When I grow up I want to be
My aunt sent me a "mommy joke" via email today, something about a mother telling her daughter there's a mommy test, and that is how mommies know everything and the daughter thinking that if you flunk it you have to be a daddy...
Meh, it wasn't really funny.
But it just struck me, because I very clearly remember being, I dunno, five or six or so, and having the other kids in the van on the way to school ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. They all wanted to be ballerinas or veterinarians or spacemen, you know, the usual. I said, confident, "I want to be a daddy."
Well, and wasn't I ridiculed for that. "You can't be a daddy, stupid. Girls can't be daddies, everyone knows that."
By the time we got to school I was red-faced and arguing with the other kids. "I can TOO be a daddy!" I insisted. "I can be anything I want! If men can be nurses and girls can be doctors, I can be a daddy! I can!"
Alas. There are some glass ceilings we may never break through.
As life's gone on, I've developed a more mature appreciation for my mother's more structured parenting style, and I hope I can be half the wondermom she was to me; she did it all, the mythical woman who juggled career and family and a civic life and shorted none of them (except perhaps herself, but she's a stoic, what can you do?) I think, actually, I'll probably be a parent more like she was, myself.
But my father was the magical wizard of my childhood, the one who told me bedtime stories made up just for me, the one who could fix anything, the one who brought me a doll just like the one I'd been coveting, after I'd been sick as a dog for two weeks, who let me pull his beard and ride on his shoulders and tucked me in.
This proto-kid I've got here is going to have two full sets of seriously awesome grandparents. It's a lot to live up to, parenting-wise, but what a blessing.
Meh, it wasn't really funny.
But it just struck me, because I very clearly remember being, I dunno, five or six or so, and having the other kids in the van on the way to school ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. They all wanted to be ballerinas or veterinarians or spacemen, you know, the usual. I said, confident, "I want to be a daddy."
Well, and wasn't I ridiculed for that. "You can't be a daddy, stupid. Girls can't be daddies, everyone knows that."
By the time we got to school I was red-faced and arguing with the other kids. "I can TOO be a daddy!" I insisted. "I can be anything I want! If men can be nurses and girls can be doctors, I can be a daddy! I can!"
Alas. There are some glass ceilings we may never break through.
As life's gone on, I've developed a more mature appreciation for my mother's more structured parenting style, and I hope I can be half the wondermom she was to me; she did it all, the mythical woman who juggled career and family and a civic life and shorted none of them (except perhaps herself, but she's a stoic, what can you do?) I think, actually, I'll probably be a parent more like she was, myself.
But my father was the magical wizard of my childhood, the one who told me bedtime stories made up just for me, the one who could fix anything, the one who brought me a doll just like the one I'd been coveting, after I'd been sick as a dog for two weeks, who let me pull his beard and ride on his shoulders and tucked me in.
This proto-kid I've got here is going to have two full sets of seriously awesome grandparents. It's a lot to live up to, parenting-wise, but what a blessing.
posted by The Stute Fish at 09:13
1 Comments:
Start the gender confusion early, I say!
Seriously, I was SO BUMMED that I couldn't be a Daddy. It must have taken a lot of strength for my Mom to deal with my blatant and tactless favoritism when I was super-small, because I was SUCH a Daddy's girl.
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