Life with Boys

I had no idea what I was getting into when I found out I was going to have sons. I'm the youngest of five girls and out of the eleven children combined that my sisters have given birth to, three are boys.

Years ago my "mom friends" and I would talk at length during playgroups, as our babies crawled at our feet about how we believe that boys can be raised to be sensitive and that it's the media that forces physicality and guns on boys. Boys can be painters and dancers, they will sit and draw just like girls and play with dolls. We were going to raise them differently.

Boy were we delusional!

I laugh to myself remembering those conversations. Don't get me wrong boys can be sensitive, and of course they can grow up to be anything that they desire. But in the meantime, the paintbrush becomes a sword and the dances tend to have farts and wrestling in the choreography. The dolls that once were used to teach the older child how to be gentle with the new baby entering your family, is now used to test the parachutes that they make and hang over the balcony. Most drawings involve evil villains or maps to treasure. Everything becomes a gun; sticks, toothbrushes, legos. And even though you swear that you'll never buy a toy gun because you don't believe in guns. Your son will beg every Christmas and birthday till eventually you'll cave and purchase a nerf gun or water gun.

Trust me. It will happen. And it's okay.

No one will think that you are a horrible mother because you allow your son to go to the grocery store in his halloween costume with a water gun tucked in his utility belt in June. People will just smile. Especially seasoned moms to sons. Because we know all too well that this is what life looks like when you give birth to a boy.