When You Sit Right Down in the Middle of Yourself

“Wow, she looks amazing. I hope I look that good some day.”

I see the imperfections; they see the Mama.

“Don’t be silly, Mom. You already look that amazing.”

I love my girls. They are good for my ego (most of the time). But we do live in a tricky world where figuring out this whole self-image thing gets pretty complicated really fast and can be devastatingly destructive. I know it is an issue both males and females battle (my husband doesn’t go to the gym just because he likes to wake up early and smell other people’s sweat), but as a female raising females, the female battle is the one I am more familiar with and the one I have been trying to figure out how to talk about.

When I was younger, I did the whole mall modeling thing. I even had an agent. I exercised in my bedroom in the mornings and before bed, doing sit ups and leg lifts then measuring myself. I always knew my size. I also always knew every single flaw with my appearance. Eyebrows were waxed and plucked, skin was inspected for any blemishes, and I would spend hours pacing back and forth in front of a full length mirror. Then I’d go to school and hear someone say, “Sure Emma’s pretty, but then she opens her mouth.” Bam! And if people heard I was modeling, the comments were, “Seriously? Her?” Yeah. Their skepticism really rammed home my knowledge of my short comings (including my shortness . . . I’m only 5’8”).

Now as the size 2 mom people love to bash in blogs and songs, I wish I could say things are better, but people still love to be snarky. It is up to me to ignore the “skinny bitch” comments I hear from random strangers when I am shopping (wish I could say I was joking) and in songs (can’t love “All About That Bass” if it is calling me a bitch because I am not overweight). It is up to me to hold my head high and not feel responsible for people obsessing about their thighs just because mine don’t touch. Honestly, I don’t look at or measure other people’s thighs and didn’t know “thigh gap” was something to talk about until people started making such a fuss about it on facebook. I only think about my thigh gap when I drop my phone while I’m on the toilet. I cannot let other people’s visions of themselves define my vision of myself.

That is what I try to teach my daughters. They already get bombarded with pressure to look certain ways. Don’t believe me? Let your second grader shave her head. Count how many people tell her she is no longer a girl or no longer pretty or that she is weird, wrong, etc. Let your first grader wear shoes from the boys’ department. Less extreme action, but she’ll get similar comments. The pressure to look one way and fit a generic mold of “this is what little girls are” is intense and destructive. Not every person fits the same mold and trying to force them to breaks them. As parents, my husband and I decided our goal was to help our girls express themselves and be true to themselves - even if that means coming home from school and shaving their heads in the bathroom then rocking a Star Wars t-shirt and one of my blazers in the pediatrician's office. Looking fierce, Tuna!

My girls and I (and my husband, too!) watch America’s Next Top Model or Star Trek as our evening tv. These two shows were chosen intentionally because they help us teach our daughters to be "fierce" and embrace their differences (and remind us to do the same in our own lives!).  Their dad and I can say over and over, “you are beautiful as is,” but it doesn’t have the same impact as hearing a super model or star ship captain with perfect hair tell them that being true to themselves makes them strong and gorgeous.

Here are some of our favorite lessons the girls can take away from those shows to help them battle the pressures to “look perfect” all the time:

• ·         Confidence is Beautiful – The judges on ANTM say this all the time. They send girls home for not being confident. They tell girls that beauty comes from within and that they must BELIEVE they are beautiful.
  
• ·         Compassion is Powerful – This lesson the girls see on both shows. One of their favorite episodes of Star Trek is “Plato’s Stepchildren” because it shows Cpt Kirk and the other crew members showing compassion to a man, Alexander, who had only experienced bullying and abuse before he met them because he didn’t look the same as the other people. Alexander’s transformation is a result of that compassion and helps to defeat the bullies. The compassion was stronger than the hatred showered on him. We talk to the girls not only about the need for them to act as Kirk did to others, but also act that way to themselves. They must show themselves the same compassion.
  
• ·         Diversity is Necessary – This is a Star Trek lesson that is evident just by looking at the make-up of the bridge. The crew comes from all over. Each character brings different strengths to the table, and Captain Kirk relies on all of them to help him.
  
• ·         No One is Always Perfect Looking – ANTM is great for teaching this lesson. Every girl has something she doesn’t like about herself, including Tyra Banks. Plus, by watching old seasons and comparing them to new ones, the girls also see how the trends change. If a girl from season 20 made herself look and dress exactly like a girl from season one, she would be outdated and wrong. There is no point beating ourselves up to fit the idea of perfection of the moment because the moment changes. Also, the fact that the judges don’t always agree drives home the message that this idea of perfection is a myth. Perfection is an idea that varies from person to person, minute to minute. We should not change who we are or sacrifice ourselves to a false idea.
  
• ·         Be True to YOU – Both shows teach this well. Captain Kirk and Tyra Banks in their own very different ways encourage the people around them to be strong by being true to themselves. When the girls do that, they can be more confident, embrace diversity, show compassion to themselves and others, ignore other people’s definitions of perfection, and – most importantly – be happy.
  

As Ani Di Franco, my other go-to for shareable wisdom for my girls, so nicely says, “when you sit right down in the middle of yourself, you’re gonna want to have a comfortable chair.”

Why I am ok with my daughter shaving her head.

“Mom, please, can I watch Queen now? You know, the fun one?”

Fandoms are fun!

OK, I admit inside I did do a Mommy Victory Dance of Joy when my daughter reqested I put on the Bohemian Rhapsody music video. As much as I want my girls to be themselves, have their own tastes, explore their personalities and feel free to have opinions which differ from mine or my husband’s, part of me really dreads the idea of them crying and screaming over pop singers like Justin Bieber or whoever else is out there (I’m really trying to not know). I remember thinking the girls around me who were losing their minds over New Kids on the Block were slightly nuts, and then as a mom hearing about girls physically harming themselves over that Bieber kid just made me eeek a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love fun fandoms and being enthusiastic about stuff (this Simon Pegg quote is on our fridge), but I think enthusiasm and obsession are two very different things. And I think there is a difference between blind adoration and gleeful admiration.

So what do I do to try to counter the strangely obsessive pop culture stuff the girls encounter when they get to school? On weekends and in the mornings, I blast MY music at them (insert evil laugh). They do have their own CD player in their room and their own CDs – older one’s fave is her Taylor Swift Red CD and younger one loves her Everly Brothers – and they do have their own playlist on my phone which includes the Frozen soundtrack, but I admit to trying to teach them there is more music out there. When I was a kid, I listened to my parents’ favorites which was a lot of Beatles. I think that’s a great place to start. In Ukraine, that was all I played on my phone during our down time, and my daughter learned a lot of their songs. I also listened to Guns and Roses, Amy Grant, and Dead Milkmen when I was in elementary school. A bit of an eclectic mix, and I’m really not sure Dead Milkmen are entirely appropriate, so I might hold off on them (although I do still listen to them as a guilty pleasure occasionally).

In the mornings, while we are getting ready, I put on Pandora. Last year it was the Cat Stevens station.

So nice and chill! What a nice way to start the day. This year, I decided to boost the energy level a bit, so we switched to the Queen station. The girls LOVED it. I like to use weekends to push my own agendas (also known as parenting), so I spent a day just playing Queen songs and watching Queen videos on YouTube and talking about why Freddie Mercury was awesome. It was a really fun day. The girls were learning life lessons and how to head bang and insulting my hair (my hair naturally looks like Brian May's at its fluffiest), and I was getting bounce around like a doof and giggle and play with my kids. So what are the great lessons that can be learned from spending a day with Queen?

1. If you are passionate about something, do that. Queen had a passion for music and creating new, cool songs together. Freddie Mercury had a passion for writing and singing. When the girls learned that he was singing right up until he died, they were impressed.
2. If you have a talent, use it ALL. One of the girls favorite songs is Bohemian Rhapsody. They love how it sounds like so many pieces all in one. They also thought it was cool how not all the Queen songs over the years sounded alike. There is a variety of sounds and styles. When they learned the songs were written by the band members and they each had different tastes, but they agreed to use and appreciate the talents of everyone, the girls thought that was really cool. Talent wasn’t wasted. It was stretched.
3. You don’t have to like everything about someone or know every detail to listen to or like their music. Ok, so this isn’t strictly Queen related, but it is important. Do I want my girls to imitate everything Queen or any other rock band did? Of course not! Although, the part about getting a degree in physics like Brian May can be imitated with my blessing. Liking a band does not mean memorizing every fact about them and shouldn’t. I like Ani DiFranco, but I have no idea when her birthday is. How does that change how her music makes me feel? Also, fans don’t need to prove themselves by trying to become in every way the people they are listening to. The girls can bounce around to Radio Ga Ga without needing to also get drunk in a bar in London. I like when there are some admirable qualities, of course, and those are what I focus on when I talk to the girls (physics degree, use of talent, camaraderie, creativity, etc), but everyone has flaws and makes mistakes. We talk about the flaws and learn from them, too, so we DON’T imitate those parts. Mostly, though, we talk about the music and enjoy it and live our own lives, because frankly we are awesome as is. The girls know the name of Freddie Mercury and that is pretty much all the Queen trivia they can give you. Everything else was broad strokes: they wrote their own songs, there were four of them, Freddie died after he got HIV, Crazy Little Thing Called Love was written in the bath tub (ok, that's specific, but funny so totally worth knowing).
4. It’s ok to get pumped up about yourself. I love listening to Queen in the morning because I like the idea of sending my girls to school singing “We will ROCK YOU!” I want them pumped up about themselves and about life. I want them to celebrate their successes and be proud of themselves. I want them to feel like they can conquer the world. One thing we talked about was the difference in the messages of the songs. They weren’t all about dating or hooking up or breaking up. There were songs about simply kicking butt and being awesome. That, I think, is a good thing to have as a background soundtrack for a fourth grader.

If my daughters don’t like my same music, that’s fine. I assume they won’t like all the same things as me, but I can still expose them to it and talk to them about it. I can still try to teach them there is a world bigger than what they see and hear at the lunch table. And I can explain that they will most likely never marry a pop star, so devoting all their time, energy, and money to obsessing over one is not healthy. It is much healthier to just rock out and be awesome for themselves. So this is how I’m parenting in the mornings, and I’m having a good time empowering my girls, so don’t stop me now. (And, yes, this is my personal Mom Theme Song.)

Some Fashion Advice From a Seven Year Old

Pick your battles is good advice. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Especially when it comes to getting the girls dressed in the morning, I try to just let it go. I do have some basic parameters they have to stay within – the clothes must be clean, weather appropriate, and reflect some sense of pride (ie: we do not wear pajamas and slippers in public and we try to not look sloppy) – but otherwise I let the girls pretty much choose their own wardrobes. I like letting them be themselves, separate from me or their dad, and over the years, they have each developed their own styles. My younger daughter has really gotten serious about her clothes and has started creating her own fashion rules. Here are the top seven which she would like to share with the world:

1. “If you wear blue or purple, you should wear a pink hat.” Actually, she wears this hat with almost everything. She just happens to be wearing a blue and purple outfit today.
   
2. “Awesome matches awesome.” World Down Syndrome Day shirt equals awesome and neon flower skirt equals awesome, therefore the two match.
   
3. “If you fall off a curb and skin your leg, just wear knee socks to cover all the bandages.”
   
4. “Whenever you wear a tutu, make sure something covers your underwear.” This is especially critical if you happen to be the kind of kid who not only wears a tutu but also loves doing flips and cartwheels and being a ninja on the playground.
   
5. “Cats eat bunnies, and bunnies eat grass.” OK, so this rule doesn’t make a lot of sense . . . it basically is just her trying to figure out why there are bunnies on her cat leggings.
   
6. “Bow ties are cool.” The girl watches Doctor Who and Bill Nye the Science Guy. They are her top style inspirations. I’m ok with that.
   
7. “If you shave your head for kids with cancer, it’s ok to wear a wig when you’re at home.” When she goes out, though, she proudly shows off her short hair. She's not bald any more, but she still tells everyone about shaving her head for St Baldrick's.
   

"You may think I'm not powerful, but I am very powerful."

It is not easy to be a little kid.  There is a lot that cannot be done when one is six years old and barely four feet tall.  That being said, what can be done is incredible.

My husband, parents, in-laws, and I are news watchers and don’t like to sit idly by when we see something we don’t like.  Since their births, our girls have been involved.  Our older daughter was born in the middle of the Orange Revolution and was included in her grandfather’s book which chronicled the events of the revolution.  You could say she was born into political consciousness and fighting for social justice.

At four years old, she decided she wanted to help other little kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan after she learned they needed more school supplies.  Her preschool did a penny drive for Pennies for Peace, but she wanted to do more.  She set up a lemonade stand during my mother’s garage sale.  Filled with a sense of importance and power, she approached every person and told them why they needed to buy lemonade from her, showing them a poster she put together with help from her grandmother.  Penny by penny, nickle by nickle, she raised several dollars and sent them off with a feeling of real accomplishment.

Now it is her little sister’s turn to change the world.  Last year when I shaved my head to raise money for children’s cancer research with St Baldrick’s Foundation, my younger daughter said she wanted to participate, too. At the time her father and I thought she was too young.  We were worried about the physical discomfort of it for her as well as questioning whether or not she fully understood what the event was about. To her credit, she didn’t forget about it or lose focus.  For the last year she has been talking about shaving her head as she watched my hair grow back.  When her school started talking about St Baldrick’s this year, she instantly said she wanted to be a shavee.  We told her to think about it for a couple weeks before we would sign her up.  Again, we wanted to be sure she really knew what she was doing.  We had a lot of conversations about it, and she made a pro and con list. In the end, the only negative she could come up with was her uncertainty about what the actual shaving will feel like.  After her father test buzzed a patch behind her ear, she was 100% ready to go.  We signed her up, and she set her first goal.  “What did you raise, Mama?  I’ll raise more than you.”  She did! In less than 24 hours she reached her first goal of $420. She created a video so she could tell people herself why she was going to shave her head (and compare herself to a Dalek). In less than 48 hours, she passed her second goal of $806.  She has continued to raise more every day since then.

a message from Yaroslava from Alex Yanevsky on Vimeo.

The coolest thing?  It doesn’t surprise her.  She assumed people would want to help children with cancer.  She assumed her voice would be powerful enough to draw people to her cause.  When I told her she hit her first goal, she looked me square in the eyes and said, “I want to raise more.”

This feeling of power is not a selfish power.  She is powerful in her ability to help others.  She wants to raise money for someone else, for children with cancer and for their families who are sad. This sense of power and responsibility spills over into other areas as well.  The girls understand that their actions affect others and that they have a responsibility to contribute positively to their community.  This affects how they treat their classmates and teachers.

We want our kids to be kids and have carefree lives, however we also want them to feel that they can use their voices, that their voices deserve to be heard, and that they should try to fix things when they see injustice.  I do worry about burdening them with too much social responsibility and too much knowledge of the evils of the world.  We heavily filter what info they get from the news.  For example, as we have been glued to the news coming from Ukraine (my husband’s home country), we have only told them basic information.  They know people have died and are being hurt and that Kyiv is on fire, but they don’t know about the torture or see the pictures.  We constantly assure them that their grandparents and other relatives are staying safe.  We show them their grandfather on the news safe and sound to add extra comfort and peace of mind.  Still, they care and want to help.  My younger daughter very seriously put her spoon down during breakfast this morning to tell me, "I want to go to Ukraine. I want to go and find the bad guys and tell them to stop hurting Ukraine. I'll say, 'God loves you and you are supposed to not hurt people.' I really want to go and help the people." I told her we couldn’t go to Ukraine right now, and she glared at me a bit.  Later she asked how much longer till she shaves her head.  I answered three more weeks and she replied, “good.  Then I have time for Ukraine.”  It is certainly tricky trying to keep them in the loop without feeding them too much info or causing too much worry.  Because, in terms of the Ukraine situation, she seems to have set her mind on being a hero again, we will have to come up with a way for her to feel she is using her powers once more.  And then, hopefully, she can spend some time just playing with her Legos or having snowball fights.

If at six years old she has already taken on fighting cancer and an Eastern European bloody regime, what more will she do as she gets older?  And how much can the two girls together accomplish?  And how much can the world change if more little girls embraced the power they have?

Want to help her "save little kids and make their families happy"?  You can donate here. 

*Update* Since she couldn't go to Ukraine is person, Yaroslava sent a message instead.  She made cards for her grandfather to share with people there, and she created this video for them.

Пісня Ясі для людей в Україні from Alex Yanevsky on Vimeo.

"Mommy, I play hockey!"

The other day someone said to me, “Oh, our little girl will never play hockey.  Her daddy would never let her do that!”  Now, I know not every little girl will be a hockey player, but to me it was a bit baffling to hear someone completely rule it out as an option before their daughter is even two.  I asked, “But what if she wants to?” The other mom smiled and said, “No, really, her daddy will not let her play hockey.” 

My daughter does play hockey (as have many other daughters for a long time including Lord Stanley's daughters as well as a whole Olympic team of daughters), so this seemed like a strange line to draw.  There are some negatives – rinks are cold places to have to spend hours each week, it’s an aggressive sport with lots of crashing into each other, the gear and fees are not cheap, it’s a huge time commitment once they get to the travel teams (but thankfully my princess is still doing in-house).  But those same things are true for most activities.  Overall, I have learned to love hockey.  I see how much joy it brings my daughter and the ways it has helped her off the ice. 

 

Our happy little four year old princess loved to skated along the
center the line, back and forth, during free time.

She started skating lessons when she was three because she demanded it (she knows what she likes).  She would pretend to skate everywhere yelling to me, “Mommy, I want to skate!”  She would take whatever she could find and swing at invisible pucks.  “Mommy, I play hockey!”  So we got her in mom-and-tot skating classes which were an absolute joke because I can’t skate to save my life!  As a kid, I dabbled in ballet, gymnastics (very briefly), and modeling (through my teen years).  Yeah, I can’t skate.  When she was four I very happily moved her to the hockey basic skills classes, and she has never looked back.

Me doing what I do best - sitting and smiling
and not participating in sports.

See how serious he was?
Good luck getting him to dance now!

Her daddy’s only fear for her when she started hockey was how damaging the competitive nature of the sport would be.  He grew up in the Soviet Union and was put in competitive ballroom dancing as a kid.  The super strict competitive atmosphere was pretty traumatic.  Less than perfect children were ostracized severely.  When he saw the coaches laughing with Sofi and patting her on the back when she improved, patiently encouraging her when she struggled with a skill, he relaxed and said she could keep going.

I know some parents start choosing sports or activities for their children before they are born, buying cute tiny catcher mitts or ballet shoes, planning lives filled with activities.  When she was born, we weren’t sure our daughter even had any life ahead of her at all.  She was as close to dead as a baby can be.  I didn’t even get to see her in person until she was a day old because they were working so hard just to get her stabilized.  She proved she is a tough cookie by beating the odds and smashing through every obstacle in record time.  We want her to have a great life now that she has worked so hard to have one at all!

At this point, who cares what sports they grow up to play
as long as they get a chance to grow up!

So why do we let our precious pretty-pretty-princess play hockey?  Other than the fact that she loves it and really wants to? 

• Being in a team sport teaches her to think beyond herself and to see how her actions affect the success of others.  When she works hard and plays her best, her team does well.  When she doesn’t pay attention or turns into “blombie” (her dad’s name for our blond zombie), she doesn’t guard the net and doesn’t pass the puck to her teammates to help them score so her team suffers.
• Hockey teaches her to accept responsibility for her actions and also gives her new responsibilities similar to ones she will face later in life.  She must keep track of her gear.  If she forgets her stick or water bottle, that’s on her just like if I forget my wallet or phone that’s on me. 
• She also knows she isn’t alone in her battles.  When things get tough, she has a whole group of guys behind her, watching her back and cheering her on.  When they played against an overly aggressive team and a kid started saying, “girls can’t play hockey,” my daughter’s teammates jumped to her defense and loudly spoke up for her. 
• She is learning that not everything is easy at first, so sometimes she needs to put in extra effort before she sees results.  A lot of things just come easily for her.  She picks up on stuff pretty quickly.  When she doesn’t, she can get thrown for a loop and get discouraged.  When that happens, we remind her about crossovers, a hockey skill that she struggled with at first but now has no problems doing.  She says, “Oh, yeah, I had to practice and it took a while for me to learn that.”  Taking time to learn things is ok.  Giving up when she isn’t perfect right off the bat is not.  Thankfully none of her coaches or teammates has ever demanded instant perfection.  They all recognize success and identify weak areas as areas to work on in a productive manner.
• Hockey reinforces the lessons she learns in health class.  If she doesn’t eat enough before hockey, she is hungry and sluggish.  If she doesn’t bring her water bottle and stay hydrated, she feels sick.  She tries to stay in shape year round and eat healthy so she can be the best hockey player during hockey season.  That kind of self discipline will benefit her her whole life!

As I have said before, if we had limited our daughter to things we have experience with or things American society has labeled as girlie, life would be pretty boring.  We love watching our daughter flourish and grow in her chosen sport. We love seeing how it is helping her become a stronger person both physically and mentally.  We love learning all about a new sport and meeting new, interesting people through it.  We don’t know what will happen in the future, but for now we are happy hockey parents.

Playing in the backyard with her little sister (who doesn't skate at all).

“Mom, I am glad I am one of a kind. I am unique.”

first day smiles

This week my girls headed back to school.  After all the drama and tears of the past couple years, I was prepared to be putting my older daughter on the bus with a lump in my throat, worrying about all the “what ifs” that came true in the past – kids teasing her for playing hockey or liking science, girls refusing to sit with her at lunch because she wasn’t girly enough, boys refusing to play with her because she is a girl, and on and on.  Imagine the relief I felt then when, the day before school started up again, she told me she was excited about the new year and said, “Mom, I am glad I am one of a kind.  I am unique.”

Where had this newfound strength come from?  This is the same girl who just a couple months ago was shyly snuggled next to me on a park bench saying she was afraid to approach the other kids because they might not accept her.  This is the same girl who cried after school on a regular basis because of how the other kids were treating her.  Somehow, seemingly overnight, she had changed.  After putting her on the bus and watching her eagerly wave good-bye to me, I had time to sit alone and think about it all.  Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle started to drift together.  She gained confidence in herself and an appreciation for her uniqueness because of the strength of others, because people spoke up when they saw her being her. 

At the start of the summer, she was still feeling very down about herself and hesitant to try to form relationships with other kids.  When we went to Ukraine, she stayed glued to my side at first.  We would sit at the playground and watch the other kids running around.  I would urge her to introduce herself, but she would bury her head under my arm and say, “what if they are mean to me?  What if they don’t like me? What if they are like the kids at school?”  

Thankfully, there was another person there.  My husband’s cousin quietly praised her.  She invited her to go places and then bragged about her to others.  That little nudge was enough to get my daughter off the park bench.  If a cool medical school student thought she was not all bad, maybe the kids at the park might be ok with her.  They were.  Of course, not all of them clicked with her, but a group did, and the ones who didn’t just left her alone.  The ones who did, the boys who bucked tradition and ran around playing with the little blond girl, gave her the next nudge of confidence.

This is what support looks like.

The adults we have been lucky enough to surround our daughters with are incredible.  Instead of calling her weird or ignoring her, they have been very vocal cheerleaders for her.  That is critically important because praise coming just from me, her mom, doesn’t mean as much as praise from other people.  My praise is important and necessary, but not the same.  I can rave about the virtues of being a geek and cover the fridge with Simon Pegg quotes until I am blue in the face, but that is just laying a foundation.  The powerful building up comes from others.  When someone else says she is amazing BECAUSE she loves science or BECAUSE she plays hockey, that is powerful.  When someone invites her to their wedding and praises her crazy dance skills, that is powerful. When someone sends her a video like this one and tells her she should stay true to herself because that is what will make her happy as an adult, that is powerful. 

As adults and as parents, we often want to heap praise on our own kids.  Of course we do.  They are our perfect babies.  It is important to also recognize the value of praise from other people, though, too.  We must be those other people.  We must remember to recognize the good in other children in addition our own.  Just by simply saying, “I like the way you do that,” we might be the person nudging them a little out of self doubt and onto the playground.

To all the people nudging my daughter, thank you.  Really.  Truly.  Sincerely.  Please stay in her life and watch her grow as a result.

"Mama, I need my wings."

Daughter: "Mama, I need my wings."

Me, pointing to the wings right next to me: "They're right there."

Daughter: "No.  My OTHER wings."

Me: "Oh.  Those are in your bin under your Darth Vader mask."

the girls in their favorite outfits

Ah, yes.  Time to get dressed.  While one has a fit if I give her a skirt, the other is having a fit if I don’t.  On days like this, days when I know the farthest we will be going from our house is the backyard, I admit I give up the battle.  You want to be a fairy today?  Fine.  You want to wear the same t shirt you wore yesterday because it is your new most favorite-est shirt you have ever owned in the entire history of owning shirts?  Fine.

Dress? Not likely.

One thing I love about talking to new parents is their optimistic belief that they will be able to control what their kids wear.  Trying to hold in the laughs, I listen to them explain to me how their little perfect child will never wear pink or glittery jeans or tomboy clothes or mismatched socks or whatever they have decided is just unacceptable.  Even the tiny baby in their arms looks at them like, “ha!  Sure, Mom.  Just wait until I decide I will love monster trucks and sequins!”

Here’s the reality.  Kids will be exposed to way more than just their parents.  They will meet other kids, will walk past displays of random items, will get hand-me-downs from kids with different tastes.  Sure, we’re the primary agents of socialization, we do the most to define normal for them, we buy the majority of their clothes, and we have access to the dumpster if we really hate something.  But we also are the ones who will be tired in the mornings, decide it is more important to get to the doctor’s office on time than wrestle a screaming kid into an outfit she hates, and most importantly, we are the ones who – hopefully – love our children for who they are.  That means loving them when they have the Darth Vader mask on or the fairy wings or the nasty jean shorts with ugly t shirt.

Spock ears match everything.

I still buy for my girls outfits I like and think are cute and that MATCH (really match . . . not “stripes match stripes, right?”), but I have accepted that my girls have their own identities and opinions, and some day soon I won’t get to play dress up with them any more.  We have a system for outfits to keep mornings smoother.  As I fold the laundry, I grab seven complete outfits with underwear and socks and put them in a hanging cubby thing in the closet.  Theoretically, everyday they pick one of the preassembled outfits.  "Theoretically" I say as I smile while folding the adorable Gymboree outfit (with matching hair bows, of course), and watch my daughters run out the door wearing the shorts from the resale shop with a hand-me-down White Sox tee and a torn fairy princess costume.  In the end, having my kids know who they are and feel comfortable in their own skins is way more important to me than what the neighbor might think about their fashion sense.

I said, "Get dressed and play outside."  This is what they put on.

“Mama, the theme for my new bedroom will be fairytales, dinosaurs, and broccoli . . . or carrots.”

ready for SCIENCE

There is no denying my older daughter has eclectic tastes.  And there is no trying to tie her down to one description.  She knows what she likes and she sticks to it.  She loves pink, and she loves dinosaurs.  Always has.  She refuses to cut her hair because she wants to look like Rapunzel, and she is most comfortable in a pair of jeans and a science shirt (dinosaurs, microscopes, Stemgent, etc).  She is boy crazy already (even though she is only 7) and has plans for dating a lot when she gets older, but she doesn’t really want to be a mom.  She wants to have dogs instead of kids and wants to focus on her career as a hockey playing paleontologist.  She can sing most of the Disney princess songs, and can name most of the dinosaurs and paleontologists she sees, and can skate and take checks like a grown man.  I am constantly amazed by how strongly and passionately she embraces three worlds – the girly princess and the science geek and the tomboy.  What a wonderful, interesting, full world lies ahead for her!

cheering on her favorite team

Then I think about the little (and full grown) girls out there who don’t get a chance to be lots of things at once, who don’t know what they are passionate about.  Or the girls and women who know what they love, but don’t feel they can openly live out their dreams.  How sad is that?  And not just in far removed countries with laws created to shut women out.  There the burkas, curfews, regulations, limitations blatantly, opaquely define what a woman can and cannot do.  Here in Midwestern America, things are more subtle.  The eyebrows that go up when Sofi starts talking about science.  The people who laugh at her and then say, “Oh, well, she’ll grow out of it.”  When she talks about hockey they say, “That’s a nice way for her to meet a boyfriend, but I don’t think that is an appropriate activity for a girl.” (Even though girls have been playing hockey since the beginning of the sport.)  When she wears her Stemgent shirt and proudly tells people she wants to be a scientist and work with Lia Kent at Stemgent, it is not uncommon to hear actual gasps.  Why is this so shocking?  It is 2012, and women have been studying science, making incredible discoveries for hundreds of years.  At this point, her stubborn side (well, stubborn WHOLE) prevents her from being deterred by other people’s views of her hobbies.  But what about the girls who DO care what people think?  How is society blocking them in, shutting them off from other areas?  Telling them that "like a girl" means weak or vane or less intelligent.

So what can we do?  Give our kids options and lead by example.  For little boys as well as little girls.  Will it really kill them if we let the boy play in the kitchen and the girl play with Star Wars Legos?  Will they really be teased that much if the girl wears blue and the boy wears pink?  And who will tease them most: kids or adults?  The adults, in my experience, are the most judgmental and limiting.  They are the ones who set up these gender roles and teach them to their children.  Kids don’t care until the adult tells them, “That is wrong and I am right.”  When my younger daughter wanted to cut all her hair off, I was nervous because of what the adults in our community might think.  Then I came to my senses, adopted her courage, and realized I have to set the example and not force her against her will to adhere to illogical gender norms.  Does hair length really matter in the end?  Nope.  Is she thrilled with her short hair?  Yup.  Have some people questioned the decision? Of course.  Does she care? Not yet.

And in case you were wondering, my younger daughter is planning a Star Trek themed bedroom.  She likes other things, too, but dreams of living on the Enterprise (she already has a shuttlecraft bed).  Here she is with her favorite things (doll dress from here, Alice in Wonderland tutu dress from here, Cpt Kirk and Darth Vader from here).