Why it's important to act like a lady or the importance of manners

I'm part of an online forum for parents in our neighborhood, which I occasionally look at while I'm drinking my coffee in the morning.  Amidst the chaff about how vaccines, toy guns, princesses, and refined sugar are the root of all evil are occasional informational and/or thought-provoking posts.  The former are good fodder for snark, but the latter are why I subscribe to and occasionally contribute to this forum.  One such thought-provoking comment was a response to a recent post about a mom's concern about her language.  The person writing the comment made the observation that swearing is a benign example of how women and moms worry too much about being "nice".  They wrote that they believe that this pressure is damaging to women and plays into the cultural stereotype of moms having to be nice/good/accepting all the time.  She advised the person posting to swear away and revel in causing a bit of "cognitive dissonance". 

I chewed on this idea on my drive home from work that day because I both agree and disagree with this statement.  I agree that many women my age were encouraged as children to not stand up for themselves or pursue their interests to the same degree as their brothers, cousins, or male friends.  I remember being routinely told off for asserting myself and seething every time I was encouraged to
to be "pleasant and agreeable" instead.  I grew up in an environment that did not prize outspoken women and had pretty rigid gender roles so this seethe boiled into a predictable teenage rejection of everything "nice" or "feminine".  Like all teenage rebellions, this wasn't particularly grounded in sound logic.  I believed that looking like a girl, using good manners, or being attracted to anything that my elders considered nice or appropriate was somehow colluding in a plot to force me down a path I didn't want to go.  Predictably, I wore mens' clothes, did sports, and read/listened to things with the maximum possible shock value.  Choosing to stand out had some positive effects.  I stayed out of trouble and learned lots of good life lessons thanks to sports and discovered some great bands and authors.  I also attribute the presence of many good things in my life to the choice to step away from the expectations that many of the adults around me had of girls and, by extension, of me.

Gradually, though I grew to realize that a wholesale rejection of "nice" or "feminine" served its purpose during my teens and early 20s, but is not applicable in the adult world.  As I've grown older, I've realized the importance of manners, and shockingly, of acting like a lady.  I believe that good manners, which includes being mindful of one's language, are an outward statement of self-respect.   People that are secure and respect themselves respect other people and can assert themselves without being aggressive or shrill.  I believe this is equally true for men and for women.  I also think that women tend to equate being aggressive and shrill with being strong, which I think is a mistake.  The ladies who I consider to be both my personal and professional role models are able to get what they want in life while managing to be (mostly) kind and respectful to other people.  This kindness and respect is what I consider to be acting like a lady.  Although the outward appearance of "lady-like" behavior is eerily similar to the one I grew up with, the rationale is much different.  Growing up, I was taught to use good manners to stifle dissent and to discourage me from asserting myself.  As an adult, I try to use what I was taught as a child to speak my mind and assert myself in a way that is respectful both of myself and of other people.  The difference also is that I understand when it's appropriate to be "nice" and "good" and when it's appropriate to unleash my inner fury.

Gender isn't completely fluid

Some people believe that gender should be completely fluid and that it's something that kids need to completely figure out on their own.  I disagree.  I believe that there is a broad range of gender-normative behavior and that each kid needs to figure out how to fit within these boundaries with adult help.  There are exceptions to this such as intersex individuals or kids that come from families with rigid gender roles, but let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we're talking about anatomically normal kids from relatively open-minded families. 

I suppose this is why the attitude of crunchier parents towards their anatomically normal and normally identified sons' desire to play with Barbies or wear sparkly pink dresses in public creeps me out.  Kids don't know that certain things aren't ok unless adults tell them.  This doesn't mean I'm equating wearing girls' clothing with torturing kittens, but it's still something that's not quite acceptable in my book.  Maybe I'm more traditional in this way, but I still believe that it's good to tell a child that they need to fit themselves and their behavior into some relatively broad norms.  That same little boy doesn't have to play football or macho games with his friends to be masculine, but he also shouldn't be wearing a pink tutu.  Boy clothes can be boring, and a kid who wants to jazz up his wardrobe with a sparkly dress can be redirected into blinging out a shirt.  Although the two things are similar, one is on the girly end of socially acceptable, but the other crosses the line.  It's not that I don't think boys can be feminine or girls masculine, but there are limits. 

Going past these limits can make life really difficult and affect things like a kid's ability to make friends, focus at school (hard to do when teased), or develop aspects of themselves outside their gender identity.  I believe in pushing boundaries, but not to the extent that a small person's healthy development is compromised.  If my daughter wants to play football and/or dress like a dude, I'll probably encourage her to take a small step to the lady side.  Hockey, basketball, rugby, and soccer are all contact sports that people of both genders enjoy playing and are just as, if not more physically demanding than football.  Likewise, there are lots of gender neutral or menswear-inspired clothes that she can wear.  The difference is subtle, but it is the difference between a mannish woman and a person of unknown gender.  Unfortunately, she might be subject to ridicule for both, but falling within the broad definition of feminine will save her a lot of heartache.  I don't think this will be a problem for us because Ms Frog already seems like a girly girl, but who knows?

I don't think that everyone should be the same and I'm all for expanding definitions of "normal" whether it's gender, sexuality, religion, or life choices.  However, there are certain really broad things that I think people agree to do in a society in order to live, work, and play with others.  It's not required to like or even agree with these others, but it's necessary to be able to co-exist.  This co-existance requires some very broad similarities.  For instance, I've got very little in common with the mother of a Quiverfull family (speaking of rigid gender roles) who lives out in the boonies and home-schools her brood of 8 according to the precepts of the Bible.  However, we both identify as women and are both mothers so we could recognize each other enough to interact if necessary.  People in this culture break others down into either male or female and identifying someone as one or the other is a basic thing that governs the nature of an interaction between people.  I'm not arguing whether this is good or bad here, but acknowledging that it exists.  A family's definition of gender that is too broad or too restrictive can derail this process through hampering development of a gender identity that is both true to a particular child and falls within certain boundaries.

What about men?

There was a lot of buzz this summer about an article in the Atlantic about the idea of women "having it all".  The idea of separating work and home life began in earnest with the industrial revolution and men and women alike have had to figure this out.  The only group that didn't have to do this were middle or upper-class women who were denied employment or educational opportunities that would have forced them to do so.  This changed in the 1960s and 70s when more of these women began to pursue jobs and educational opportunities previously closed to them, at which point the discussion about "having it all" began.  Let's forget for the purposes of this post that the idea of "having it all" is heavily steeped in race and class privilege.  Let's also forget that success means different things to different people.  I am a middle-class white lady who has an advanced degree in science, a reasonably demanding job, and a small child so this conversation is relevant to my personal set of circumstances. 

What has annoyed me about this conversation is how it has evolved to exclude men.  The author of the article in the Atlantic mentions her supportive/loving husband and talks about their partnership.  A TED talk that proceeded this article by a few years also mentioned the importance of men.  Subsequent buzz has largely ignored the guys.  Why? Men balance work and family and have always been expected to do so.  All the men I know have a deep and abiding love for their families.  It's a different relationship than moms', but no less affectionate and nurturing.  No one talks about the anxiety a man feels when they leave a sick kid to go to work.  Likewise, there's radio silence about how sometimes a guy feels stressed about meeting his work and family obligations.  Are we that dumb as a society that we don't recognize a man's capacity for loving his children? That we exclude half the human race from this discussion? Are the ladies facilitating this conversation so short-sighted as to not understand that support is mutual and that men and women face similar challenges? The assumption that a man isn't/cannot be as caring and nurturing of his children as a woman makes me angry.  Furthermore, it is assumed that a man struggling to meet his work and family obligations can handle it and will suffer in silence.  We ladies can learn something about powering our way through difficulties quietly and gracefully like guys do.  Likewise, men can learn from us about the value of talking things through with a friend or asking for help.

Maybe I'm not seeing the problem clearly because my family is not a traditional one.  My husband and I both have careers that we're highly invested in.  We're both mildly obsessed with working out to the point where it always seems like we're training for a race.  We both want to support each other in reaching our career and personal goals and recognize that sharing responsibilities is an essential part of supporting each other.  We each want the other to be happy both for its own sake and so we can raise a happy, confident daughter.  Plus, there are a lot of places where traditional gender roles are reversed in our household.  He's a much better cook and is the more nurturing/permissive parent.  I'm often "bad cop" and am a bit more detatched, but we both love Ms Frog and want the best for her.

It's only stuff. Or is it?

When we go over to other kids' houses, there are lots of toys that light up, make cool sounds, etc.  We don't have a whole lot of these things and sometimes I feel like a bad parent for not providing them.  This isn't to say that Ms Frog has nothing to play with; we've got blocks, stuffed animals, plastic figures, hand puppets, and tons of books.  There's also a house full of things that make great toys from pots to big people books.  I do feel a bit guilty that her toys, like her clothes, are mostly gifts or yard sale/thrift store purchases, but maybe we're doing her a favor in the long run.  I'm sure we're going to run into problems with this as she gets older and notices that she doesn't have as many cool toys/trendy clothes as some of her friends.  We'll probably have to buy some of those things (or have her grandparents do it), but I really want to limit this.  I want her to learn that stuff really isn't that important and that fun doesn't require tons of props.  I'd much rather she roll in the mud or trash the kitchen baking a cake with her buddies than sit in her room playing with some silly toy.  I want her to realize that doing something or spending time with someone is much more important than having something.

The culture we live in is all about things; what someone buys is as much or more of what defines them than other qualities.  This applies to anything from the clothes someone wears to where they buy their groceries to where they don't shop.  This bothers me to no end because there are so many more things that define a person; relationships, values, hobbies, taste in books, etc.  Marketing to kids through media or peer influence brings them into consumerism before they are old enough to decide if/how they want to participate.  I don't believe it's necessary to put walls around what my child watches or who she plays with.  I do think, however, that it's necessary to (largely) say no to marketing campaigns.  I can do this by choosing not to buy her everything she asks for and by encouraging her to laugh at ads and go beyond the pitch.  For instance, if she wants a princess costume, we can make our own instead of buying it.  Ours can have more frills, sparkles, etc than the store version.  Or we can skip the thing and pretend to be princesses using our imaginations.  I imagine the latter won't fly and that we might end up buying that princess costume.  Still, I hope that placing some limits will encourage her to question who's telling her that she needs stuff and to realize that she usually doesn't.

On Judgement

Note: I am not a religious nut job and this isn't a post about Revelation or the fifth coming of Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Now that we've cleared that up, that awful Time cover has brought the issue of judgement to the front of my mind.  I'm not surprised that a judgemental piece about moms and/or women was printed in a major magazine, because that's unfortunately par for the course.  Unfortunately, the judgment doesn't stay in the media, where it can be laughed at, but migrates into people's daily lives.  Admittedly, I can be a pretty harsh critic of what I consider to be stupid and/or irresponsable behavior.  I try to keep that out of people's parenting decisions as long as they don't harm the child in question or my child.  By "harm" I don't mean Junior not getting into Harvard or a similar first world problem.  I mean harm as in causing irreparible damage. It's the difference between someone letting their baby "cry it out" versus never vaccinating their child.  The former isn't a decision that we made, but is perfectly reasonable.  The latter, however, is criminally stupid and endangers other children. 

Oftentimes, these relatively benign choices are judged by other moms, who are the very people that probably shouldn't be doing so. When people are in what they assume are a group of like-minded individuals, there are often things said about those "other people" that are pretty nasty.  Sometimes I'm one of those "other people" and it's not a comfortable place to be.  Sometimes I'm not, but still find it a warning sign when another mom, who seems really nice, starts going off on people that do X.  If X is putting them in a sensory deprivation tank, then ok, but it's often something like playing with water pistols (which are awesome).  It's almost like we're all back in high school and are using cattiness as a way of mitigating some of the fear and insecurity.  The sad thing about this behavior is that it plays into the stereotype of women who are too busy hating on each other to behave like real adults.  My feelings is that motherhood is hard enough, so why make it worse by adding another minefield to navigate.  I've found myself getting less, not more judgemental as my daughter grows because I realize that most people love their children and try to make the best decisions for them given the kid's temperment and the individual family's situation.  This doesn't mean that I'm a saint and that I won't silently flip off the person who gives me the death-stare because I let my kid play around off-leash dogs or crack up when she makes mouth farts.  It means that I'll try to not give THEM the death stare and then run to tell all my friends about it. 

Why we'll be a family of 3

I've been asked more often about #2 as Ms Frog approaches her first birthday.  I suppose this is logical because we're in our mid 30s and most people have a 1-3 year age difference between kids.  When I say that there won't be a second child, the responses range from "that's cool" to "how could you?".  Interestingly, the negative responses have inspired me to write about this issue and blog about other mom-related things as they pop into my head.  I suppose blogs are private enough to allow for contemplation, but public enough to avoid swear-laden stream of conciousness-type rants.  Plus, I'm sure there are friends who are tired of facebook status updates, conversations, etc about being a mom or about my child.  So back to having one child... I think everyone should have the right to decide how big or small their family is going to be and find it quite rude for people who aren't close friends to sit in judgement about others' choices.  Having several kids works for a lot of people, but it won't (barring statistically unlikely accidents) work for us.

First there are the (admittedly) selfish reasons.  I'm quite vain in my own way and am not fond of the changes in my body that are the result of one pregnancy.  The though of having to go through the process of loosing baby weight and having more loose skin on my stomach would probably be enough on its own to talk me down off of the second kid ledge.  Luckily, there are plenty of less selfish reasons to never get on that ledge in the first place.  I absolutely hated being pregnant except for the part where I got to eat unlimited amounts of ice-cream.  I spent the first four months puking my guts up and grew to the size of a manatee.  An irrational, semi-retarded manatee at that.  In retrospect, my daughter's entry into the world was a fitting end to this party, but I wasn't laughing at the time since I had an emergency C-section under general anesthesia after 20+ hours of labor.  I'm eternally grateful for these interventions and it's sobering to think that one if not both of us wouldn't have survived without them.  As if the pregnancy and birth from hell weren't enough, I also had a tough time for about a month or so after the frog was born.  Pregnancy and birth put a huge strain on me, my family, and my friendships and I simply don't have the desire to put myself or the people I love through that again. 

On a more positive note, work is really important to both adults in our family.  I can't speak for my husband, but having an interesting/challenging job is essential to my psychological well being.  I think it's possible to balance my goals and ambitions with the needs of one small person, but not two.  Friendships and (sadly) excersize are also essential to our happiness.  With one child, we can co-ordinate our schedules so each of us gets the time we need to work out, pop into work, hang out with a friend, etc.  Plus, we can take our charming and sociable child to hang out with friends where appropriate.  We're limited in where/when we can go now, but we'll be able to enjoy going to more places (restaurants, hikes, swimming, etc) as she gets older.  Having a second child would not only set the clock back on these things, but might even put a stop on them altogether.

Finally, we both were lucky enough to be able to play sports, go to camp, and decent schools.  We were also both fortunate to be able to attend college without massive student debt.  These things are not in the reach of many hard-working middle class families anymore even though they should be.  We want to be able to provide all of those things for the froglet.  I want to be able to afford to live in a good school district and put her through college.  I also don't want to have to tell her that she can't do a sport or persue an interest because we can't afford it.  We can provide all of these things for one child, but would not be able to do it for two.  I don't think the benefits of a hypothetical sibling outweigh the likely costs to the wonderful child that we have.  Plus, the three of us and the dog have so much fun together, so why mess up a good thing?