What's wrong with boyness?

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

The other day, a friend and I were talking about one of my favorite subjects of late -- "Just what the heck is wrong with the world, anyway?" I've developed a level of crotchetiness that makes me feel justified to ask that question, and my opinions have now become hardened enough that I also feel fully qualified to provide the answers.

This particular conversation turned to some of the challenges that face young people these days. Of course, there are many factors that make the world a difficult place for our kids -- certainly more difficult than the world when I was trying to grow up. My friend had an interesting notion about one of the things that challenges boys, especially. She said she'd recently read something about the "feminization" of America, and that she believed it must be difficult to be a boy in a culture that now seems to frown upon boyness. At the risk of being call a chauvinist, I think she's right. To me, it's not as much a matter of equality as it is one of identity. Everyone deserves a fair shot at the brass ring, and everyone ought to face the same obstacles along the way. I have a son and a daughter, and I will do everything I can to ensure they enjoy the same opportunities -- I'll insist upon it.

Still, watching them grow has been fascinating. From the time Nykolys was very small, he had certain characteristics that I can only attribute to his boyness. He was a smart kid, but he was most stimulated by physical activities. When he was two, I turned my back on him for just a few moments at the playground. When I looked back at him, he'd scaled to the top of a 12-foot tall wall of tires. My heart stopped, but I smiled at him. "So how are you going to get down?" I asked. "Like this," he said, and skitted back down like a cat. When he was five, he discovered that swinging was much more fun when you were leaping out of the swing. He landed on a concrete border and broke his foot at daycare one day. After the doctor finished up the cast, Nyk began to cry. "Does it hurt?" I asked. "No," he said. "But how am I supposed to climb trees, now?"

McKenzie was another story. She's an active kid, but she favors intellectual pursuits, and her gentle nature has always been evident. Her games were more subtle and complex -- they were driven by social interactions. Nyk's games were always fast-paced, and they involved an element of risk. We didn't do anything to encourage or discourage one kind of behavior over another. We just assumed that they each were behaving in ways that felt natural and comfortable to them.

In many ways, it's those differences that make them each special to me. If McKenzie decides to become a fighter pilot or a rodeo star, that'll be great by me. I only know that I'll still see the things that are feminine about her. Whatever Nyk decides to do, he'll do it with his masculinity intact. Jobs and hobbies are not gender specific, but people are, and I don't think we should be ashamed of that. In fact, I think we should celebrate it. It's one of the things that makes us unique and attractive to one another. It's one of the things that makes us interesting.

When we try to achieve balance and equality in our culture, and we should always strive for that, we must remember that equality is not the same as homogeneity. I like milk, and I like beer. I like them for different reasons, and I never pour them in the same glass. I don't like milk with pizza, and I don't like beer on my cereal.

Rather than teach some of our children that the things they like or the way nature encourages them to act are wrong, we'd be better off teaching them to respect that not everyone likes the same things or is comfortable acting the same way. Instead of achieving equality by making boys feel bad about being boys, perhaps we should seek to make girls feel good about being girls. It's valuable and wonderful to be either as long as you're allowed to be yourself.

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a place where boys could still be boys, girls could be girls, and we all were treated like human beings? I don't know that you call that, but I like to call it equality. I'd like my boy and my girl to grow up in a place like that.

Frank Ameduri is not an expert in sociology, but he thinks some things still just come down to common sense.