Do Boys Have to Be "ALL Boy?"

A friend of a friend posted a picture online of her son launching himself across the couch with a batman cape billowing behind him. Great action shot. The caption read, “#allboy” followed by too many smiley faces.

I’ve often heard parents talk about how their kids are either “all boy” or “real girly-girls.” Immediately, you know what they mean, but it bothers me a little. Maybe because I have boys, I’m a little more sensitive to the double standard when it comes to girls and boys crossing stereotypical gender lines. (Girls who play with cars are cool but boys who play with dolls are… not cool?) I guess maybe I thought this was a particularly American or a Western problem, but it’s not. I thought I might escape the gender boundaries we place on kids at far too young an age.

But the Toys ‘R Us in Shanghai looks almost exactly like the Toys ’R Us in Anytown, USA. Boy toys on the blue side of the store. Girl toys on the pink side. Girls can visit the boys side but boys really should stay away from the girls side. The gender stereotyping of toys will take me on far too long of a tangent to get into here, but it’s just one more way that I worry my boys are getting the wrong message about what it means to be a boy (or girl). And it’s not just toys – movies, books, music – all give our kids specific ideas about how boys should act and look.

My boys have some personality traits that are not typically associated with masculinity. They can be sensitive. They can be cautious. They can be gentle. I worry that society with make them feel bad about it. Real men don’t cry, real boys are dare-devils and all that “macho man” garbage still seems to be the loudest message promoted. I worry that when someone tells them to “not be so sensitive,” they’ll learn to hide this and feel ashamed instead of embracing it and learning how to turn it into a strength.

We have known a few boys who are a little more rough than my boys. We’ve played with a few who push and take toys away from kids who are playing with them, as two year olds sometimes do. My boys generally cry. One time, when my oldest was about 2, the other mother (who I had only just met) said, “why is he still crying? Is he hurt?” Physically, he was fine. Subsequent run-ins with this mother and son, confirmed my suspicion that what she really wanted to say was, “Just get over it. Boys will be boys.”

And perhaps, my son is guilty of over-reacting in such situations. (He recently got upset when another student “pointed” at him at school.) But he is who he is. And he is teaching me to respect that. When I asked my son about the finger pointing incident, he confirmed his friend pointed at him and it made him feel sad.

I resisted the urge to tell him he shouldn’t feel sad about it (because even I, who is admittedly too thin-skinned, see this as a little ridiculous). Rather, I encouraged him to just tell his friend how it made him feel and move on. I told him to try to understand that his friend was not intending to hurt his feelings. I’m sure he understood very little of my “life lesson,” and I’m not even sure it was the best advice.

But what it did reaffirm for me is that there is delicate balance between letting your kids be who they are and molding them into what you want them to be. I want my boys to be confident and caring. To know when to be tough and when to be gentle. To know how to “push back” without pushing back. To stand their ground even if they are the only ones on that particular piece of ground. To be strong but not afraid to cry. To know there is no correlation between physical strength and strength of character. To be adventurous without being careless. To use caution without being overly cautious. To stand up for those who cannot.

I want them to know they don’t need to be “all boy” to become great men.

Kathleen Siddell has been living with her husband and two boys in Shanghai, China. She is excited to be relocating to Singapore this summer. While she resists the term ‘mommy blogger,’ she reluctantly admits she is a mom with a blog. Follow her family’s adventures at Avery’s Adventures.