just slimmer than a meth addict on a super model diet. I bet Mr. Monk has watched more PG-13 movies than any other 7-year old in the suburbs.

“Oh. I know what it is about. It is based on the book Where the Wild Things Are…”

Yeah. I was thinking. You and every other person older than three know what this movie is about. Duh.

“It is about this boy who got into trouble. He ran away from home to live with the monsters, and the monsters tried to kill him.”

“What?” I sat up to look at him. “Are you serious? No. Seriously. Is that what you think the book is about?”

“Uh huh. I told you. I have read this book. It was about this boy who went to live with the monsters, then he became homesick. And when he tried to leave, the monsters threatened to kill him. They said, ‘We will eat you up!'” He said, with even more conviction this time.

I laughed, yet at the same time, I was becoming more and more alarmed.

“No, dude. You are just being smartie pants, right? You don’t really think that’s what this book is about, right?”

“I am SERIOUS! That’s really the story! You don’t know anything, mom!”

Mr. Monk walked into the room at this time. I asked (with gnashed teeth) my oldest to not say anything about the book to his younger brother since I really don’t need two traumatized kids on my hand. I asked Mr. Monk whether he knows the story.

“I have the book. I’ll go get it!”

The three of us sat in bed while I read the story out loud. Just like I once did when they were much younger. I remember this book being one of the favorite books for both boys at around the same age.

When we got to the part where Max says goodbye to the Wild Things,

“Oh please don’t go — We’ll eat you up —“

“See? What did I tell you?!” Triumph in his voice now, my oldest moved in for the kill, “And see here? They were threatening to eat him!”

One of the most beloved children's books... What have we done?!

To think that I used to read this book to him before he went to bed. Many many nights.

p.s. No boys were harmed, physically or psychologically, in the making of this blog post.

Makeup

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1.

Reading the comments people left for my last post, praising me for recognizing and questioning the rigid gender rules, in addition to feeling thankful, I am actually embarrassed. Feeling a bit like a fraud. A hypocrite.

In an ironic way, although I set out to remain anonymous so I can speak my mind on my blog, perhaps I have been putting my best face forward when I am spouting parental wisdoms: For the hours I am composing my posts, I am wise and patient; The rest of the time, I feel my way around in the dark, making horrible mistakes.

Such is the peril (merit) of knowing someone online: s/he is made up of the words they (choose to) publish.

I do struggle with how much I need to compromise on a daily basis because my kids are school-aged and they deal with realities in the school hallways, in the classrooms, on the playground. They are their own people and I no longer live their lives for them.  I feel that it is unfair, selfish even on my part, to allow (encourage?) my children to become social pariahs because of my own philosophical convictions. Because I have a point to make.

I am torn every day between wanting to challenge what pass as gender “norms” and needing to protect them. As some of us have learned the hard way, some mishaps stay with you for the rest of your school career, if not your life.

“Make sure you do not have BO. You don’t want to go down the history as ‘THAT kid with BO’. Once a rumor starts with you having BO, it does not matter whether you have BO, or whether it was just once after the gym class, because you know, you are going to be, yup, you guessed it, ‘THAT kid with BO’!” I warned my oldest, despite much eye-rolling on his part.

2.

The morning after I published the post, feeling pleased with myself. Smug even, I’ll admit.

Fuck you, world! I had declared.

Mom. 1. World. 0.

At breakfast my oldest was leafing through Mr. Monk’s notebook.

“Don’t touch my diary!” Mr. Monk reached over to secure it. (Before you are impressed that he keeps a diary, well, so far, he has only filled out ONE page. And that was a long time ago…)

“But I want to see it!” His brother grabbed a hold of it.

“NO! It’s mine! Don’t look at it!”

“Why can’t I look at it? You are saying I can’t look at it only because I want to look at it now. If I say I don’t want to look at it, you are not going to care!” My oldest, the future lawyer. I believe we have established that before.

“Just don’t touch it. It’s my diary!”

After a few more minutes of heated exchanges, I had chosen to stay out of these occurrences that happen all the friggin’ time throughout the day, my oldest delivered the throwaway punch:

“Fine! Anyway, diaries are for girls!!”

My eyes widened. I could see the steam coming out of my nostrils the mad bull into which those words had transformed me.

“What did you just say?” Disbelief. The first time I heard something like this in my household. An utterance that dared to arbitrarily dictate what a boy is not supposed to do from the mouth of my own child directed at his own brother. Ironic, isn’t it?

“Diaries are for GIRLS! He’s like a girl! Only girls keep a diary!” Words tumbled out with the intention to hurt.

By now no longer a mad bull, I was Fury Herself. “Please shut your mouth right now!” I did not mince words. Did I ever mention that I have a fiery temper?

I went on to drop my oldest off at his band practice (Our lives are full of ironies…)

“Why did you say ‘Diaries are for girls’ to your brother?”

“Because it is true. THEY ARE! And that was 10 minutes ago! Why are you still talking about it?!”

“BECAUSE I don’t want my children to grow up believing in gender stereotypes!” I know I sound ridiculous. But I do talk to my oldest in such a fashion.

“How can that be a stereotype if it is true?!”

“Why is it true? Why do you think it is true? Who gave you the right to say what is for a girl and what is for a boy? Who gave you the right to be spouting such nonsense in my house? How would you like it if someone makes fun of you because of your long hair? That you look like a girl?” I am not proud of myself but I do get carried away when debating against my oldest. Because he’s always so sure of himself, so quick to argue, I often forget that he’s only 11 3/4.

“I DON’T LOOK LIKE A GIRL!”

“How did you feel when some girls laughed at your because you are in gymnastics?”

Pause. True to his heritage as a “Last Word-er” though, he soon retorted, “It’s different!”

“Why is it different? No. I want to know why you think it is different.”

“Just because!” He’s crying now. “Fine! Diaries are for boys too, ok? And what does it matter? He‘s going to be made fun of anyway because he speaks with a British accent!”

Mom. 0. World. 1.

On some days, I just want to surrender, and curl up inside a cozy black cave. Wake me up when they turn 25 please.

3.

After watching me going through my nightly ritual of makeup removal, Mr. Monk asked, “Why do women wear makeup?”

“Because we want to look pretty.”

“So why can’t boys wear makeup?”

I couldn’t think of any legitimate reason other than, “Well, they just don’t.”

Mr. Monk walked away with my powder brush, unsatisfied with my copped-out answer.

Later my husband came in the bedroom, I repeated the question for his benefit, “Yeah… WHY can’t boys wear makeup?”

“Because their fathers will kill them. That’s why.” He summed it up succinctly.

At this moment, Mr. Monk came back to the room and asked his father, “Why can’t I wear makeup?”

“Because I will kill you. Ask Grandpa what he would do if I wore make up. He would kill me too.”

“But Michael Jackson does!” Mr. Monk protested; I looked away, trying hard not to laugh out loud.

My husband retorted, in a tone that signaled end of discussion, “Michael Jackson is dead!”

Thank goodness for dads. That’s what came to my mind as I sneaked away from this land mine of a conversation.

Raising Boys

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As much as I lament the lack of girl presence in my household, I know I am blessed to have my boys. They tug at my heart even though they bruise my sides sometimes when they roughhouse; They have no control over and are unaware of their own growing limbs.  They are protective of their mother even though I am often the butt of the joke made by them. (“Ha ha. You said Butt!”) They crack me up with their antics even though at least once every day I have to use my most unpleasant voice in order to be heard.

I am a tomboy. Magenta makes me physically ill. I am scared of dolls. It is probably for the better that I do not have girls. (I know I am committing gender stereotyping here. Guilty as charged.) On the other hand, what do I know about boys that equips me with the wisdom and strength to bring them up to become upstanding world citizens?

I know there are many excellent books out there on how to raise boys so they become well-adjusted, whole persons. Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, as has been recommended to me when the kids were little, is one of them. I have to admit though, I haven’t read any of these books. I am wary of reading parenting books. It’s probably the aftermath from reading dozens of books trying to teach me the right way to get my babies to sleep through the night and every single one of them failing me. Unfair judgement and gross generalization? Probably so.

That being said, the title of the book Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys has been on my mind ever since I heard about it.

First of all, the title itself is misleading: Not only do we need to make sure we construct an emotional life for them, afterwards, we also need to make sure to nurture and protect it. The premise of the book is that boys have been pressured by this society to be isolated from their emotions, and that it is becoming more and more important, with the increasing violence committed by young men to their peers in mind, to provide our sons with a well-rounded emotional education, to allow them to learn a vocabulary of emotions to express themselves.

As much as I agree with the above statement, the way I see it, this book, and all the other books, failed to ask the first question:

WHY does the emotional life of our boys need to be protected? What does it say about the society we live in?

We need to protect the emotional life of our sons because this society we are bringing them up in is obsessed with an uber macho image of itself. Instead of challenging the hegemony, they simply took it as a given.

Frankly I am tired of this bullshit. This cliche. What defines a man in this country.

We have never told the boys to stop crying because they are boys.

We encourage reading and writing. The appreciation of arts and music.

We allow them to like and own cute stuff. (Thank you to Japanese pop culture which provides ample supplies of cute imagery and items that do not churn one’s stomach).

We allow Mr. Monk to declare that his favorite color is pink. And then purple.

We allow loving rainbows.

We still snuggle with the boys now that they are no longer toddlers.

We have always engaged in frank conversations about our emotions with the boys.

We tell them we love them every single day.

We don’t watch sports on the weekend.

We don’t push them to go outside and play ball with the neighborhood boys.

My husband does not go fishing.

My boys do not play any ball-related sports.

They watched and LOVED ice dancing, realizing what an athletic accomplishment it was.

My oldest is in competitive gymnastics, a sport, frankly, as athletic as it gets, and yet, he gets teased by girls for doing a “girls’ sport”. (Fortunately we have managed to provide him with a well-rounded emotional life that he does not care…)

I know we are considered to be “odd” in the neighborhood, our being an interracial couple aside.

Once when a neighbor dad invited Mr. Monk to his backyard to play football (or some other ball) with all the other boys, Mr. Monk looked him straight in the eye and declared, “I don’t like sports.” He turned around, walked away, and then stooped to pick up a dandelion. The poor man looked dumbfounded. I didn’t allow him a chance to show me his “sympathy”. “I don’t like sports either.” I said nonchalantly as I walked away.

I am tired of how all these experts failed to question what’s defined as properly masculine in the US society.

Why doesn’t anybody wonder WHY it is perfectly okay for a man, any man, say, to wear pink, carry a purse, comb your hair in a European and Asian society? And yet it is a NO NO here in the US of A?

What happened in the relatively short history of the forming of this country that caused this? Surely Andrew Jackson could not have done this single-handedly. Could he?

With this thorn on my back, you could imagine my excitement when I came across a book called Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities. Oh Boy, was I ever! Especially since it has the endorsement of Judith Butler and Tony Kushner, I couldn’t wait to read some scathing argument against the preconceived notion of masculinity and perhaps there would be some explanation on why the American society is so distinct in its homophobic tendency. Yes, it is homophobia, hand in hand with this cultural obsession with machismo. Our men are so concerned with NOT being labeled as gay that they would go to great length to prove otherwise.

I was disappointed yet again.

The author basically preaches the concept that it is ok for boys to behave feminine since some of them do. And it is ok if they are gay since most of the feminine ones turn out to be.

While I agree with 75% of the statement above, I take issue with this automatic equation between Feminine Boys = Gay

Before I go on further, please allow me to invoke “The Seinfeld Disclaimer” first: “Not that there is anything wrong with that!”

The “feminine” tendencies as identified in the book did not trigger my “OMG something is wrong with my kids”-dar at all. Perhaps because I did not grow up in this country and of course, I am not male, I do not have all these nerve endings that automatically warn me against what will inadvertently be taken as “inappropriate boy behavior”. To me, things such as “dislike for sports”, instead of being a label for femininity, should be counted towards individualities and personal quirks.

Who defines what is considered feminine vs. masculine? I am not so progressive as to suggest that donning a woman’s dress is not sufficient enough to identify a male person as “against the norm”. However “simple matters” such as the preference of certain colors (pink), activities (knitting, cooking, arts & crafts) and companions (little boys liking to play house, or other quieter play in general, with little girls) as “signifiers”? We need to stand up and cry foul. The arbitrary, rigid line needs to be challenged.

I try. As they grow older, especially as my first born looking towards entering Middle School after the summer, I fear I may be fighting a losing battle. Soon, as dictated by the reality called Living in the USA, I will need to gear up to protect his emotional life for him as he slips further and further away from his emotional self so that he could be strong enough to face his reality called School Yard.