I’m a Feminist. How Come My Boys Are Such Boys?

When my older son was a toddler, he played with baby dolls, given to him by my mother. He’d push them around in the little stroller I’d found at a thrift store. He fed them toy bottles. When his brother was born, he sometimes wore one in a little sling, mimicking the way my husband and I carried our infant.

I hoped that by making dolls available alongside trucks and Duplo and a toy kitchen, he’d take advantage of the broad options for play and perhaps learn some bigger lessons, like how nurturing isn’t a trait exclusive to women. As an egalitarian mom, I have to admit I beamed with pride during the short times when my sons loved baby dolls or favored the color pink.

Then, when they were big enough to play together, I found my boys tying dolls to stakes, or trapping and jailing them as if they were enemy combatants. I never saw them use a doll as a weapon. But their hobbyhorses and plenty of other objects were turned into rifles and swords for play fighting. There goes my attempt to raise pacifist, nurturing sons, I thought as they grew to embody many boy stereotypes.

I read everything I could find about kids and play, worried about the violence and roughhousing. A psychologist comforted me by saying as long as the boys aren’t actually harming anyone in “real life,” just play, it’s best not to interfere. Play is a child’s work, and their freedom in this area can be crucial for their development and understanding of the world.

Like many moms of boys, I had to make peace with my sons’ thirst for (pretend) war.

The fact that boys can turn anything into a weapon or competition—and girls, on the other hand, can bring any object into their world of mommies ...

 You have reached the end of this Article Preview

To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access.

Log inSubscribe

Already a CT subscriber? Log in for full digital access.