Boys Will Be

This is Zephyr being a very scary ghost.
Just in case you couldn't tell.

I knew, long before I had kids, that I wouldn't be the type of parent to give my daughter Barbie dolls and my son toy guns. Jubilee fiercely maintains her spot at the train table, and if you're going to buy them trains, please resist the urge to choose Emily for Jubi and Gordon for Zephyr. Zephyr has a makeup bag, occasionally asks for pigtails, and runs around with fairy wings and a magic wand. Awake at midnight on Sunday, I couldn't stop cringing at one mother's comment at a party we had attended that evening: that her son had so much fun at our host's house, because there were boy toys there. A few minutes later she was wondering aloud why her cousin was having such a hard time coming out. "Is it really hard to admit you're gay these days?" she asked, truly perplexed.

Anyway, despite our best efforts to raise our children in a gender-neutral setting, certain differences are emerging. For example, Jubilee totes stuffed animals around the house, hugging and kissing them. At her age, Zephyr was only dimly aware of stuffed animals. And Zephyr is intrigued with weapons, the fact that we're a weapon-free house, notwithstanding.

Based on anecdotal evidence, I'd say there are two types of preschool boys. Certainly this is an overly simplified view of things, but take, for example, Thursday night's La Leche League meeting. Some boys quietly worked puzzles near their mothers' feet, some boys ran around the house like maniacs, shooting suction-cup arrows and fencing with wooden swords. With parents like Jon and me, I would have guessed that any son of mine would be among the former. Nope.

We have a weekly playdate with friends Ben and Grady, two friends who share, and bring out, Zephyr's zeal for battle games. A few weeks ago, Renee went in to check on the boys, and Zephyr had a toy gun. "I don't know what this thing is," he told her. "But they told me to point it at them, and they'd die, and I keep doing it, but they're not dying." Later, I looked in the room and overheard Ben asking Zephyr to tip the basketball hoop over on him. These three are like rowdy frat boys. On another occasion, Ben and Zephyr cheered Grady on as he performed the verboten, and therefore highly desirable act of brushing his teeth with his mother's toothbrush.

Here is a conversation that took place in the car today:
Me: You and Grady are going to Ben's to play on Wednesday. Won't that be fun? Would you like to have Grady and Ben over to our house to play sometime?
Z: Yes. But Ben might be sad, because we don't have any killing things. Grady might be sad, too.
(Pause.)
Z: Maybe when Ben turns five, we should get him a killing thing for a present.
Me: I don't want to buy a killing thing.
Z: Neither do I. But I think Ben would like one.
Me: Maybe we can think of something else Ben might like.

Also, on a playdate with Jonah last week, the boys were building with snap cubes. "Did you make a gun?" Jonah asked, the instant Zephyr assembled something L-shaped. Zephyr answered in the negative, but they did spend a good part of the visit wearing sparring helmets, hitting each other on cushioned heads with various tools and musical instruments.

I am grateful that in one-on-one situations, Zephyr plays very happily with both types of boys. He and Conor, for example, will disappear for hours at a time, emerging only when hungry or thirsty, and besides an occasional train derailment, destruction is absent. Also, Zephyr plays gentle games with his favorite female friends, KK and Itty Bitty.

Ben's mom, Sandra, loaned me a book many months ago called The Wonder of Boys, which will probably explain it all to me. I'm sure it's great, and I need to read it, but when I have the chance to sit down with a book, I always reach for a novel instead. Before I was a mother, I would have harshly judged the parents of a kid like Zephyr. "They let him watch too much violent TV," I'd have haughtily assumed from a distance. Now I know that even on a media-light diet of Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, and Baby Einstein, testosterone will express itself. Does this mean Zephyr will grow up and enlist so he can detonate WMD? Jon remembers playing with cap guns and turning bamboo into spears, and he's the finest embodiment of gentle strength I know.

I guess we'll find out. In the meantime, I'll try to watch carefully, to make sure no one loses an eye. And if Jubi starts asking for glitter and glam? Kamy, I'll send her your way.