BOY WHIPS HAIR BACK AND FORTH – WORLD ENDS IN FLAMES!!!

Guest column: Sarajoy van Boven

“I whip my hair back and forth!  I whip my hair back and forth!  All my ladies if you feel me.  Do it.  Do it.  Whip your hair.”

It’s a Wii dance party and we’re wild and crazy, whipping our hair, cautiously so as not to cause a migraine, but whipping it all the same. Sarah, (mother of three of these

groovin’ girls,) turns to the only boy, my seven year-old son, and offers: “Want a turn?”

“No thanks,” he mutters.

I’m shocked. That “no” came from the mouth of a boy who’s been begging for a Wii non-stop.  Here, the controller is in his face and he’s not interested. Then it’s the grrly power anthem, “Girls Can Too!” I ask my son again, “Don’t you want to try?”

“NO!” He yells and turns away.

“Oh gosh.  Of course you don’t,”  Sarah says, “These are all girl songs.  What was I thinking?  I’m sure there are some songs you’d like here…somewhere…”

Another time, when my son and I were back on our farm, he asked me about our milk cow,  “Is Hendrika a girl?”

“Yes, only female mammals give milk,” I say.

“And the chickens are all girls, right?”

“Yes, only female chickens lay eggs.”

“Why is our farm all girl animals?  Why don’t we have any boys?”

“We do have one boy, King Louis (our cat).  After they’re neutered, boys make the best pets.”

Doh! Take a memo while it’s fresh: Think before you speak.

Then I heard this story.  Maybe it’s just an urban e-legend. It might have come from a reliable source. I don’t think I read it on the cover of The National Enquirer: “BOY SAYS M.D. IS FOR GIRLS ONLY, CRIES, WORLD ENDS IN FLAMES!!!“  This tale is about the little brother of empowered sisters. The boy said he wanted to be a doctor/astronaut/robot scientist (I’m unclear on the details) when he grew up, then sighed and added, “Too bad only girls can be doct-ast-robo-tists (an approximation of what he may or may not have said).”  End quote.

I could see my own family reflected in this.

My daughter (the oldest, the one who forged our family’s kid-culture) is a math and science whiz for whom we’ve gathered piles of books, such as, “Girls Who Looked Under Rocks,” (bios about women scientists.) My daughter has heard St. Jane Goodall speak, has observed the works of Sister Frida Kahlo and Sister Georgia O’Keefe. She’s been indoctrinated by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables. Because I’m paranoid about what the world will tell her about being blonde and easily tan, we’ve read up on Google’s Marissa Mayer.  All of this occurs with her little brother in tow.

I developed a growing sense of panic that I could be raising a son with an inferiority complex. Insecure white boys have caused enough damage, I don’t want to create another. But, you say, “Our entire culture is saturated in white male privilege.  White male role models are EVERYWHERE!  That’s why we needed books and songs just for girls.”

My response:  My son has a great dad and granddads to look up to, but the American people haven’t had a white male president worth emulating since he was born.  Yes, society’s main cultural “god” is white and male, but my son doesn’t believe in him.  Simply because white males have societal entitlement, it doesn’t mean they feel it personally.  White males struggle with self-esteem just like the rest of us (trust me on this, most of my relatives are depressed white men). Some don’t even feel entitled to emotions.

An August 2011 article in Psychology Today noted that the behavior and emotions boys are culturally allowed are quickly funneled down to one: Anger. When we can imagine this power ballad on Wii, then I’ll sit back and let society indoctrinate my son about manliness:  “I’m a BOY and I can cry / just as hard as you. / I feel a range of emotions / and can express them too. / I’m a boy and I rock / cuz I love school.”

I dove into our collection of media in search of someone, good and famous, white and male who’d modeled something other than entitlement and anger. I looked for someone who’d used their power to fight for underdogs, someone for him to identify with.  There’s Lincoln and Houdini, sure, but who else?  Wasn’t there anyone?  I felt a little weird about my obsession, a little too “white-powery” for comfort.  But if it’s good for the girls why wouldn’t it be good for the gander too?

And then.  Finally.  There it was!  Singing to me from the library shelf.  TADA! “Ten Leaders Who  Changed the World.”  The sun burst through the clouds and a choir of white male angels sang. I clasped the book to my bosom: “Yes! yes!  Finally!  Not just one, not two, but TEN WHOLE LEADERS!  YES!”

I brought my new “baby” home and bribed my son to sit on the couch with me.  Together, yes together, we would read about all of the good white men who have led.  We would read about white men who stood up for women and children and people of color and the disabled.  I was chomping at the bit: Who were these worthy men? Where did they come from?  Who were their mothers?

We settled in and read about Mohandas Ghandi: A great man, one of the greatest, but he wasn’t the white role model I sought. We eagerly read about Nelson Mandela, my son’s favorite. Again, not white.  Ah! Here was Franklin Delano Roosevelt!  And there was Charles de Gaulle!  From here, we moved on to the nitty-gritty of the word “change.”

It turns out, I was imagining “campaign-style, progressive change.”  But the author was more into “any ol’ change,”  introducing Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, you know, all the “greats” your seven-year-old needs to know about. What we learned was that not all bad people are white.

And now it seems obvious, the role model I seek will be whatever gender and color they are.  In this concept, the ends are the means, the medium is the message.  What I need teach my white boy is how to teach him. By looking beyond the surface to take heart from the journey of every good person, and to learn courage and commitment from all who do good work.  A woman, a black man, an Indian, they will be his role models. On this farm, we can all whip it, girls and boys.  No neutering required.