For a while there, it seemed that all was well on the pink front. Isaac moved on to his new favorite color– gold. He wept when the guys came to mow our new lawn this spring, because "but they'll cut the dandelions, and they're my new favorite color!" (forlorn wail, face in hands). Then he added red. And went on to suggest that pretty much ALL the colors are his favorite color. This boded well for the demise of the pink shoe and puffy shirt debate in this house.
I was further heartened when my mother gave him a pair of hot pink, lighting up cowgirl boots and Isaac's first reaction was to say, "They're a bit girly." (In answer to Ben's question, "What possessed her?"– you see Isaac has long dreamed of having a pink gun. My mother found a pink cowgirl gun– really the market for pink guns is limited to cowgirls– in a catalogue and then just went along to fit him out with a matching pair of boots, pink cowgirl hat and pink holster. In her own defense she said, "Well, at least I didn't buy him the little vest and skirt!" That is to say, he wanted a pink gun and she was down with that, being the doting grandma that she is.)
He wore the pink flashing boots, though, all the time, and with great pride. As we were making our way through the Minneapolis airport home from visiting grandma, et al, he turned a lot of heads with those flashing boots. He had to take them off for security, for instance, and everyone noticed. At one point, he actually held up his hand like a traffic cop and stopped a little golf cart full of weary travelers as it proceeded down the concourse. I scolded Isaac gently, saying, "Hey, these people are going someplace. You can't just stop them." But the driver of the golfcart, an elderly black man, said kindly, "What is it, son?" Isaac said simply, "Watch this," and stamped his foot to display the lights. The old man smiled and said slowly, "Son, you got some unusual shoes."
Isaac noticed that the only people in his life with pink cowgirl boots (none of which flashed like his) were in fact GIRLS. He wore them for a while, and then moved on. So it went until recently when the resurfaced amid all the packing and unpacking. He found them and clasped them to his breast as a long lost friend. "My boots!!" he cried. And so began wearing them everywhere again, despite the sad fact that they don't flash quite as, well, vigorously as they once did. Then one day as we were getting out of the van, he suddenly announced, "I'm not sure whether I'm a boy or a girl."
I said, "Well, you're a boy."
He said, "No, I haven't decided yet."
I said, "What do boys have that girls don't?"
He said, "A penis." (I should add that he never hesitates to point out the benefits of being able to pee standing up– "Good I have a penis!" he says proudly.)
I said, "And do you have one?"
"Yes."
"Well, so, you're a boy. There's nothing to decide."
[Insert silent apology to the transgendered community….]
Still he seemed unconvinced.
A few weeks elapsed without any gender discussions. The boots once again began collecting dust in the corner. Then Ben took him to visit some friends who have a seven year old daughter. She had her fingernails painted. Then Isaac wanted his fingernails painted, and the whole can of worms was opened up again. Ben insisted that in our culture boys and men don't paint their fingernails. Well, not usually… But. This troubled Isaac no end, and he kept begging to have his fingernails painted and really couldn't seem to move on. "I'll paint them yellow!! That's my favorite color!" He said brightly.
I managed to stay fairly neutral on the subject, but silently thought, well, what's the harm. Just paint the fingernails on Friday and take it off before school on Monday or something like that. Probably better to paint them than to make it into a forbidden fruit thing. But I also hoped that the topic would sort of, you know, go away of its own accord. Then the other day, Isaac and I were having breakfast. While staring at his cereal, he began to daydream aloud: "Wouldn't it be great if there was a magic pill that could just turn a BOY into a LADY?"
I said, "But why would you want to turn into a lady?"
"I'm tired of being a man!!"
I said, "What? Why are you tired of being a man?"
"Because I have to do MAN THINGS all the time."
I said, "What 'man things'?"
"You know– MAN THINGS!!'
I tried a different approach. "What would you do if you could turn into a lady?"
"Have FINGER POLISH."
Okay, so I think I get it. Being a man means that beautiful sparkly pink lighting up boots are sort of frowned upon, and painting your fingernails almost forbidden. So rather than being happy with a polishless manicure a la Jerry Seinfeld, or having light-up running shoes (silver and red, all boy, which he does have), he's decided to renounce his gender. (Or not renounce it, really, it's not that extreme. Waffle.)
So soon thereafter he found some fingernail polish of mine someplace and asked to have his nails painted. Trust me– I painted them! Ben insisted that the polish be removed before they went to the baseball game, and Isaac was fascinated with the chemistry involved in the nail polish remover– how does it MELT without being HOT?– but didn't seem too put out to have it removed. I would much rather allow that sometimes little boys can paint their nails and still be BOYS, rather than insisting that the two are mutually exclusive and hence driving him away from boyhood altogether.
I think he just has mostly girlfriends, few boys to play with, ME around most of the time, all women teachers at his new school. I think that it's hard to imagine joining the man camp, when it seems to be mostly about getting into the car and leaving all day to do dull MAN THINGS someplace else.
Robert Bly, where are you?
It bodes well that in his new school, he's been phasing in with a group that happens to be all boys. He's signed up for Tae Kwon Do after school, which may attract more boys than girls, and has at least one very imposing MANLY instructor. In the meantime, he's growing out of the pink lighting up boots. There's a black and red version that is stunning and has flashing moons and stars, yet masculine in a Neil Diamond sort of way. (If they help bridge the divide, it will be more than worth the $39.00.) And of course he has the infamous "Dangerous Book For Boys," which is teaching him much useful information. He's very proud to own that book and refers to it often.
I think the challenge here is to make boyness seem as appealing as girlness, without in any way devaluing the girls.
Black nail polish, maybe? To go with the new black boots? Sort of a Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines type of deal? That could be a good look for fall.