This blog is just about my life and mostly revolves around my son, Jamie. This blog is a combination of everything, whether it may be a new recipe I tried, a good freebie I found, something funny Jamie said, or feelings I'm having about life in general. There's little rhyme or reason. I'll never win any blogging awards, but I enjoy writing about our lives and I mostly do it for my son. It's so easy to forget moments over the years. I've got all these little tidbits of our life in print and I hope that someday Jamie can enjoy them.

I called this blog Mother of Life, Mother of Loss because of my issues with pregnancy loss and the joy of finally bringing this wonderful person into the world. Truly, I feel the pains of loss, but you won't see too much of that here. I am blessed and I am, above all else, a mother of life.

After all the years of infertility and loss, Matthew and I were blessed with a surprise pregnancy. We were pregnant with twins, but unfortunately, Baby A could not stay with us. Baby B grew into a healthy and happy baby girl that we named Bella Marie. We are so blessed to have two beautiful children.


Thursday, February 5, 2009

Gender Bias in a Four Year Old

"I love you, Jamie." Matthew says, "Do you love Daddy?"

"No."

"You do too love your Daddy!" I say to Jamie.

"No, I don't like Daddy."

I don't know why my little boy is torturing his Daddy so. I know he loves his Daddy. The minute he hears Matthew in the driveway he starts yelling, "Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" and he runs around excited, then tries to open the lock on the front door. Jamie often calls him to come play with him. He likes to play with Daddy. Many a night the two have spent cuddled together on the couch, falling asleep together watching TV. Last night he leaned over and kissed Matthew ever so quickly and ran off. Matthew's eyes sparkled. Jamie rarely kisses him. "I don't kiss Daddy."

I've tried to get to the bottom of this "love" thing. I think Jamie's picked up on some gender related biases about love. One time when my sister-in-law was visiting I was telling her about this. We did some testing.

"Jamie, do you love McKalah?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Jamie, do you love Mommy?"

"I love Mommy."

"Do you love Daddy."

He laughed, "Nooooo, I don't' love Daddy!"

"Do you love Uncle James?"

"Nooooo, he's like a Daddy!"

"Do you love Hayden?"

"Yes, he's Kalah's baby."

So, I came to the conclusion that somehow he had developed the idea that you can love children, babies, and women, but you could not love men. How in the world does this idea get set into a four year olds head? I could understand it if he was in a house with a Daddy who felt showing emotions was not masculine. Matthew is one of those men who says he loves you a million times a day and showers you with kisses whether you want them or not. I know his heart breaks a little each time Jamie rejects his love. It shows all his face.

I asked Matthew how he was dealing with it. He said he just keeps telling himself that Jamie is four and he is playing. I know that if the roles were reversed I would probably cry every day over it. I can't imagine living in a world where I didn't get lots of hugs and kisses and hear the beautiful words, "I love you, Mommy!" ever single day. Even when Jamie is eating he wants to share with me, "Mommy, ice cream kiss!" He takes a big mouth full of ice cream and puckers up. I kiss him on the lips and exclaim, "Mmmm, yummy ice cream kiss!!" Sometimes Jamie takes my head in his hands and kisses me all over my face, slowly, naming the facial feature as he goes. "I kiss your head." Smooch. "I kiss your eye." Smooch. "I kiss your other eye." Smooch.

Is this a case of gender biases already rearing it's ugly head in my very own home? Where did it come from? Or maybe, this is just a game and Daddy's "it". If so, I hope I never get tagged.

Blah Blah Blah by Laura at 2/05/2009 01:46:00 PM  

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