In all my fantasies of having a child, I always imagined having a girl. A feisty, spunky, worm-loving, mud-puddle-hopping, pink-disdaining, peace-loving, punk-rock kind of girl, but still, a girl. As Galloping Cats noted in a comment oh so many moons ago… “i think it’s easier to work on bending gender stereotypes for girls than for boys. i mean, it’s one thing to dress a girl in blue and give her trucks to play with… it’s another thing to dress a boy in pink and give him dolls to play with, when you don’t even believe in girly girlyness for girls!”

While we trying to conceive, the glimpses of family life that made my heart turn alternately to sweet pudding (that’s what I want!) and then to sour milk (why everyone but us?) were always girls. A friend’s daughter boasting about her karate prowess. A little girl and her dad playing catch. My niece climbing up on my lab to read a story. It didn’t seem to matter that I have friends with loving, nurturing sons, that I am friends with loving, nurturing men – who almost as eager to be honorary uncles as we are to be moms – even that my dad is one of the gentlest, warmest people I know. I still wanted a girl.

I figured I would deal with whatever nature gave us, but nature gave us an adoption situation where we had to specify boy or girl. And of course Pili and I didn’t agree. All of a sudden, we found ourselves rolling in stereotypes; the kind of stereotypes we progressive-liberal-lesbian types are supposed to be above (ha!). Boys are more fun; more active; less complicated – Girls are more nurturing, less violent, more verbal…

I was nervous about how I’d react to the kind of physicality that I’ve observed in many of the male children of my friends and in the children I’ve taught. Every tree branch becomes a sword. Bloody noses and bruises are the norm rather than the exception. It seems out of control to me, and it makes me nervous. Some of this discomfort I trace to the fact that I don’t have siblings [niece and nephew are the children of my first cousins] and didn’t grow up with lots of roughhousing, competition, and casual violence. Pili on the other hand, grew up surrounded by male cousins and is much more comfortable with that energy.

It was only once we decided to name GB after my grandfather that boyness began to seem less intimidating to me. Grandpa was a wonderful artist and a terrible curmudgeon, who only seemed to get used to the idea of saying “I love you” a few years before he died, but never failed to squeeze my hand and slip a rolled up bill into it before we left his house. Thank you, I would say diligently, and he would wink and say “Thank you? For what you are thanking me?” as my mother rolled her eyes and hustled me into my jacket.

When the agency coordinator called and said I have a referral for you, even though I knew it would be for a boy, part of me still hoped that she would announce that it was a girl. Or twins. Boy/girl twins. And then she told me GB’s name, given to him by his firstmom, and my heart did this funny little skippy thing. His birth-name contained names from both my family and Pili’s. And all of a sudden, he seemed like my child. My son.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped worrying (who me? never). Earlier this week, Pili and I were taking a walk with a good friend of ours. She was describing her daughter’s friendship with the little boy who lives across the street and I commented on how glad I was to hear that here was a little boy – unlike my nephew, which is another story into itself and is probably another big part of where my worries come from – who wasn’t into violent games. Oh no, she said, he’s teaching her to play good guys/bad guys and to shoot things. And so I worry.

One of the best things I’ve read this week comes from Shelley of But Wait There’s More, who writes:

D doesn’t have any toys whose main purpose is violence. He doesn’t own any guns. He knows that we hope that he remains a kind-hearted and good-spirited boy, and he’s known boys who seem mean-spirited. He understands that we are concerned about how he plays with toys, and that if they seem to be bringing out the worst in him, they might go away. And he spends virtually no time in retail space.

But we are conscious of the fact that he’s a boy with two moms who is going to be spending significant amounts of time over the next however many years living in Boyland. And we want him to feel like a native, not a foreigner. So he has a Starscream Transformer.

What will it take for me to become comfortable in Boyland?