Parenting Beyond the Pale

                                                                  Otherwise known as free child labor.  I'm telling you, you can't start them too young.  Just hold that bottle out at arm's length and say, "Not until you've cleaned Mommy's toilet..."

Don't call CPS.  Do notice that we removed the blade from the mower before this helpful little extravaganza began.  I expected Gabriel to have fun scraping all the crud out from the bottom of the machine, but just look at little Noa, agog over all the shiny silver tools.  She had a blast just trying each of them out and getting Melissa's toolkit all grassy. 

Gabriel likes to help me drive.  He has learned about traffic lights, and with his keen little eyes spies signals far in the distance...and expects an instantaneous motor vehicle response.  "But it is RED, mama."  "Where???"  "Waaaaay up there!"

Okay.  So this morning on the way to school he explained the system to me.  "Red is on top, see, because Spiderman is the top, and he is red."

And green?  "Green is the bottom because Spiderman 'feats (he mean defeats) the Green Goblin."

I knew there was a method to this madness.  He did not have an explanation for the yellow light yet, but I'm sure it is coming soon, to a booster seat very near myself.

I’m doing my best to completely freak Melissa out. She is disturbed – to the point of queasiness – when anyone uses their foot like a hand. I have no idea why. Using toes to pick up a dropped pencil or scratch the dog totally gives her the willies. So my mission this week has been to teach Noa to hold a piece of Apple Jacks cereal in her toes and... get this... eat it. The horror!

Driving home from preschool Friday afternoon, my 4 year old son announced that he needs a red dress.  It should be shiny and sparkly and, preferably, come with a crown.  It's a bit of an unusual request from him - usually everything is Spiderman.  His shirts, backpack, bicycle, plates and cups, toys, beach towel, all Spiderman all the time.  In fact, when I asked why the dress needed to be red, he told me:  red is my favorite color, because it is Spiderman's color.  Okay.  Does anyone have a pattern for a Spiderman dress?  Was their ever a Spiderwoman?  Desperate moms need to know.

From what I hear, a significant number of dads would have a problem with their little boys dressing up like princesses.  At least that situation sets up the joke on sit-coms, like Ross on Friends frantically trying to switch his son's Barbie for an Action Figure.  But I have worked at a preschool, and know that little boys are very likely to pull the princess gear out of the dress up case and put it on - with less frequency than girls, but it is not unusual. 

Melissa and I reviewed the conversation after he went to bed.  For her part, Melissa can't imagine wanting to wear a dress as a child or adult.  I understand and identify with wanting to get a little fancy - its fun to look pretty!  But do we care if Gabriel goes Princess on us?  No... except the nagging uneasiness of "what will people think?"

We've noticed that certain relatives and friends have harbored some quiet uneasiness about two women raising a boy - evident in their happy assertions that Gabriel is "all boy"  and the propensity to purchase toys for him that look like they belong in an arsenal.  And in fact, we worried about it a bit when he was born - what do we know about boys, for heaven's sake?  Until Melissa's mother reminded her that she has been 'one of the boys' her whole life, not so much butch as a true-blue, dyed-in-the-Levis tomboy, and that she'd probably enjoy playing cops and robbers more than a teaparty any day.

There are a couple of books on the market on women raising boys that read either as apologetic "look, our boys are just as well adjusted and manly as those of straight couples!" or radically programmatic, "we are going to raise a new breed of men to overthrow the dominant patriarchal society."  For my part, I'm just not sure of either.  I know quite a variety of men, but I'm not certain what "manly" is.  And if Gabriel grows up maladjusted, it'll be more about my parenting-skills learning curve than my lesbianism.  (We joke that the first kid is like the first pancake, "just for practice".)  On the other hand, as much as any family desires to instill their beliefs and values in their children, be it religion, politics, or radical feminist separatism, I've noticed that kids like to grow against the grain.  [Mom's a Democrat?  Ha, I'm voting Republican and that'll show her!  Dad wants me to go into the family business?  Too bad, I'm running away to join the circus.  Parents are atheists?  I'm getting Born Again.] So I'm going to choose my battles and try spend my time worried about training the kids in empathy and kindness, do my best let them see where my ideals and values lie, but let them work out the other stuff on their own time. 

So will Gabriel get the coveted Red Dress?  Probably.  If the local thrift shop has one to offer, it will come home with me this week.  Because an imagination is a terrible thing to waste.  I think I'll pick up a whole bunch of dress-up items so that we can play Princesses and Pirates and Mermaids and Motorcycle Gang and whatever else we can dream up together.  My only REAL reservation is:  when he is 16, will he hate me for writing this post??

Is there such a thing?

I've taken some flack for referring to myself as a "Soccer Mom" in a story in the SF Gate back in 2005.  (The link to this article is available in this blog's "Wedding(s)" page, the stories of our real and attempted weddings.  http://www.parentingbeyond.com/weddings/).  But what is a "Soccer Mom"?  Do you have to be a WASP?  Am I disqualified because I'm gay, or because I'm Jewish, or...?  And why would or wouldn't I want to be called one?

According to Wikipedia: In a literal definition, soccer moms have children who play soccer. The term has been extended in popular culture to include mothers anxiously running their children errands in oversized SUV vehicles while chatting on their cell phone. To some extent the phrase has begun taken on a negative stigma.

According to (one of the many anti-Soccer Mom posts) Urban Dictionary: An American bourgeois woman of the post baby boom generation, who, instead of reaping the benefits of the sexual revolution that her foremothers and sisters fought so hard for, sold out to the new patriarchy which promised stability in the form of white suburban neighborhoods, SUV, drive-through Starbucks and yearly trips on Carnival Cruise Line. The only dose of women's lib that transpired through their lifestyle is their endorsement of the the typically male dominated tradition of sport (usually soccer) onto their daughters. But don't be fooled - the fact that these women refer to themselves as "soccer MOMS" only reaffirms their sociological status as mere vessels for the incubation of their progeny.

OUCH!  So the unspoken label implicit in the above is that a Soccer Mom is a stay-at-home-mom, another thing that I am not sure whether I am or not.  People ask me fairly often, "So, are you a stay at home mom?"  I always feel bewildered - and I have got to admit - a little pissed off - by the question.  Bewildered because I do work - on my dissertation - and generate some income by teaching Adult Ed classes at our synagogue and teaching New Testament classes online for Christian seminarians and clergy.  I do dearly hope to have a "real" job in the future - but not while my babies are so little and would have to go to childcare all day.  Right now we'd rather live frugally and keep them at home.  Pissed off because the phrase "stay-at-home-mom" conjures 50's images for me of the "little woman" smilingly cooking, cleaning, shopping and sublimating her thoughts and ambitions to the Family and its Breadwinner.  Pissed off because, yes, that image kind of kind of resembles my daily life, although I try to keep the sublimating to a bare minimum.

Okay, so Gabriel is too young for soccer, but not for long. And if I could afford an decent FUEL EFFICIENT ($$$!) van or SUV to haul my kids around, I'd gladly donate my creaky, leaking 1987 Volvo to the Human Rights Campaign.  But here's my point: I think that "Soccer Mom" is one of those labels, like "queer" or "dyke," that can be embraced and turned on its head.  I think being a Lesbian Soccer Mom is empowering - I'm sure the very NORMALCY and happiness of my family shares the shit out of homophobes who want to convince the world that "marriage is between a man and a woman" and that granting legal status to my family unit would some how put everyone else's families in grave moral jeopardy.  I'm sure that the kids and straight parents that we run into at school, the playground, supermarket - and someday soccer practice - are more open and accepting of gay families because they KNOW one, and therefore don't just swallow the ugly reactionist hype.  I'm sure that, just by existing, I am making a difference.

By and large, at this point in my life I am usually too busy making macaroni & cheese or de-schmutzing children to march in support or protest of anything.  Today, parenting is my activism.  So am I a Soccer Mom?  Hell, yes.  The quote from poet W.W. Ross has become famous precisely because it is true "... the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."