The World of Boys

I entered the world of Boy a little over nine years ago upon the birth of our first son.  Andrew was the perfect baby at the perfect time.  I loved him to pieces and was so busy enjoying motherhood that I barely noticed I'd entered a new land.

Sixteen months later, an ultrasound technician stood over my bulging belly and declared, "It's a boy."  I had suspected a different pronouncement and was a little surprised to find tears of joy welling up in my eyes.  Another baby boy.  Another perfect baby boy.  I could not have been happier in that moment.

John, as you may have suspected or observed, is different from his brother in many ways.  He was, even in the womb more energetic, more physical.  On the pediatrician's scale, he was "more" as well.  Despite their differences, both my baby boys were wonderfully precious, and I reveled in the new world I had found, the world of Boy.

My two young sons, however, were not the ones to inform me that I had entered this new world.  Rather, the countless people who told me I needed a girl and who asked if I was going to try again suggested to me that as a mother of two boys, I was living in a frightening, new world.  One woman in the grocery store - a complete stranger, mind you - looked from one of my boys to the other before looking at me and saying, "Oh, you have two boys.  Are you going to try again?"  I might have punched her in the face, or more likely walked away fuming at myself for not appropriately defending my dear boys, had not my passive aggressive side emerged.  In my sweetest, most innocent voice, I informed her that, "Yes, I am going to try for another boy.  Boys are so wonderful and so much fun and I'm really looking forward to being the only one in the house with PMS and I just love my boys sooooo much...."  She may have walked away thinking I needed to hire a babysitter before I completely lost touch with reality, but at least I felt good.

And truly, I did love having boys and couldn't imagine life otherwise.

My husband likes to say, "It all fun and games until someone gets hurt."  Boys, now that I have a few more years of exploring this world, are one of those things that you might say are "all fun and games until..."  Sometime around the beginning of their elementary years, something happened.  One of my boys needed a little more space and time to himself.  The other boy needed something to do and someone with whom to do it.  He also needed a creative outlet for his energy and emotion.  In the absence of such an outlet, chaos ensued, often to his brother's irritation.  In short, my boys collided.  They didn't stop being fun, but I realized there might be a little more to this boy raising than fun and games.  For the first few years of their lives, I felt like a lucky adventurer exploring a wonderful new land filled with princes charming.  As my boys began to collide with one another, sometimes with unexpected intensity, I began to experience fleeting moments in which I feared I had been marooned on an island of savages the first syllable of whose language I could not decipher, but who might be plotting to eat me.

Please don't judge me.  I love, love, love having boys, but like many women who are blessed with more than one son, I grew up primarily among girls.  I had two older sisters and a brother ten years younger than I.  The ten year gap and the fact that there was only one of him negated any educational influence he might have had upon me and left me mostly uninitiated into the World of Boys.  I did learn a few things about boys from him - or at least gained some experience calming them down - but nothing about what happens when boys collide, for good or for evil, with one another.

So we have our "boy moments" when they do headstands on the couch and punch each other at the slightest provocation and suddenly lose all ability to remain still for half a second, as well as all ability to refrain from enthusiastically discussing every manner of bodily function.  Such days often find me on the phone, frantically communicating to Geoff the details of a long string of "boy moments" that have left me doubting all of my parenting skills, instincts, beliefs, etc.  Frankly, sometimes "boy moments" have shaken me to the core. Geoff's responses to my panicked calls consistently sound like:

"Yeah..."

(Dramatic pause as the man who grew up in a family of three boys tries to figure out how his wife missed out on the following fundamental fact of life).

"They're boys.  That's what they do.  Send them outside."

Slowly but surely, I'm learning that Geoff is right.  Our boys do need to be outside.  They need to run and play and build and get dirty and feel that they are kings of the world...  or at least kings of the backyard.  The fighting and bickering and bouncing and jumping that send me crying to Geoff is drastically reduced when I give them a good dose of fresh air and exercise.  "Boy moments" that send me crying to Geoff give way to moments that I want to hold onto for all time - sweaty heads and the earthy smell of boys who have given their all in the battlefields and construction zones of play, laughter and earnest commands drifting through the kitchen window, water being gulped from a cup held by hands that shouldn't go anywhere near anyone's mouth, clothes and shoes so dirty they must be left in the laundry room when playtime is over...  and best of all, shouts of, "MOM!  Come see what we made!" Something in these beautiful creatures craves physical and creative triumph.  Experience and the wisdom of a grown up boy are working together to teach me not to meet these needs for my boys, but to provide them with the resources to meet these needs for themselves.  Because, unlike girls, boys don't generally want to sit around and talk to you about their emotions.  Sometimes they will do it in their own time, but sometimes they won't.  They don't seem to want you to make it all better, either, at least not past a certain age.  I'm finding more and more that, whether it's a confusing math problem or picture that isn't turning out just right or a dispute with one another,  these boys want to fix things themselves.  Not only that, they can fix things themselves.  As I think of what the future of mothering boys looks like, I hope for many long, deep discussions with my boys, but I wonder if mothering boys might involve a lot of standing back, biting my nails, anxiously hoping that their plans will succeed, and in the end, being amazed at what my boys are capable of accomplishing.

I haven't been marooned among savages, but placed among kings.  Dirty, sweaty, upside down on the couch kings they may be, but kings nonetheless.  Kings who will try and fail and figure and fight and win.  Kings who will always fill me with immense gratitude to my King for giving me the privilege of mothering not one or two, but three glorious boys.

And a girl...  because God knew that every now and then, I'd need the fun of telling Geoff, "Yeah... She's a girl.  That's what she does.  Admire her shoes.  Welcome to the Land of Girl."