My mother made the dolls by hand. She lovingly stuffed their life-sized bodies, making small neat stitches in their elbow and knee joints to make them seem articulated. She chose wigs and painted their small faces on the smooth nylon surface of their skin. Never very interested in baby dolls, I was careless with such a treasure and my doll was mostly neglected, her name lost to history, the color of her hair and her features a hazy memory. Jim was another story.
My younger brother’s doll, Jim, was loved with a long-lasting, pure-hearted devotion. Jim never left my brother’s side, forever riding on the front of his Big Wheel and maintaining a place of pride on his bed well into adolescence. Jim was scarred by love, he endured black wig repairs, sponge baths and multiple stitches where his soft skin split and threatened to spill his stuffing. He inherited tattoos and earrings when my brother was in middle school. My brother tells me that Jim’s current whereabouts are unknown, but they stayed together until he left home. Jim was beloved.
Making dolls for my two younger brothers was something my mother did with specific intention. Not overtly political, my mother was nonetheless deeply moved by social or racial inequality and committed to an earth mother progressive parenting style that would make any modern-day hipster proud — breastfeeding well over a year, cloth diapers, homemade bread, weekly visits to the library and co-op. But the dolls were motivated by a musical.
Late in the summer after my parents married, they worked as counsellors at a summer camp where they co-directed a production of Free To Be … You and Me, “a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a record album and illustrated book first released in November 1972 featuring songs and stories sung or told by celebrities of the day (credited as “Marlo Thomas and Friends”) including Alan Alda, Rosey Grier, Cicely Tyson, Carol Channing, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross. An ABC Afterschool Special using poetry, songs, and sketches, followed two years later in March 1974. The basic concept was to encourage post-1960s gender neutrality, saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one’s identity. A major thematic message is that anyone-whether a boy or a girl-can achieve anything” (taken from Wikipedia).
Legend has it that I was conceived during that summer. My parents went on to direct the show two more times during my childhood and the cassette tape was in constant rotation in our car and house. My first introduction to feminism, Free to Be … You and Me taught me that parents were people, it was alright to cry, I didn’t have to be pretty when I grew up and that nobody likes housework (lessons that have stuck with me through all kinds of personal and spiritual transitions). Later, as a teenager, I found the cassette abandoned in a box and I used to stick it in my Sony Walkman and go for long walks in the woods behind my house when I was feeling blue.
Jim and his compatriots were inspired by “William Wants a Doll,” a song about a boy who wants a doll to play with and is teased by his friends, cousin and brothers and nervously steered towards baseballs by his mother and father father until his wise grandmother explains that “William wants a doll, so when he has a baby some day, he’ll know how to dress it, put diapers on double, and gently caress it to bring up a bubble. And care for his baby, as every good father should learn to do.”
I’ve been thinking about William and Jim lately. Wondering about my own children and the messages I send them about gender. As progressive as our world seems to get, there is no question that children are still steered towards a pink or primary colored world, as an adorable rant from a little girl named Riley recently explained. When it was posted on Jezebel, several of the commenters were suspicious of Riley’s rant saying that it sounded rehearsed and coached by her off-camera father. Other commenters responded that it didn’t matter if it was coached because the father was teaching his daughter correct principles about gender, not unlike the propaganda (which I love and agree with, but still see as such) of Free to be… You and Me. For my part, I thought the rant was both a product of her own charisma and personality and guidance from her parents. Encouraging or discouraging gender normative behavior seems to be a constant endeavor, a matter of parents consciously (or unconsciously) nudging their children in decided directions. From the walls of pink at the toy store or guitar licks of extreme marketing campaigns for boy toys to the examples we set and things we say, we have regular opportunities to guide our children towards one performance or another.
But what happens when parents avoid steering and just try to keep the options open? I’ve bought all three of my children dolls, my boy and my oldest daughter have been indifferent, but my youngest daughter loves them (although her heart really belongs to a soft floppy eared bunny from Build-a-Bear named Steve who wears a hot pink ball gown). All three of the children love Lego (no pink sets necessary), computer games and Doctor Who. No one seems to care much for cars, action figures or Barbies. As Free to Be … You and Me suggested, we all hate housework, but my youngest seems to get a lot of pleasure in ordering things. Her cleaning is always done with more precision and care, it just seems to be her personality.
The other day, my boy, almost 10, decided he wanted some scrambled eggs. He began pouring over a Jamie Oliver cookbook, methodically passing over each page. When he found scrambled eggs, he read the recipe over and over, committing it to memory before calling me in to the kitchen. We made the eggs together, but I let him do most of the work. He was thrilled by the danger of turning on the gas burner of the stove and carefully cracking the eggs. Proud of the outcome, he announced that he wants to be a chef when he grows up.
He picked out several recipes he wanted to try and helped me make a menu for the following week and we cooked together every night. It was a week of triumphs and firsts — we wowed the rest of the family with Spanish-style steak and pork cooked with mushrooms and rosemary, my boy declared wilted spinach “delicious” and requested it a second night in a row. It was good to see him happy. This school year has been tough, he moved from the cozy warmth of primary school to the harsh, bewildering environment of middle school. He broods for days and then asks me why everyone is calling him “gay,” a “perv” or other terrible names meant to put him at the bottom of a viciously constructed pecking order. We talk about how “gay” is meant to hurt his feelings, but there’s nothing wrong with being gay and it’s hurtful to use that word to mean something bad. I mostly empathize and tell him he’s strong enough to get through this time, I don’t want to tell my tender-hearted boy to toughen up, to turn into someone he’s not to fit in.
He talks to me non-stop when we cook. We talk about cooking methods, recipes we want to try, incidents at school and his hopes for the future.
“Do you really think I can be a chef when I grow up?” he asked one night.
“Of course you can! As long as you cook for me and your dad sometimes.”
“When I grow up and get married, if I get married …”
“Do you think you’ll want to get married?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if anyone will want to marry me, if everyone in middle school is right,” he said.
“We know that kids in middle school don’t always know what they are talking about. You are kind and smart and handsome, you’ll be able to get married.”
“When I get married, I’d like to cook for my wife. It’s basically the opposite of what I grew up with because you usually cook, but I want to do the cooking.”
“Well, I enjoy cooking more than your dad, but I think that sounds like a good idea, your wife will probably like that.”
I don’t know if my son will be a chef when he grows up. I don’t know if he will get married or want to be with women. (It seems that way now, but who knows?) I do know that he doesn’t see cooking as a gendered activity or something that he would only want to do outside of the home. In the fraught complicated world of gender politics, that might be a small victory, but I’m proud nonetheless. I’m happy that his world is slightly larger and more open and I hope that he and my daughters will one day be comfortable in their own skin knowing that they are free to be anything they want to be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_26FOHoaC78&feature=related
Great piece, Heidi. It begs the question, what is propaganda, what is brain-washing? I feel especially compelled to offer my kids the best of our society, as well as an expansion of what they see in their world.
Over the years I’ve tried, really tried to give both boys and girls equality opportunities. I gave my boys dolls, and encouraged them o swaddle and rock them – only to have them catapulted off of bunk beds. In fact, their little sister has taken to adventure playtime with her dolls as well. One of my boys took to sports, the other to art. My daughter is the Queen of all things Wild Kingdom rather than the playhouse. They ALL love to cook, bake and create in the kitchen – it is such a great equalizer at our house. We divide chores equally – when you go to middle school, you mow the lawn and I can’t wait to have my daughter pitch in on that one. My boys are pretty impressive bathroom cleaners, and wield a mean vacuum. They see their Dad do it all the time, how could they not be compelled to do the same?
It’s such a challenge – helping these little people figure out who they are and what they are capable of – while simultaneously offering enough structure for them to thrive. Really, it’s hard enough to figure out these gender roles ourselves and navigate an egalitarian home where everyone can thrive!
I’ve been thinking about this Laurie. I used the term propaganda (even though it’s a charged word) because there is such a definite agenda and point of view to “Free to Be.” I’m not automatically opposed to propaganda — it can be useful tool for expressing and spreading the essence of an argument. Besides agreeing with the values of “Free to Be”, I find it more palatable in the musical because it continually points to ideas that are actually quite nuanced and thoughtful. I think brain-washing is a kind of clinging to any type of an idea. It’s what happens when we stop asking questions or being willing to pull the rug out from under our own ideas, i.e. how does this actually work? What happens when we look at this from another angle?
But I so hear you on the challenge of figuring it all out!
Perhaps this piece is far too personally charged for me to be objective but I am going to say it any way. Heidi Bernhard Bubb kicks ass. I have the luxury of finding this piece smart, interesting, wise and important at the same time that I have this warm rush of joy to see that my daughter is an amazing mother and friend. I am a director of a preschool. I insist on teaching everyday because no one knows what a teachers’ day is like unless you are teaching yourself. Tonight I have a little sleep over guest named Ella. She is eighteen months old and a good friend of mine at the preschool I work at. Six months ago her father hung himself and her brave and principled Mom is exhausted. She is trying to wean her and I have her sleeping next to me right now. I mention her because I feel pretty sentimental about that Mom that carefully sewed those dolls because at 53 she is still within me. I have had a great time seeing my houseguest chase my cats, take a bath, and climb up for snuggles often. My point is that in parenting we try so hard to do well at this important job. We find it transforming and overwhelming. We feel like little Ellas’ mommy tired, scared and unsure if any of the sacrifices will really matter at all. Tonight please indulge my pride and gratitude as I read how kind and fair my daughter is to her son and daughters. Live long enough and you may see where your optimistic hopes landed.
Thank you for your totally devoted, biased opinion. :) So kind! And I love the idea of hanging in there long enough to see how things change and evolve.
Heidi Bernhard-Bubb does kick ass!!
Heidi, we also have this CD. I love William’s Doll–the song and the book. I discovered it a couple years ago and loved it because of Stuart and all his gender-stereotyping-ways. I read the book to him and he was genuinely puzzled by it–just didn’t get it at all. So funny.
The snippets of conversations between you and your son moved me to tears. Kids can be so mean to each other, darnit. It’s amazing that any of us survive.
Here, here Janae! She does kick-ass, and I share in your pride in the fact that she is my friend.
Heidi, thank you for this insight into such a personal part of your life. I try to do the same with my two girls, but haven’t thought much of it lately and it might be good to re-evaluate where we are now and where we could do better. My oldest is now in 1st grade, and she is so much her own person. She dresses herself in the strangest outfits, particularly with her feather headband which she wears every day and matches nothing. She told Joe and I the other day that she was a “tomboy”. We asked who said that, and she replied that she called herself a tomboy. We talked about not labeling ourselves one way or another, and pointed out lots of very different things she enjoyed. But she’s so young, and already naming who she is by someone else’s standards. It’s heartbreaking.
Tell your handsome young man that my husband cooks for me EVERY DAY, and it is one of the things I love most about him. He makes breakfast every day before I go to work, and dinner every night. He also is a fantastic artist, gardener, landscaper and dad. He holds to no set definition of how he is supposed be, and I’m very grateful for that example for my girls.
We have that cassette! From our time in the US when elder two kids were 3 and 4 – it is wonderful to read your fantastic piece and remember all the car journeys we had with it blaring….UK friends dont know it :(. Having a big sister who was super creative and engaging gave my son little option but to be the Beast (emphasis on the kind ‘feeding the birds part’ and of course the dancing scene) various princes, Joseph alongside Mary (with a box for a donkey). The role plays went on and on with dressing up that then swapped and blurred roles and my son (now 6 foot and nearly 16) often sported a tutu and wigs. He would keep guard at the bottom of a tall conifer that our daughter would climb (he was way too scared to go up). Both the kids loved the whole ‘being someone else’ and it was fun to see them begin with story specific gender castings and then evolve their own. For sure there were enough dolls and bottles and paraphernalia to go round and as their dad is hands on it was not trend bucking for our son to look after the babies. We thought – wow he’ll make a dad – just like William in the song – then a few years later we had our own real baby and a very very lovely big brother he has been.
Now the baby is nearly ten. He declared age 4 he wanted to do tap dancing and still does. He dresses up on charity days at school in outrageous outfits (wings and purple wings) and we have to bite our tongues – wont you be teased? we think. We hint there might be some name calling, he says ‘I’ll go like this anyway…this is who i want to be today’. Every term I think ‘this will be the last’, that the ‘gay and ‘perv’ names will not wash over him and his confidence will waver and the dance shows and dressing up will be over. But i have been wrong before….
I loved that cassette! thanks for bringing it all back!
Good post — I really liked that album when I was a kid.
That is a really cute animated version of the “William Wants a Doll” song! One thing (not related to your post) that struck me while listening to that song with modern ears is what it shows about the cultural evolution in attitudes towards bullying. Specifically, they the song says you shouldn’t bully a boy for wanting a doll because wanting a doll should be OK for a boy. Yet it doesn’t give the message that bullying is wrong period that you’d be likely to see today. I wrote about my retrospective reaction to “Free to Be” on my own blog here.
Chanson, actually I think your comment is absolutely related to my post given the connection I’ve been making with the musical, my boy’s interests and the bullying he’s been enduring, although, I didn’t make the connection when I was writing the post. Great point.