Proud Moments In Feminist Parenting

The boy child, oh my how he makes me proud. And often in ways I totally did not expect or plan for.

He came out to me as straight at 8, which was just too cute for words (and would have been just as cute if he'd came out as gay) and boggled my melon for a bit. My awesome therapist explained that it is totally normal for kids raised in either gay or gay friendly households to announce their sexuality once they've got the grasp of it.

There is the fact that he's been bugging me to dye a pair of pants pink for him for months. My 15 year old is "comfortable enough" in his manliness to want to wear the oh so girly color. He's a teenager. He should be mortified by his peers and trying desperately to fit in, and he couldn't care less what they think of him.

Which leads me to the most recent super proud but surprising moment of feminist parenting yet. For the Kid's bday, my Auntie, having noticed that the Kid was very interested in my late grandmother's china doll collection, got his about half a dozen china dolls of his own. And he's over the moon about them. I sat through a doll display show last night where he showed me which ones were his favorites and how cool is this one that looks like a chibee of the big one and so forth.

I am the proud mother of a white, het, teenage boy child who loves dolls. I think I just won the feminist mommy lottery. Holy shit, all those years of work actually paid off.

(The pointing out of Kid's sexual orientation is not to privilege het, but rather to show that the normal stereotyping of a kid like mine is that he must be gay. Perhaps there are more straight boys in the world who would like to collect dolls too, but because of social restrictions they have to make due with action figures instead).

Comments on this will be very closely monitored. You talk smack about my kid in any way and I will not hesitate to put a giant pile of whoopass on you, including but not limited to publishing of private contact information. He's a kid, and he's happy, and he doesn't give a damn what you think. But I'm his momma and I will gut you like a fish for looking at him sideways.