How my pink-loving son made me confront my weird gender biases
In our household, the lines of the past that steadfastly identified what was considered “man” and “woman” responsibilities were more opaque. It’s not the easiest job in the world, but to be honest I felt pretty good about being what most people would label a “modern dad” and I wore that title like a badge of honor. My title was put to the test however the day my wife brought a particular hula monkey toy home for my son…
Does my “petite woman” stature mean I’ll never be seen an adult?
I am a petite 27-year-old woman. My whole life I have looked younger than my age, and my size has always been a defining characteristic. When do I get to just be a normal adult woman? When I’m married will people start treating me with respect? When I have kids will I no longer be just a little person who miraculously does a lot of things? When will I be given the respect that I feel I deserve as a woman closer to 30 than 20?
We didn’t think we wanted to know our baby’s sex — then we did
I was absolutely fine with keeping the sex of our baby a surprise. Really, I was. But then something happened to me around 22 weeks. I suddenly had a deep desire to know exactly what sort of babe was moving around in there. I felt detached and found it strange to say “the baby kicked me” and “do you want to feel the baby?” I needed a pronoun. More than that, I wanted a name. (We had a short list of lovely girl names to choose from, but absolutely no boy names. Which of course meant that we were definitely having a boy. In my head at least.)
I’ve known I was transgender since age 2
I have a hard time explaining to non-transgender people how I knew I was male from the start; I just did. I sometimes ask them, “How do you know you’re male or female?” Often, they go quiet and look stumped, because they can’t answer it either. Most people seem to just know, right? You can’t pinpoint what makes you feel that way or when exactly you realized it, can you? You likely always just knew.
I have zero expectations about my daughter’s future relationships
I think my solution is to refrain from assumptions altogether when I’m in public. I’ll stop playing along with other’s comments about her getting married one day, or meeting a man, or whatever. At home, I’ll adopt new words into my vernacular with her. I’ll illustrate differences through play — I can show her two girl Barbies kissing and two Ken dolls kissing.
My son simultaneously wears a Dora apron and fights sexism
It started when my son decided he wanted cupcakes. I figured we’d make cupcakes and take them to work for our friends. I gave him one of my aprons but it was too big. The next week at the local farmer’s market I spied homemade kid-sized aprons. They had some robots and some flowers, but what really caught my eye was, of course, a Dora apron. It is bright pink and lacy but whatever — that’s not something that would register for Isaac.
How we used silly string to reveal our baby’s sex
If you’ve heard of gender reveal parties, you probably know how they go — people usually use colored cake or balloons to reveal the sex of their baby to family and friends. When it came to our own baby, I wasn’t as interested in having an actual party as much as I wanted a fun way to find out the news. That’s right — we had our party without even knowing ahead of time if we were having a boy or a girl!
Supporting our daughters as they define what femininity means to them
I don’t want to raise my daughter thinking that this is what it means to be a lady — that the prevailing pink culture is what defines femininity. I want her to know it’s okay to get muddy, that it’s alright to wear Mutant Ninja Turtle shoes if she wants because these things won’t make her any less a girl.