Boys will be boys. I guess...

It was conference day at Little Man’s preschool the other day, and all the other moms, whose first-borns are in class with my third child, waited with the mixture of excited anticipation and trepidation, I myself experienced before my first parent-teacher conference, hoping the teacher would tell me my kid was wonderful and fearful she would tell me the opposite. Now, three kids later, I realize my preschooler isn’t learning the secrets to cold fusion, and anything they might tell me that could ruin my day in the short term, will soon right itself, as children change as quickly as the weather. In fact, my thought that morning was, “I have shit to do. Do I really need to go?”

But go, I did and I received the assessment I was expecting. “LM is a sweet, lively little boy who can get a little silly when he’s with certain boys.” True, Little Man, is pretty much a ray-of-sunshine third child, just happy to be here. And he loves to be silly. But what she really nailed was that, as of late, the silliness has been taken up a notch and, while thankfully it has not at school, it has evolved into a little good-natured aggression at home. Now, instead of just hugging his sisters, the hug turns into a grappling match, ending with a pig pile on the floor. He also now loves to playfully hit his sisters. Not hard at all, but just out of the blue he throws out an arm and gives a little love tap – about three times an hour.

Now I realize, none of this is real aggression, but while this is cute at two and a half, nobody’s laughing at the kid who hits in kindergarten. Yes, I am looking very far ahead, but since he is my third child, I realize you reap what you sow starting at a young age and I need to get a game plan together sooner rather than later.

Perhaps you think I am overreacting. And some of this reaction might be a side effect of being raised with a sister and only having raised daughters thus far. But even Hubby, who was raised in a house of four boys agrees with me on our main goal. To not raise a JAB. A JackAss Boy. A JAB is the kid who hits, and pushes and grabs toys. He is the loudest kid at the playground who knocks the smaller kids over as he plays a too aggressive game of tag that ends with is pushing a playmate to the ground screaming “I GOT YOOOOU!!!!!” How do we prevent this from happening?

My first response has been to put an end to horseplay for now. LM is too young to understand the word “appropriate”, so removing the behavior from his surroundings seems to be the solution. H put the kibosh on that plan telling me, “What? And turn him into a pussy?” Which is true. I don’t want LM to lose that essential boy physicality. I want him to be comfortable being physical. I want him to know how to throw a punch to defend himself. But I also want him to be able to express his feelings verbally, and empathize with others. There is a frustratingly finer line when you are trying to raise a man.

The world of small children seems rigged against boys. We all want everyone to get along and never fight, we want everyone to win. Boys want to say it like it is and there sure as hell better be a winner if a game is being played. Traditional classrooms are the seventh ring of hell for many young boys, all that sitting still and, with the decline of Phys Ed time and recess, lack of opportunity to burn off copious physical energy. It’s like trying to fit a boy into a girl-shaped hole. Yes, I know I sound extremely sexist and, yes, there are plenty of girls who are just as physical and suffer as mightily in the same situation, my sister being one of them, but having seen both genders, within the same family dynamic, boys are just different. And one of the ways we have tried to deal with that difference is with diagnoses and medication. Many children do legitimately suffer from these disorders, but how many cases are boys who are just being boys? Even, myself, as a teacher before I had my kids, I thought several of my male students needed some Ritalin in their chocolate milk, when I see now maybe they just needed to run themselves into a stupor on order to be able to focus on fractions.

I have still not come up with a definitive plan for dealing with this silliness I feel will turn into jackassery. I put Little Man in time-out when I see him hit and on the advice of the sage Sasha have started using the phrase “Arms are for hugging, not pushing”. In our discussions about raising boys, she told me she was afraid of “breaking” her son. And that is exactly what I don’t want to do. I just want to channel his energy appropriately. I will let you know if I have an epiphany, but I think I have a long, tortuous road ahead of me.

Because there is no way I can let the grandson of a woman who was never afraid to throw a punch, turn out to be a pussy.