Mainly because the title I want to be using, "And sometimes people are stupid..." seems like a bad way of going about things. So, let's stick with "I can't decide on a title..."
At any rate, the kid in this picture is my ridiculously awesome nine year old son (yes, SON), James. This kid is my whole world, you guys. I'd do anything for him. He's tremendous - he's got a razor sharp sense of humor - which fortunately also came with a good sense of the appropriate times and places to deploy it. He's a good reader although he doesn't enjoy doing it, and rarely misses on his spelling tests at school, even though he enjoys that even less. He's got a beyond his years sense for music - he likes to play it and dance to it - and has been known to help me choreograph dances on occasion, even at his age. He's a passionate Detroit Red Wings fan, and day dreams about what his grown up life will be like, when he's an astronaut. He's got guys that he looks up to, that he aspires to be like in the world - he loves his hip-hop teacher Ross, thinks his gym teacher "Mr. J" is the coolest, and looks forward to getting to draw with his art teacher, "Mr. H", every single week. My point? James is as well rounded a nine year old as I know how to produce. He's interesting. Talk to him some time - you might learn more about Minecraft than you'd ever hoped for, but you won't be sorry.
The most awesome part about James? He beats to his own drummer, he's really got a great drive to find his own way in the world. He tried starting a business at recess once. He sold his drawings for 1 cent a piece, because he explained to me "I wanted it to feel like a real store where people had to give me money, but I didn't want to take all their money.", he holds "drawing challenges" at recess where all of his friends have to draw pictures, and then a friend who didn't participate finds the best ones...and he has long hair.
When I was a kid, we got to pick out our own hairstyles. I'm the second of five kids, and that's a lot of heads to monitor at the hair salon all at once. Plus, I'd wager, my mom was just doing the math that if we picked out awful haircuts, we were the ones that looked like dummies, so what did it really matter to her? I've always liked the sort of low stakes adventure that hair represents. There's not a single thing that can be done to hair that's permanent. If I color it, I can change it. If I cut it, it can grow back. If I curl it, I can wash it or straighten it. You can constantly change up your hair, and nothing sticks. It always changes!
Once he was old enough to have an opinion, James got to start picking out his own hairstyles. Summer between first and second grade, he asked for a mohawk. Thinking better of that one, I talked him in to a fauxhawk. It was cool - he was the talk of the school - and I learned how to get a pretty mean hawk going on. If you're interested, Herbal Essences hair gel and a flat iron will get that bugger right up there!
Second grade was also a awful winter, one of the worst on record. So James discovered the wonder that is a winter hat, and realized that he couldn't have a mohawk and a winter hat at the same time, so the mohawk lost out. We tried shaved on the back and sides and long on the top, but the kids at school shut that down (as their known to do), so once the shaved sides grew back in, we were on the hunt for a new hairstyle again.
Lo and behold, James' third grade best friend, a boy named Michael, started growing his hair long, and James got stars in his eyes. "Mom, can I please grow my hair long?" After cautioning him that his long hair wasn't going to look like Michael's (Michael's hair is a gorgeous chestnut brown, and he has that type of hair that you put it in to a ponytail, and the tail is the size of your wrist. James' hair is sandy blonde, fine, and a little wavy), I went "Sure, why not?"
And the grow out was on.
And fight for it, he has. Many, many one sided arguments from his dad. Many, many debates about just how brushed out snarls really needed to be before I'd get off his case about them (My argument is very, his contention is "Oh come on, mom!"). Many, many household debates about how to keep his bangs out of his eyes once they started getting long enough that they were in his eyes.
But the weirdest thing? Taking him out in public. He gets mistaken for a girl, at minimum once a day.
Of late, there was the woman at the town thrift shop that asked what "us ladies" were out shopping for, choosing to ignore the black winter jacket, blue jeans, and beat up black Chuck Taylor's that stuck out from the bottom. Or the woman today at Marshall's, who very politely said "Excuse me m'am," before hanging a handful of dresses on the rack right behind his head.
But the biggest one? Maybe the worst ever?
"James, James, James! Tell my brother if you're a boy or a girl!"
Thunk. My heart probably dropped to my knees.
Let me back up a second. James is taking a course through our local Community Education program, learning to play Floor Hockey. I like for him to tie his hair back off his face when he's doing activities like that, and he wears it up in a pony.
So he very excitedly runs up the stairs on a water break, ready to exclaim over how awesome he felt the scrimmage was going, and another little boy I don't know runs, hot on his heels, and sits next to him. "James, James, James! Tell my brother if you're a boy or a girl!"
I immediately squinted. I had several options. I could have let James defend himself. I could have just let him play along. I could have waited for the mom to tell the kid that he was an ingrate, and that no other kid there had been asked to justify his gender, so why should mine have to.
Two of those options were reasonable. One of those options was all but required by the situation at hand. None of them happened. So I finally come out of my squint - "I don't like that game. Why would you ask him a question like that?"
James looks down, like "My mom's got this one, I don't have to say a word." (And may he always know that I have his back like that. I'll advocate for that kid until my last breath, and I should hope any decent mom would do the same.), the mom of the other kid offers up a meek "Exactly...", and Coach blows the whistle to call the kids back out on to the field. Situation over.
Except...was it? My kid - who doesn't dress feminine, sound feminine, or carry himself in a feminine way - has once again been asked to justify the choices that he's made. He gets to select his own hairstyle. It's important that kids get to learn to control things, and hair is a pretty low stakes thing to give him to be in charge of. He thought hard on it, and decided long hair was the image that he wanted to present to the world. Fine. Go forth, and grow the best head of hair you know how, my man. Mom's got your back.
So why is it weird? I've made choices some parents didn't make. That doesn't make me a bad mom. My child has made choices your child either hasn't, or wasn't allowed to. That doesn't make him a bad kid. I was a kid who marched to my own drummer, and within reason, I was encouraged to do so. For heavens sake, I was a competitive clog dancer!
It's got to be exhausting to be James. I mean it, it really does. He's asked to explain his gender, or justify his gender, sometimes daily. And tonight at hockey, he was asked to do it in a big crowd of people. And what for? Because the image that he wants to present to the world isn't the same image you want your child to present? What do you care? What does your kid care? What do any of us care? Someone who's being encouraged to think for himself and not follow blindly with the crowd is something to be celebrated, not mocked. We hear all the talk about peer pressure, and how bad it is. I've got a kid that refuses to succumb to it, and he's being mocked for that too.
So, to James - and anyone else who finds his or her self in this position on the regular - get out there, and be the most amazing, awesome you that you know how. Even if that doesn't take the shape society thinks that it should. I've got your back.
I'd love it if you'd give me a like on Facebook!
