The Momoir Project

Digger Land versus Princess Land. My children sit, one on the potty and one on the toilet, debating the merits of both. My five-year-old states that Princess Land is soft and gentle, with light colours – light pink and light blue and light purple. She waves her hands, gently undulating, indicating softness. “Not like boys. Boys are hard.”

“NO! Digger Land!” my three-year-old barks, “Bam, bang, shoot! I’m going to kill you! Poo poo!” He pushes it all into one long string. Then, “Eyeball, monster, I’m going to get you.” He laughs a bit manically, because he knows it will enrage his older sister.

My head clouds over and I’m paralyzed by what to say. They aren’t interested in me anyway; they continue to argue over which is better. “Princess, digger, princess, digger.” Where does this inanity come from? Please, make it stop. Why are they saying this? It’s so predictable. I feel myself being pulled into the camp that I so emotionally despise. The camp where I am tied to a tree and forced finally to recant all of my previous beliefs. “Yes, that’s right. Girls are sugar and spice and boys do only like lizards and puppy dog tails. There are differences, fundamental, genetic, predestined. I was wrong to fight it.”

I sometimes hear myself admitting to other mothers, “Yes, there are things that just seem to be more stereotypically ‘boy’ with my son.” His fascination with diggers and cement trucks; his desire to watch monster movies when his older sister is terrified of them; his interest in pirates and T-Rexes. I receive a knowing smile from the mothers, a conspiratorial look that says: “But of course. He’s a boy.” I feel like I’m betraying myself.

With my daughter, I was able to stave off this gender divide for a bit longer. I had her convinced, up until about 6 months ago, that she could be a paleontologist, that princesses weren’t really all that interesting, that she could wear a sweatshirt with a dinosaur on it, that trucks and race car stripes are meant for all kids. And it worked reasonably well. Until she started understanding the social code, and one by one these things vanished. She refused to wear her favourite dinosaur shirt, because a preschool classmate had asked why she was wearing boy’s clothes. She began to ask about Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, and Jasmine, telling me that on a scale of one to 10, she was at a one regarding how much she knew about princesses. She announced she was going to be a mother and a princess when she grew up and she no longer wanted to be a paleontologist. And she refused to ride her bike with racing stripes and said that trucks were only for boys. It all fell apart, all of my work.

Just last night she cried, racking desperate sobs, because her hair was short and it wasn’t long and beautiful. She said she hated her body, her hair. I held her not knowing how to comfort her, telling her over and over again how beautiful she was. “No, I’m not. I’m not beautiful. I have short, ugly hair. Everyone thinks I’m a boy. Everyone. I want people to think I’m a girl.”

I felt it inside of me, that piercing guilt, that this was of my making, that if only I had pigtailed her hair and dressed her in pink and skirts, that she wouldn’t be collapsed in a well of hurt on the floor in front of me.

Debates over girl and boy traits are polarized, ongoing and endlessly researched. There are a plethora of studies that chronicle the differences between girls and boys – what toys they choose to play with, what characteristics they lead with, what social and school environment they thrive best in, and what in all of this, is nature versus nurture.

When I was in my 20’s, I studied Women’s Studies and socialized with a feminist group. Not surprisingly, the literature that I read, and the discussions that I had, were strongly supportive of gender identities formed from socialization; that girls and boys were conditioned to be who they were and though biology played some role, it truly was a two-bit part. From a feminist perspective, the socialization of identities is critical, because it allows for an analysis which is not mired in biological certainties. It allows for a redefinition of ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ away from the elemental constraints of the physical. In other words, the fact that women have ovaries, ample amounts of estrogen, a uterus and can grow a child, does not predetermine her affinity for pink and princesses.

Back then, I was looking, in fact, hungering for an explanation to help me understand the greater truths of the world – why there was war and violence, why there was corruption and power struggles, why money and consumerism reigned supreme, and why our society was hell-bent on destroying our ecosystems. Feminism became my answer, and my mantra, because it laid bare the elemental underpinnings of society; that the imbalance of power exists because our culturally, traditional masculine characteristics are far more valued and regarded than the traditional feminine qualities. This imbalance became my lens for understanding everything.

Fast forward 15 years and I have left much of my feminist rhetoric behind. But I still hold some strong convictions from this time in my life. I still generally hold the belief that the world is in a bad state because there is an imbalance of power and that men are overwhelmingly the decision-makers, the rule-makers, and the harbingers of justice. But not a whole lot else remains of my former ideals, living, as I do, in my comfortable home in an affluent neighbourhood of Vancouver, where conversations tend to focus on house renovations, trips to Hawaii, private versus public school debates and the ‘slippery’ slope of allowing halfway houses into our well-heeled enclave.

At a recent playdate for my son, the other mother discreetly queried me about boy behavior. She expressed concern that her own three-year-old son tackled everybody he saw. “I know he’s a boy, but I can’t stand watching it. I want to tell him not to do it at all. But I just might need to accept it.” I hear my own son saying he learns about jail and guns and killing from the big boys at his preschool. I ask my son if I like those words and he shakes his head ‘no’ with a big mischevious grin on his face. It’s a losing battle.Why should a 3-year-old know about jails and guns? Why is it even a possibility? These are the questions that make me mad – that we live in a society where this is part of its lore.

Take my seemingly petty struggle with my five-year-old over her Hallowe’en costume. “Mommy, I want to be a princess,” she says.
“Ok.” I say “But there are many other things you can be as well. What about a cat, a ladybug, a pirate, a butterfly, a frog?”
“No, Mommy. I want to be a princess. All the girls are going to be princesses. Please, Mommy, please.”
“We’ll see,” I deflect. “Hallowe’en is still some time away.”

She’s on the princess thing for a good 2 weeks and my continual redirecting of her idea feels like a broken record.
“Mommy, when can we make my princess costume?”
A voice in my head says “Can’t you just say yes? Can’t you just let her be what she wants?” But she’s only five and she wants to be a princess because all of her friends are, because girls ‘should’ be princesses, because every store window - from the boutique toy shops to Zellers to Toys ‘R’ Us - tells her that she should be a princess.

“Not now,” I say, “We don’t have the fabric for a princess costume. ” I see grave disappointment.

Then suddenly, a few days before Hallowe’en, she changes her mind. “I want to be a good witch with a wand and a hat covered with stars and moons.”

I’m all over this one. My instant encouragement and praise are transparent and embarrassing for even me to listen to. “Excellent idea! Let’s get started right away.” We spend many happy hours discussing and creating: what we’ll make her cape out of and how we can cut stars out of black felt and glue them on a piece of purple velvet. She is engaged and happy, her face excited. I am relieved we’re not talking about princesses and that our focus is on something more complex in its meaning, the witch, a symbol of female power and magic. Of course, this definition is more for me than my daughter.

My daughter may very well have changed her mind on her own accord, or perhaps she changed her mind to get my approval. Is this small manipulation something I can defend? My inner voice cautions this will only garner anti-princess rebellion come adolesence. But another voice says that these small stances do matter and on this one, I proclaim success.

This decision of mine to relentlessly fight against gender stereotype is set in my bones, even if I drown more often than I swim. The Digger Land and Princess Land – I fight it so hard because I fight myself, for how much I’ve allowed the status quo to take over. It’s not petty, and despite my own contradictions, it is about something. It has to be. I see my children as a microcosm of the larger world, and it is my responsibility and my imperative to teach them wisely, authentically, and honestly. But oh, how complicated and difficult this is to do.

Laurie Davidson is a mother, writer and librarian. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her partner and 2 children.