Balls and Ba-ginas: Parenting a Boy in a House Full of Girls.

They weren’t “that” family, just waiting on their boy. So after a family of all girls, raising a son came with some BIG surprises.

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When I went into labor and delivered our fourth and final baby, my husband said it all.

“Oh my god Kate,          it’s         a             boy?”

“Oh please. She’s just swollen. They always come out swollen. You know that.”

So he went in for a closer look. “Then she’s really, really swollen.”

Behold, after having three girls, a penis was born into our family of  “I am woman hear me roar.”

I have four children: three girls and a boy. The boy. He is the youngest. The last.

He is, in my family, the only one. The only Boy. I have three sisters, and my sisters have girls. So picture it: four daughters, 10 granddaughters, one grandson. This one.

To tell you the truth, we honestly didn’t even know who he even looked like those first few days; we just kept that diaper off staring in disbelief.

Let me be very clear: we are not “that family.” That ‘gotta-have-a-boy’ family. We were not going for the boy; waiting for the prince; holding out for a namesake. We wanted four children, and were fortunate enough to have four children. The surprise was the boy; we just didn’t think it possible. But know this: there’s no spoiled-rotten, favorite son syndrome in this house. It’s a girl’s world, every day, 24/7.

The poor dude.

As a toddler, he was dragged to watch his big sisters swim, do gymnastics, play basketball, softball, and soccer. He would steal trophies out of their rooms, and pretend they were his own, lining up the talismans in his bedroom according to size, sport, color. He’d tuck them in protectively and sleep with them at night. The trophies, not his sisters.

When he finally was old enough, he received his very own T-Ball trophy and ran around like a maniac to his sisters: “Look!! A boy trophy!! A boy! Yippee! It has a boy on it!!”

As a little guy, he’d dribble and shoot until the refs chased him off the court at his sister’s basketball games. One time, he climbed back into the bleachers, wiggling onto my lap, breathless: “Mom-mom-mom-mom” with his sweaty little hands on each side of my face: “Wisten to me. WISTEN” pant-pant-pant “When I grow up” pant-pant-pant “and I get a ba-gina” pant-pant “when I get a ba-gina, I’m gonna pway bas-ket-ball just wike my sis-tah.”

BA-GINA????

Oops. Had to break it to him, no vagina, not for him. An unintended benefit of three big sisters not yet afraid to be naked: no penis envy here. Not in out house.

When he was in fourth or fifth grade, some older boys called him a douche bag at lacrosse for wearing the wrong kind of cleats. He came home sad, confused, but mostly just embarrassed. He cried – hard. Between sobs, he said:

“I don’t even know what a douche bag is, but it’s not good. I can tell.”

His older sister spelled it out: “Douche bag? It’s a vagina cleaner. It cleans your vagina.”

His tears stopped – just-like-that.

Boy: “But I don’t have a vagina.”

Sister: “Yeah, I know. It’s what boys call loser boys.”

“Loser” – now this he understands. So we consoled our sad little boy, and encouraged him to do his best, and kick their loser asses on the field.  And he did, gaining immediate respect from those older douche bags.

Our boy is an athlete. He may be a nerdy, mathlete jock with an affinity for yo-yo’s, MasterChef, and Project Runway, but above all, he loves sports. You can smell it on him. These days, as a high school freshman, you can LITERALLY smell it on him.

Football, though, was one sport that just wasn’t gonna happen. Not in this family. Not because of the concussions or the summer commitment, which both equally suck, but because once I heard a coach, a DAD!!! scream across the field at his teeny-tiny squad of itty-bitty boys:

What a bunch of pussies! You all piss like a girl!”

Bingo. Winner, winner sexist dinner.

In our house, pissing like a girl is a compliment.  And a pussy is a cat.

I wasn’t aware of my unintended female slant to parenting until my oldest daughter came home from health class. As the go-to sex-talk mom, I sent her to school aptly prepared with anatomically correct terms and all the facts and nothing but the facts. “You knew everything, right? Tell me, what did they possibly teach you that you didn’t already know?”

“Boys,” she said, thoroughly disgusted. “You never told me about boys. I thought puberty and stuff was just a girl thing. Boobs, periods, hair, zits. I didn’t know stuff happens to boys too. You never told me.”

She was right. I never once mentioned boy’s development, male puberty or sexuality in any of my talks to the girls. Never. That’s what’s great about having more than one kid: you get a mommy do-over.

Just in time, too, because as we explained ‘nocturnal emissions,’ the girls were thoroughly disgusted, but our boy, maybe 8 or 9, bounced up and down on the couch proudly – “Ooooh, that’s when I get my period!”

This is the world our fourth kid, the boy, now 15, lives in. It’s relentless. I pity his first girlfriend who must pass the scrutiny of three older sisters. I applaud his future wife, who will have found a true partner who leaves the toilet seat down and is not afraid to hold tampons in his suit-coat.

So imagine my surprise when this boy balked when his sisters called him a feminist.

“AM NOT. I am not,” he insisted.

“You are so,” they attacked, ganging up on him with a vengeance. “Are you frickin’ kidding me? Give me a break.  Of course you’re a feminist. Men are feminists – at least the normal ones are!” The goddesses of righteous erupted. He, of course, was outWOmanned, but didn’t back down.

“No way, am not.” He was adamant, really pissed off, so I asked him, do you even know what a feminist is?

And he said: “Yay-ah. Do so. He contemplated this carefully.  “-ist” means hating, like racist or sexist. And feminine is girly, so it’s someone who hates girls. And I don’t HATE girls.”

Okay then.

How could this happen? How could he not know or acknowledge feminism? Where did I go wrong?

Or… did I go right? He was furious his sisters called him a feminist, someone who “hated girls.” Insisting he was no stinkin’ feminist, and ready to fight the accusation.

Despite the constant teasing in this house that estrogen built, and maybe because of it: the loving ridicule and embarrassing, never-ending noise and constant barrage of girl-talk, he remains their staunchest supporter and truest fan.

He is a feminist by nurture, and by nature.

He is a feminist because he values girls and women, and knows inherently their contribution and existence matters; that they matter to him.

As parents our job is to create empathetic creatures with souls and conscience; to raise kind, generous, strong people who care for and about all human beings regardless of designated body parts. And because of said body parts.

This is often an exhausting crusade of somewhat unintended female bias. One I make no apologies for, and promise to continue with laughter and love, sarcasm and humor, fingers crossed they’ll go forth and do the same for the future boys and girls in their lives.

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Photo: Flickr/photogramma1