For those of you who know me only by blog (and there ain’t that many of you – I know how few folks read this thing!), there are a few key characteristics of me that impact this entry. I’m not a girly-girl – I hated dolls as a kid, wouldn’t be caught dead in pink, and my idea of a great afternoon in college was getting muddy playing rugby and finishing off the day with a rousing round of bawdy songs and beer. My knees can no longer handle the rugby thing, but I’d much rather be out fishing/hiking/camping (and drinking beer, though I tend to pass the bawdy songs by) than doing anything that requires me to wear something frilly.
I figured when I had a daughter that I’d introduce her to all of the great virtues of being a tomboy. Sure, she’d have teddy bears, but she’d also play with footballs. At the moment she wears a lot of pink, but face it, there aren’t that many other colors available out there for ten month old girls. (I’m not so out there as to dress her in boy clothes. . . somehow I’m not comfortable putting her in a sweatshirt with little toy trucks on it.)
For Christmas Cora got all sorts of neat stuff. And she’d been playing with it all happily – gender-neutral stuff like stacker cups and Elmo balls and stuffed bunnies (hey, my nephews got the same stuffed bunnies). Then my neighbor showed up with one last Christmas present for her. It sat, unopened, for a couple of hours: Cora really doesn’t get the present thing yet. Finally my curiousity got the best of me and I prodded her to open it. Meaning, I mostly opened it and she played with a piece of the paper. Inside was a baby doll. One with a hard plastic head, plastic hands and feet, dressed in all pink. The very kind of thing that I wouldn’t have anything to do with as a kid, and teased my little sister unmercifully about. In the wondeful karma of life, however, my daughter has adopted this baby doll as her favorite toy. She often picks it up and carries it around, dives into it if it’s on the floor, pets its head. . . My vision of her future as a truck driving/motorcycle-riding/neurosurgeon has suddenly been clouded – suddenly the mist forms into a perfectly coifed, minivanner who is wildly successful running a company that makes Baby Einstein tape knockoffs. (OK, so that that’s not such a bad vision – do you know how popular those Baby Einstein tapes are?)
We’re guessing she might think it’s a baby that’s littler than she is. She’s often watched other babies and tried to interact with them. Maybe this is just a smaller baby from the nursery. Or maybe she’s pretending to be like her mommy and daddy, in which case she has some odd ideas of how we care for her, as she picks up her baby doll by the collar of its shirt.
Whatever the explanation, my utopian vision of a gender-role-blind child has been cracked. It turns out that there might be some kernel of truth to the girls will be girls and boys will be boys idea: my daughter will earn her own sense of what’s right for her as a little girl, and her poor mother will just have to live with it, and maybe get used to the idea of little baby dolls. Just so long as she doesn’t want to become a ballerina. (smile)
I remember when I got a baby doll as a birthday present one year. I thought my mom was crazy. But I managed to play with it: Batman and Robin needed someone to save from the Joker’s evil schemes. I miss my Underoos…
Don’t worry! I’m 14 right now. When I was a little (er) one I wasn’t a girly girl or a tomboy, I played with whatever toys were around and I went outside barefoot with no shirt on. When I got old enough to develope my own styles and such (around the age of 10) I turned into a fairlt girly-girl. Yeah, I still road fourwheelers and went barefoot, but my favorite color was pink and my favorite things to do were sneak and talk to boys one the phone with my bestfriend, go shopping, and dance to the newest Britney Spears song. Well this went on until I was about 13. It was then that I started to realise girly-girls are almost all alike and it was much more fun to not be so girly! Then I discovered that both are fun in someways and not so fun in many ways, so now I am just myself. No, I don’t have any pink outfits or shorty shorts, I don’t go for cheerleading tryouts, and I don’t constantly stare in the mirror, but I also don’t only shop in the boys department, dislike people for acting prissy, or get sweaty playing football every afternoon. I think you have a problem excepting the different, but you should keep in mind that it’s more important to except people for who they are and not for who they aren’t. You should also keep in mind that you probabley went through many phases while you were growing up and even if they didn’t consist of being girly then boyish, they were still phases, just like your daughter will go through many phases, and no matter what she chooses it right for her, you should always incourage her to do the best she can, keep an open mind, be an accepting person, and focus on more important things in her life than rather or not she likes pink or plays with dolls. And just because your daughter is doing something at 2 years old, does not mean that is what she is going to be doing when she is 20. Imagine how ofter little kids dance around naked when they are young…
Do you think that is what they are going to be doing when they go off for College?! More than likely, no.
Hi – i have to say as a girly girl i feel its sad that people like me are critisised and denigrated.
i think that by wearing tshirts and jeans and trying to look like boys that girls are playing by boys rules/ girls should wear lace and dresses as a matter of pride – “i’m female and i’m proud to look it!”. girls were created with smooth skin and delicate features… which lace accents while tshirts and jeans were designed for a rough bulky body type i.e. man it was created for outdoor work.
dresses and stuff should be more 50-50 with tshirts and jeans rather than only for special occassions – thats what equality is all about after all!
sorry i just dont like the almost total dominance of shirts and pants with girls today – when we stopped wearing dresses and skirts alot i think we lost something special what made us unique. on the same line – you could name your daughter Tristan but you wouldnt name your son Stephanie. im sorry if im not getting my point across well.
If your daughter turns out to be a girly girl wearing pink and wanting to do ballet your job as a Mommy is to support her every step of the way not try to re-create in her your own tomboy childhood.
I loathe girly-girls beyond the boundaries of mortal hatred. They are sick. I’m fourteen years old in 8th grade. I saw a girl one day who had those tight-as-a-second-skin flares that had a zipper on the butt crack. She was eleven years old. What are they trying to do?! When women are complaining about female discrimination, then they shouldn’t let their daughters wear something that supports it!
I can’t even talk to girls in school anymore. The only people I talk to are all boys.
Cristine? She’s a girly-girl and look at her typewriting. There is such a thing as a capital letter, you know.
So you say girls should wear girl clothing and not boy clothing. Why? “girls should wear lace and dresses as a matter of pride – ‘i’m female and i’m proud to look it!'”
I, for one, hate the fact that I am female. I want to look the least a female I can. I don’t own or wear any tight shirts or tight jeans or braids or makeup or any of that crap. It is uncomfortable.
Males just say you look beautiful so you’ll buy that crap and help companies sell stuff that doesn’t really do anything.
“The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” ~Rudyard Kipling, 1911.
Do you think that a super model can be deadly? I certainly don’t think so.
Hey you? Katie? I can tell you are still seeing how certain people are these days…I know what you mean. But I think you are a bit too drastic in comparing a super model as an icon for females. That is quite ridiculous! You’re still young and you’re going through emotions about society. There are many different kinds of people in the world with respective cultures, thus there are many kinds and ideas of women. If we are only our genitals, wouldn’t that be boring? Keep being yourself and don’t worry so much about others. It’s a huge world and our angst will never really succeed.
I hate being female sometimes too. I try to be as un-girly as possible, but it’s difficult with this vagina. 🙂
I grew up a major tomboy, not owning a single gown. An enviroment where i had more brothers than sisters, i guess that explains it. Am 23 but i still hate make-up and dressing up in dresses/skirts…i prefere executive trouser suits and cologne (stronger the better).
Not that am not proud of being a female, but a strong female. i hate that softy-softy girly type and feeling i can’t do what boys can…it’s bullshit. We are stronger, and if you feel you want to do it, just do it don’t wait around for them.
I have more male friends, and i find that healthy. They don’t have moody hangouts, no complications, sincere than most females i know. So i guess that answers all, we need to toughen up and make a change for ourselves and not for men.
Sylvia naughty-naughty!!
hey,
im 19 years of age. As a kid my mum always used to dress me up in dresses and she made me wear skirts. i didnt have much of an opinion back then but as i started getting older i hated wearing skirts cos when id go out to play with mainly guys around my area and my brothers we’d always be running around or climbing trees and a skirt did make me feel comfortable and wasnt practical. from the age of 8 i gradually stopped wearing skirts on average days and my mum hated it and would always argue with me because of it! i dont wear make up and i dont look in the mirror every 5 seconds like most girls i know. i think its a waste of time and shallow! however i have also learnt that i am a girl after all so when i feel it is appropriate for me to wear dresses and wear make up, e.g going out to parties etc, i do!
i hate going into uni and seeing all these girls with make up! whats the point?
my advice to you Tina would be not to enforce your opinions on your daughter, she will grow up and have her own thoughts of if she wants to be a girly girl or tomboy etc. shes still young…
don’t let the self-righteous pants people get to you. Obviously, people like “Hangsy” don’t know how powerful a woman in a dress can be!! Personally I love wearing skirts and dresses compared to shorts in summer (when the weather permits!) because it instantly makes me feel dressed up w/minimal work! If it makes you feel good, wear it – it gives more confidence in the way you carry yourself!