parenting is hard, part N

[cahn]

I've noticed that I'm spending a lot of time teaching my daughter (7) stuff that I'm simultaneously reading about as Stuff Women Internalize That Can Cause Problems — not making waves, not kicking up a fuss about things, trying to accommodate other people, giving a lot of attention to other people's feelings, being deferential and respectful to people in authority.

On the other hand, with E it's on the level of "not making waves" = "not literally screaming loudly because you bumped your leg mildly in a way that your two-year-old sibling just did and didn't even make any noise," and "being deferential and respectful" at 7-year-old diva stage corresponds to "don't yell 'Don't say that!' to everything Mom says, and in general give Mom the courtesy of not yelling given that Mom doesn't yell at you." So… I think I am okay here. But I find myself talking a lot about how it's totally okay to scream and/or be super non-deferential and impolite if someone is trying to get you to do something that you're uncomfortable with. And I still worry: am I finding the right balance? Am I going too far in one way or another? Where's the line?

(I'm trying to raise the boy and girl more-or-less identically, but this is actually a difference — while I try very hard to make sure that I don't teach E anything about being polite and accommodating that I wouldn't also teach A, I probably will not lean so hard with him on the "but if someone harasses you, you can totally go off on them!" because I expect A to have a lot more in the way of examples for that. I mean, I think it's still important for him to know that as a little kid! But more and more I suspect I will de-stress or even work against that view as he grows up, whereas it will probably get more important to me to stress that for my daughter. I think. Who knows. This parenting thing is hard.)

Comments

[elsane]

Ow, so complicated, and no easy answers. Oddly enough, this reminds me about advising women in my very male-dominated field -- to what extent do you teach them to act like their male peers, and to what extent do you acknowledge that women are perceived differently and thus need to act differently? The question of how to thread that needle is so omnipresent.

My parenting gender dilemmas at the moment are all about the femme baby clothing we have either inherited or been given; I know this is like playing Tetris on level one and saying "ughhh so hard" while you're grappling with level 12!

[cahn]

*nods* That does seem like a very similar question! I navigated it back when I was in college/grad school mostly by trying to act as much like a male peer as possible, but I think now I would have benefited from at least thinking more about being perceived as a woman, even if it didn't materially change the way I acted. why is doing life so hard

Heh, no, I get it! We had some of the really frilly stuff as well that I felt very ambivalent about. It did seem to naturally handle itself to a certain extent; as the kid got older our supply of Cute Thing Relative X Just Had To Get For Her dwindled; apparently it's much less interesting to buy toddler clothes than baby clothes :)