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Parenting Without Gender Expectations Means Accepting All Outcomes
Aly Windsor realizes that “He’s all boy” is OK with her.
By Aly Windsor
Recently, I took my two-and-a-half-year-old, Avie, to a Toddler Music and Movement class that, thanks to him, devolved into something more like Toddler Music and Mosh Pit. Most of the other kids were girls who twirled or held hands in groups of three or four and happily, dreamily, skipped around in circles while music played. Avie stomped, put his hands on the floor and kicked one foot up in his classic “trick” pose, ran around in his own circles wind-milling his arms, and finally, purposefully, crashed into one of the girl groups and knocked them down. Too far away to intervene in time, I watched in horror as I recognized the following flicker of cognition in Avie’s eyes. He saw the girl pile on the floor as a perfect opportunity for a pile-on. So, without further ado, he flopped right on top. You can imagine how well this went over with the girls and their mothers.
I want to preface the rest of this by saying that I’m a parenting agnostic. After three years of poring over “expert” opinions, searching online forums, reading mommy blogs, chatting tentatively with other parents in real life, joining and fleeing a parenting cult or two, engaging in fierce Facebook battles…
