Guns 'n Chromosomes

My grandmother once saw my mother snuggling and kissing her baby boy and commented:

You're going to make a kissy-boy out of him.

I declare that this world is in dire need of more kissy-boys. You know what I mean don't you? Boys who grow into men who kiss their wife and their children. Men who aren't ashamed to cry or to cuddle their babies.

But, you may ask in horror, what if he likes playing with dolls? Or grows up to be . . . you know?

I'm here to say that I have strong evidence that nature plays an overpowering role in these things. It is my job as a mother of boys to tamper that three-headed-macho-monster a bit. I have a couple of babydolls that I keep in my boys' toy box. I'm happy to find them playing with them on occasion. When I was pregnant with Elliot, I encouraged Ethan to hold and rock the baby doll. I've tried very hard not to shame or discourage "girly" interests such as when Ethan's favorite color was pink, or when they want to play with my jewelry.

And though we haven't outlawed toy guns, I do try to avoid having them in the house and discourage violent pretend play. And though we don't discourage sports play and Matt does occasionally watch a game, we certainly aren't sport fanatics in our household. Let's just say the macho threshold is very low around here.

All this withstanding, my boys both know how to distinguish a skid steer loader from a front loader and an excavator from a backhoe. Why? Because they're naturally interested. We own The Little Mermaid and they both enjoy using their Fairy toothpaste, but by and far, the winning movies in this household all revolve around heavy equipment.

Imagine my surprise the other night when we came in and the boys asked to leave the lights off. They began commando crawling around the house with headlamps and flashlights. A little bit later I noticed they both had ball point pens clipped to their clothing.

What are those? I asked.

Those are our guns! Ethan happily replied.

We're dookin' for bad duys in da dark. Elliot chimed in.

And they ran off making shooting noises at shadows lurking in dark hallways.

I smiled and put them to bed and they both asked to sleep with their guns. The next morning Elliot comes to me bright-eyed.

Good morning sunshine! I say.

Where are my duns?! He asks with concern.

I'm not overly disturbed by this. Boys by nature are definitely boys. I doing my darndest though to make sure we end up with a couple of kissy-boys--even if they're dun-toting kissy boys.