NOTE FROM RON: As a participant of the bloodsport that is Blogathon, I’ve accepted a challenge to write on a topic that I don’t know anything about—therefore, I’m exchanging blog posts today with the illustrious Jennifer Fink from Blogging ‘Bout Boys. Click here to find my post on her blog.
I’m not writing about boys!
Since Ron, a father of two girls, is over on my blog today musing about what he doesn’t know about boys or why he’s happy to live in a house o’ pink, today is my day to write about girls.
Or, more specifically, why I’m happy not to have them.
It’s not just that I don’t think I could stand all Hannah, all the time. (Although I do have to say that for an all-boy household, we probably watch more than our fair share of Hannah Montana!) It’s not even that I’m perfectly happy with two types of laundry: Dark and Underwear. Or that I already had a house full of Tonka trucks and dinosaurs and am, to be perfectly honest, a little freaked out at the thought of changing girl diapers.
The truth of the matter is that I’m not sure I could handle a girl. That whole mother-daughter relationship thing seems so fraught with danger. I have – shall we say – a slightly complicated relationship with my mother. I’d hate to recreate something so tension-filled for my own daughter.
And yet…there are times I grieve for the daughter I never had. Right now – in the middle of boys and dirt and farts and dirt and frogs and dirt and fish and dirt – I’m perfectly happy to have boys. I truly am 100% OK with skipping the “pink” aisle at Wal-Mart.
But when I think of the future, I mourn my loss, for I will never know the joy of my own child giving birth. I will never get to see my baby swell with child, never get to hold my daughter’s child.
My sons, I hope, will have children. Maybe not all of them, but c’mon – I have four! ONE of them is bound to give me grandchildren.
Somehow, though, I don’t think it will be the same. I’ve watched, and there seems to be a special bond between mother and daughter. Strained as the relationship may be, I know I call my Mom far more often than I call my mother-in-law. And my mother-in-law is far closer to her daughter (and her daughter’s children) than she is to me.
That’s just life; a natural preference for our own children. (Or maybe just an attraction toward our own brand of insanity. Could be either one.)
In any case, I try not to dwell on it. I try to enjoy the here and now and immerse myself in my boy-drenched life. I realize that an X or Y chromosome is not destiny; what matters most is the relationship I build with my children, right here, right now.
And getting close to those future grandkids means getting close to my boys, right here, right now.
Thanks for switching with me, Ron. This was fun!
Nice post. Enlightening, even, says a mother of both genders. Am I lucky to have had the experiences of parenting both sexes? You bet! At least I think so. Was it different parenting styles for both? Yeah, I think it was. Do I love them both all the same? Most definitely. We have what we have. We get what we get. Our job isn’t to choose. Just to love. I think you’re doing that!
Jackie
Loved this post, Jennifer! As the lucky mom of two boys (now men) I get it. All the games (“Boy in the Dryer,” “I can shout louder than you,” “how much food can we throw at each other before Mom comes home,” yadda yadda), all the disagreements….all the love. And I was lucky enough to be stepmom to a girl who grew up to be a really cool woman (shout out to “Mrs. Ziccarelli”)!