Girl has entered a phase in which she is obsessed with being a girl. She is also very interested to know who else fits into this magical category and so I am forced to hear (50 times a day at least): "Mom you and I are girls together?" To which I must immediately respond yes, or else it will be asked repeatedly until I do. Most of the time it will be followed by the question: "And Daddy and Boy are boys together?" unless by some chance we are in the most crowded section of the grocery store or we have company, in which case it is followed by a very loud: "Because we have vaginas!"In addition to very public discussions I have recently had to give about my "girl parts", my very own Vagina Monologues, if you will, this new awareness of Girl has led her to believe that Mr. H. is useless to her (and I thought she'd be at least 12 before she realized men were useless -RELAX Dad, that's a joke). At any rate, she doesn't want Mr. H. to wake her up, get her dressed, brush her teeth, tuck her in, or do any other menial task that is required of us. This apparently has stretched even to tumbling as when I pushed her out the door for this activity with her father demanding an hour of Girl-free time she whined "But Daddy's a boy!"
I am not sure why Mr. H.'s Y chromosome makes him ineligible in her mind to hold her hand while she's on the balance beam that's two inches off of the ground or to stand by and plead for her to actually jump on the trampoline, but it does. Never-the-less I stood strong so that I could stop being " a girl together" and start being "A Woman Alone," which is what I am (even if it's just for an hour, and only if I ignore Boy calling me from his room).
2 comments:
Maybe Rory has intuited something, at least from a scientific perspective. Some geneticists believe the Y chromosome is becoming obsolete, partly b/c it only carries genes for male sex differentation. You can do a web search, and here is a link to a book review. (As you can see, not everyone agrees with the theory.)
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000613.html
Love, Aunt Necklace
Listen, I'm all for little girls enjoying and embracing their feminine strengths/powers/mysteries
(as an admirer of the heroine Wonder Woman could attest)... I, as the family's gay male friend, will continue to read (and watch during an upcoming weekend) with interest (while playing many board games during which i will take on some female persona [Millicent Friendly] to the amusement of all involved!).
Post a Comment